In the summer of 2022, the New York Times published an interview with heterodox ecological economist Herman Daly. In a breach of character for the usually pro-growth Times, the article headline read “This Pioneering Economist Says our Obsession with Growth Must End.” This piece came as a shock to me—not because of what Daly argued, but because The Paper of Record gave Daly such a platform to discuss his principles of steady-state economy in the first place.
Environmental sociologists have long critiqued the merits of a ‘grow-or-die’ economy. In fact, a fair portion of environmental sociological canon rests on Alan Schnaiberg’s (1980) The Environment, from Surplus to Scarcity. In this work, Schnaiberg argued that modern capitalism advances along a path-dependent ‘treadmill of production’ predicated upon increased material inputs and on-going environmental degradation. While influential within our subsection of sociology, the book’s broader impact was limited. Fitting the title, copies of the text remain quite scarce—Amazon holds one used copy, on sale for $298.
Nevertheless, a plethora of scholars and activists worldwide now advance the central argument made by Schnaiberg decades ago. To do so, they employ the missive-term “degrowth,” or the notion that we should advocate policies, programs, and even new economic systems that limit aggregate consumption of environmental inputs. Usually, degrowth proponents stress that we should target affluent individuals, classes, and nations who over-consume (and pollute) at the expense of others.
Though not without its potential pitfalls, the ability of degrowth to garner attention deserves praise. In recent years, degrowth scholars have published dozens of books, developed multiple topic-oriented masters programs, and become ingratiated with prominent environmental activist groups like extinction rebellion. In addition, as pro-growth Blue Economy narratives ramp up, there now exists a counter-interest in marine degrowth.
So, what can environmental sociology offer those interested in the political economy of degrowth? As mentioned, environmental sociology possesses a long record of engaging with such theoretical questions. Indeed, the history of Schnaiberg’s work and its reception contains its own lessons for contemporary degrowth proponents. After The Environment’s publication, Reaganomics ascended in the United States—a period marked by an obsession with growth-boosting policies and corresponding curtailment of environmental regulations. Environmental sociologists regard this period as a precarious time in the development of environmental sociology. The anti-environmental politics of the time stymied environmental sociology as a subdiscipline—a clear example of broader social forces influencing the performance of science.
Decades later, the recent spike of interest in critical environmental political economy stems from social forces external to the merits of degrowth per se, or other heterodox theories. Degrowth and similar frameworks are not necessarily new; rather, their increased popularity corresponds to global economic crises associated with the Great Recession and COVID-19, as well as the systemic failure to mitigate global ecological crises. These events pose legitimacy crises for the established social order and thus make heterodox environmental political economy more palpable for a wider audience. All of this points to the reality that critical scholarship will encounter both obstacles and opportunities that are political in nature.
In addition to this lesson, sociology also provides analyses that deconstruct “growth,” in helpful fashion. For example, sociologist Intan Suwandi’s work on global labor value chains argues that the standard measurement of growth—Gross Domestic Product, or GDP—conceals as much as it reveals. To start, the phrase ‘gross domestic product’ does not necessarily measure the value produced during the domestic labor process. Take most any global commodity, from a cup of coffee to a cell phone to a pair of tennis shoes, and you will find that the least affluent nodes, or points, across the commodity chain occur at sites of extraction and assembly. These sites, not coincidentally, also witness deleterious environmental impacts as well.
Environmental sociologists, going back to the pioneering work of Stephen Bunker, have long argued that this inequitable chain is a structural cause of both economic and ecological mal-development in poorer, less powerful regions and countries. Recent work of development sociologists and scholars like John Smith and Intan Suwandi understand this chain as the underlying force behind the “GDP illusion.” GDP is a fundamentally illusory metric because it only reports value accrued from market transactions associated with commodity sales. However, if we acknowledge that exploitation occurs in a textile sweatshop, coffee plantation, cobalt mine, or a fishery then GDP cannot possibly be an accurate, much less just, representation of value production.
For one to accept GDP’s premise, we must assume that markets themselves create value. However, environmental and development sociologists have long reminded us that value production and capture are reflections of social dynamics and power relations between countries and classes.
I am also concerned that the momentum for ‘degrowth’ could overlook a new regime of ‘blue accumulation,’ based largely on so-called innovative finance mechanisms that risk reproducing colonial dynamics of debt and economic dependency. Reliance on these kinds of programs tends to increase in periods of low economic growth. As such, Brent et al., have described much of the Blue Economy as a new “Blue Fix,” whose purpose is to accumulate capital in an era of slow growth, characterized by strained ecosystems (e.g., overfishing) and a lack of new commodity frontiers or markets on tap for firms to easily exploit at high profit margins. In any case, a good deal of blue economy discourse seeks to devise strategies for blue accumulation in an era where there exists little room for new growth.
Importantly, inequitable accumulation can still occur during periods of slow growth. To accomplish this uneven drain of wealth, accumulation becomes increasingly dependent on financial speculation, bubbles, and predatory schemes. In the context of ocean development, this means higher risks of land-grabbing, displacement of artisanal, non-revenue generating fisheries, and speculative investment in various, often unsustainable forms of coastal property development associated with tourism and real estate.
Is degrowth, as a conceptual framework, up to the task of critiquing the paradoxes associated with rising accumulation in an era of slowing growth? Thankfully, over the last several years especially, degrowth thinkers have advanced foundational critiques that link the growth imperative to intersecting injustices and deeply systemic problems. In Post-Growth Living, Kate Soper condemns the privatization of public land and ‘neo-liberal development models’ that prioritize capital accumulation over the maintenance of livable, affordable urban space. In The Future is Degrowth¸ Schmelzer, Vetter, and Vansintjan also caution against an understanding of degrowth as merely the reduction of GDP. Stagnation, or sustained low to negative GDP growth, may in fact “dramatically aggravate social and political crises,” and foster conditions that fuel inequality, monopolization, and other undesirable social outcomes. Soon to be forthcoming work (as of writing), from authors like Kohei Saito and Stefania Barca, also promise to advance systemic critiques that link growth to deeper antagonisms and social contradictions.
For further inspiration, degrowth writers could look to environmental sociologists who have long discussed the tension between growth and accumulation, and what this means for questions of environmental and social sustainability. Writing in 2005, environmental sociologist John Bellamy Foster conceptualized a treadmill of accumulation—not production—as the key structural driver at hand. In this piece, Foster argued that growth serves accumulation, not the other way around. Foster’s argument helps us to sociologically conceptualize growth not simply as a pathological end in itself, but as a mechanism whose purpose is to reproduce uneven wealth and asset accumulation.
As expansionary growth becomes less and less feasible across finite and stressed ocean ecologies, we will likely see more and more rhetoric aimed at conceptualizing marine spaces as “new frontiers” for forms of development that appear exceptionally modern and less materially intensive. These include sectors often imagined as “non-real” or “non-material,” which typically involve financial schemes and real estate speculation. These approaches will offer ‘win-win’ framing, where economic accumulation can occur without harming—even benefiting—complex ecosystems.
Combined, degrowth and environmental sociological perspectives encourage us to be wary of such proposals. Both strains of literature—which have, up to recently, been like ships passing in the night—converge to suggest that modern society finds itself at a major inflection point for conceptualizing sustainability. Put succinctly, what are we trying to sustain? Is sustainability a ‘transformative’ measure or an effort to preserve society as we know it? Is the ocean, this “blue frontier,” capable of fixing and thus extending the sustainability of a faltering system? Or, will the next generation of ocean and marine development offer potential to rectify inequity and re-imagine development? These types of questions will likely dominate the next decade of social thought on ocean science and development.
References
Brent, Zoe W., Mads Barbesgaard, and Carsten Pedersen. 2020. “The Blue Fix: What’s driving blue growth?” Sustainability Science 15(1): 31-43.
Soper, Kate. 2020. Post-growth living: For an alternative hedonism. Verso Books.
Schmelzer, Matthias, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan. 2022. The future is degrowth: A guide to a world beyond capitalism. Verso Books.
Schnaiberg, Alan. 1980. The environment: From surplus to scarcity. Oxford University Press.Foster, John. B. (2005). “The treadmill of accumulation: Schnaiberg’s environment and Marxian political economy.” Organization & environment, 18(1), 7-18.