Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXVIII
Degrowth, Green Growth, And The Ruling Caste Of Society
The following Contemplation is a comment I’ve crafted after reflecting upon a posting that appeared in a Degrowth Facebook Group I am a member of.
The poster (KH) shared the following:
My comment:
I wholeheartedly agree that some of the policies advocated by the Degrowth movement are our best option to help mitigate locally the consequences of the various symptoms of our ecological overshoot predicament. But I’ve come to hold that appealing to our sociopolitical systems to pursue such policies is perhaps, at best, an exercise in ongoing disappointment and frustration sprinkled with ‘hope’ that any moment now our governing elite will ‘see the light’ (especially if just the ‘right’ people are elected); and perhaps, at worst, an opportunity for our ruling elite to exploit further our world and its inhabitants.
And while the list of fears shared certainly contribute somewhat to the ‘hesitancy’ of our governments to ‘act’ in accordance to a degrowth agenda and/or tell the ‘truth’ about our ecological overshoot and its various symptoms, I’m coming to hold that the primary reason our governing institutions won’t do these things (but, in fact, cherry-pick aspects to highlight and ‘confront’) may be reflective more of their pre/historical roots and the ‘evolution’ of complex societies than anything else — not that it matters much in the long run.
There exist two basic schools of thought as to how/why political systems arose in complex societies. And which one a person tends to interpret sociopolitical events and our societies through will impact significantly their belief in whether any governing system can or will attempt to address our predicament of ecological overshoot and its many symptoms (i.e., biodiversity loss, sink overloading, resource depletion, etc.).
Both of these interpretive schools assume complex societies developed as a means of problem-solving for an increasingly large population and required some form of organisational system to help coordinate growing complexities, such as resource distribution and intra-/inter-societal conflict. They also both believe that a society’s ruling caste promotes activities (e.g., symbolic manipulation to foster moral validity, coercive sanctions to ensure compliance) that serve to legitimise their positions of power and privilege.
‘Integrationists’ tend to hold that a ruling caste arose because of social needs such as shared social interests, common advantages, and consensus — a positive response to the stresses affecting human populations and the differential ‘rewards’ to certain members is the cost for the benefits of centralisation of decision-making and the responsibilities these members take on.
‘Conflict theorists’, however, view sociopolitical development quite differently and suggest that “the governing institutions of the state were developed as coercive mechanisms to resolve intrasocietal conflicts arising out of economic stratification…[and] to maintain the privileged position of a ruling class that is largely based on the exploitation and economic degradation of the masses”[1].
Holding an Integrationist view very much assumes ‘governments’ work for ‘the people’ and can, if given the ‘choice’, address our problems and predicaments in a positive fashion and for the benefit of all. But Conflict Theory assumes something quite different: government ‘represents’ the interests of a ruling caste far more than that of the masses — the masses being exploited to help ensure the ruling few remain in their privileged positions.
Regardless of which school one tends towards, the governing elite are part and parcel of a ruling caste of any large, complex society that depends very much upon pursuing a growth agenda and the resource surpluses this often (but not always) creates.
It is such growth that supports their revenue streams, helps to create shared economic interests, and aids in the development of narratives for moral validity without the need to apply more coercive extraction methods (e.g., taxation) upon the masses and risk revolt — something the increasing creation-from-thin-air of fiat currencies also accomplishes as the ‘taxation’ gets ‘hidden’ by price inflation that is blamed on things other than currency manipulation by the elite.
Given this reliance upon growth, I am doubtful in the extreme that any ‘government’ would truly adhere to a ‘degrowth’ path since that undermines significantly this pre/historical arrangement and puts significantly at risk their privileges (as suggested by some of the fears in the list above).
Personally, since I tend to lean towards the latter school of thought, I have little to no faith that our sociopolitical systems (any of them) will ‘do the right thing’ in pursuing degrowth. Rather they will use such a philosophy to their advantage, leveraging it — or at least certain aspects of it — to help legitimise status quo, structural arrangements. And, as diminishing returns on society’s investments in complexity take ever larger chunks out of the maintenance of society and their revenue streams, I believe we will witness increasingly desperate attempts by the elite to divert resources to their privileged class, prolong business-as-usual, and ensure their narratives are repeated and held by the masses.
I would contend that the dominant, story-telling apes amongst us (aided by psychological mechanisms such as cognitive dissonance reduction, groupthink, deference to authority) have for centuries/millennia crafted and pushed a societal mythos that they ‘represent’ the people in order to further their own interests, not those of society at large. All it takes is ‘convincing’ through these stories that have been firmly established about ‘representation’ and, more recently, the benefits of growth, and any and every crisis can be leveraged to further their interests, regardless of the long-term impacts upon a finite planet.
And I would further argue that we are witnessing this in their pursuit of ‘green’ growth. They are cheerleading and marketing this ‘solution’ as the saviour of a planet in crisis because it is a course of action that supports the growth agenda that significantly underpins their positions of privilege. This is because they own/control/benefit from both the industries required to produce, distribute, and maintain these technologies but also the financial institutions needed to fund this societal transformation. They are marketing it, however, as a responsive action to save everyone from an evil few (be it Big Oil, Capitalists, etc.) further adding to the moral validity pathway of legitimising activities — just trust them and don’t scratch too much at the surface or peek behind the curtain of this ‘green/clean’ plan for that way lies exposure of several myths…
In my latest Contemplation ‘series’ I discuss the ideas touched on above in greater detail in the context of calls for greater government control of our monetary/financial systems. You can find here Part 1 and Part 2. Part 3 is yet to be posted.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers). Encouraging others to read my work is also much appreciated.