Wash Post Editorial Board denounces ‘de-growth communism’ – ‘Ending growth won’t save the planet’

Posted on June 24, 2024 by admin | 946 Comments

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WaPo/Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has ‘de-growth communism’ denounced by editorial board.

Degrowth’s prophets offer little more than hand-waving in response to the most elementary questions about their prescription. Degrowth evangelist Kohei Saito suggests “degrowth communism,”… pic.twitter.com/r133g9Y8Dm

June 5, 2024

Climate Depot founder Marc Morano at least credited The Atlantic for saying “the quiet part out loud” in comments to MRC Business. “Net zero in the climate agenda is really nothing short of Soviet-style central planning. Every sector of our economy is subject to long range planning to meet net zero goals.”

Morano saw right through The Atlantic’s ploy to mainstream psychotic climate change fanaticism and underscored what the real agenda is:

“Every sector of our economy is subject to long range planning to meet net zero goals. This agenda is nothing short of the rationing of energy food and transportation in order to create chaos and give the government more Covid lockdown like controls. After all, what was a Covid lockdown but the governments’ attempt at forcing degrowth on the world. We have truly entered the era of climate communism.”

The Atlantic – May 28, 2024: By Christopher Beam –Kohei Saito’s theory of how to solve climate change is economically dubious and politically impossible. Why is it so popular?

Excerpt: The crazy idea is “degrowth communism,” a combination of two concepts that are contentious on their own. Degrowth holds that there will always be a correlation between economic output and carbon emissions, so the best way to fight climate change is for wealthy nations to cut back on consumption and reduce the “material throughput” that creates demand for energy and drives GDP.

The degrowth movement has swelled in recent years, particularly in Europe and in academic circles. The theory has dramatic implications. Instead of finding carbon-neutral ways to power our luxurious modern lifestyles, degrowth would require us to surrender some material comforts. One leading proponent suggests imposing a hard cap on total national energy use, which would ratchet down every year. Energy-intensive activities might be banned outright or taxed to near oblivion. (Say goodbye, perhaps, to hamburgers, SUVs, and your annual cross-country flight home for the holidays.) You’d probably be prohibited from setting the thermostat too cold in summer or too warm in winter. To keep frivolous spending down, the government might decide which products are “wasteful” and ban advertising for them. Slower growth would require less labor, so the government would shorten the workweek and guarantee a job for every person.

Saito did not invent degrowth, but he has put his own spin on it by adding the C word. As for what kind of “communism” we’re talking about, Saito tends to emphasize workers’ cooperatives and generous social-welfare policies rather than top-down Leninist state control of the economy. He says he wants democratic change rather than revolution—though he’s fuzzy on how exactly you get people to vote for shrinkage. This message has found an enthusiastic audience. Saito’s 2020 book, Capital in the Anthropocene, sold half a million copies.

Watermelon Communism: Meta AI Excuses ‘Degrowth Communism’ as Tool to Fight Climate Change