Slow Down

Review

I have eyeballed this book at my local shop for weeks and weeks, picking it up and flipping through it probably four or five times. I decided to put a hold on it at my local library instead of purchasing it – and I’m glad I did. Not because I find it a little odd that a book all about the ills of capitalism to be sold for $18 before tax. Rather, because I think this book means well but I think it is rather wrapped up in itself to the extent that it forgets two things: who it is written for; and, what the point it wants to make is. Those are big problems.

First, I expected a book called a “manifesto” to be a lot more about what the author sees as the actions and policies needed for today. This book goes 184 pages before introducing the first pillar of its philosophy. There are only about 230 pages in the text, outside of index and notes. The preceding 184 pages do some meaningful work, notably chapter 1 sets up climate change and Saito’s “Imperial Mode of Living” framework, which is important to his framing. Chapters 2 through 6 essentially roll through the history of Marx, Capitalism/Communism, Capital, and a few offshoot ideas like accelerationism. Each of these is surely important, but couldn’t we have worked through some of these within the context of the Pillars? Hence my question: who is this book for? A communist flirting with degrowth? A lapsed capitalist? One of us poor fools floating around life knowing that there is a climate problem, but not really having a good understanding of what to do about it, either personally or on a systemic level?

I do not think this book serves any of those people, but perhaps the last category it serves the least. Until chapter 8 (though to a much lesser extent parts of chapter 7), there is not a shred of practical advice or wisdom for the average person. Despite the closing pages call to action—only 3.5% of people are needed to stand up for broad societal change—the text doesn’t tell us how we can start! It doesn’t really even tell us what to believe in! Certainly, the author makes a lot of proclamations and statements that I find either gigantically optimistic or totally without base (or citation, in a relatively well cited book).

We must say it plainly—communism or barbarism! This is the only choice left! It’s obvious we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid.

(page 180)

Who is this line for? Communism or barbarism? I am much more interested in the communism side than the barbarism side, but please! As far the remark about experts and the state, I simply can’t disagree more. I don’t understand this statement at all. Saito spends the first half of the book quoting scientists, economists, Marx, etc., etc., and now tells us not to rely on experts?

The neatest way I can rationalize this comes from a total chance encounter with Danielle Allen. I read Arendt’s The Human Condition a while back but failed to go back and read Allen’s foreward. I was chatting with a friend this weekend and he told me I should do so, so I did this evening right after finishing Saito’s book. Here is what she has to say about the role of science in reality:

…where we can, we also want to draw on and validate our judgments through rigorous science or social-science research. But it is crucial to keep in mind that science will always remain limited by the fact that it can’t catch up with reality, and it can never tell us what we should do. We must supplement science with other instruments for understanding current, lived reality.

The Human Condition, 2nd Ed., Danielle Allen’s foreward, pg xvi-xvii

Population Growth

One thing that’s important to remember is that before the emergence of primitive accumulation, the commons of land and water were plentiful and abundant. Any member of the communal societies organized around them could freely take what they needed and use it.

(page 150)

Perhaps the most significant problem that I have, other than the gigantic optimism and faith in locally-run-everything, is that the book does not discuss population growth at all. A reasonable person might think that all of Saito’s discussion of economic growth can be tied to population growth; that population grows as a side-effect of striving for economic growth. I am not sure if this is the case. I think it would be been important to make that case. After all, it is impossible to discuss a “return to abundance”—particularly a radical abundance, as Saito desires—without at least casting a sideways glance at the incredible population growth. A quick google suggests a yearly rate of increase between .6 and 1% yearly over the past decade. You cannot discuss a “return to the commons” without discussion of this current reality.

The State

The other major (series of) problem(s) I have is with Saito’s approach to The State. It would be fair to say that Saito does not believe in the State as an instrument of social or indeed civic good. He sees it, at best, as an administrative bureau and at worst as a captive of capitalists (and the latter is likely true, at this time).

An important point to remember is that the management of the commons can easily occur independently of the state. Water can be managed by autonomous regional bodies, and electricity and farmland can be managed at the citizen level. Sharing-economy services can be managed collectively by app users. There are even cooperative platforms for advancing innovation in the IT sector. The space taken up by commodification decreases as radical abundance is restored. For this reason, the GDP would also decrease. This is degrowth.

(page 167)

I suppose a critique I have here is… when does “the state” become “the state” ? Are these autonomous regional bodies not defacto administrative entities, and destined to be a state, by any other name?

But then I have to address the fact that I do see The State as a potential force for tremendous social good. The fault is thinking that The State is an singular thing, and not a tool held at the whim of its people and leaders. Perhaps in a world outside of capitalism, in a world where it had never existed, or was totally eradicated, the collective power of The State would not be needed. I am skeptical. I don’t believe that people, in large numbers, are capable of harmonious self-regulation. I am optimistic to a point, but I think we are prone to tribalism. Saito talks a lot about “local” efforts, needs, and collaboration. But what is “local” and where are its boundaries? I think these are questions that need to be addressed by Saito.

Unfortunately, I am allergic to Saito’s distaste for the State. Even today, where I feel a captive working as perhaps not a bureaucrat, sort of not a technocrat, but certainly an “expert” in an administration that holds values diametrically opposed to mine. We are seeing a State be used as a weapon against its people and against the rest of the world, in search of religious and identitarian conquest. This is a failing not of The State as an idea, but of Our State. There is a difference. You could even say it is a failure resulting from the total capture of Our State by capitalists.

…the art of using the power of the sovereign state to help its people, particularly the least fortunate among them, people who couldn’t help themselves, who were fighting forces too big for them to fight alone. His father, who was a passionately idealistic rural legislator, had a wonderful phrase for it. He said that the duty of government is to help people who are caught in the tentacles of circumstance.

(I read this in one of Caro’s LBJ books, but I can’t remember where, luckily it is also here: https://www.robertcaro.org/post/robert-caro-on-the-art-of-biography)

It is safe to say that this is closer to my view of the State and role of government in society. Perhaps of the two of us, I’m even more naively optimistic than Saito.

Other Problems

A few other, smaller, problems or concerns I have with Saito’s text:

Once a more stable lifestyle is attained, the amount of time and effort we can devote to mutual aid will increase, as well as the capacity to devote ourselves to nonconsumerist activities. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time once again to play guitar, paint pictures, read. We can host those close to us in our homes and eat with friends and family. We will have the free time to volunteer or engage with politics. The consumption of fossil-fuel energy may decrease, but the community’s social and cultural energy will rise up and up.

(page 167)

Is my skepticism a failure of imagination, or simple pessimism? Despite Saito’s stroll down memory lane, there is nothing in actuality to support these conclusions. Certainly, they flow from a certain view, but I think we could have a little more exploration of how these things happen instead of just proclaiming them. I’m also aware of the catastrophic and potentially lasting damage of the Protestant work ethic on, particularly, the United States. Saito paints a pretty picture of what society looks like in a post-Capitalist world that has embraced degrowth communism. Very good. But it does not describe the process for getting there and managing the decades of change and transition. If you want to navigate that, you must do more than paint a pretty picture. We are talking about more than “simple” economic change, we are talking about a cultural revolution that is really unlike anything contemplated since the Enlightenment.

Even though contagious viruses like SARS and MERS had spread in similar ways in the not-so-distant past, the major pharmaceutical companies of the developed world continued to concentrate their research and development on profitable medicines like antidepressants and treatments for erectile dysfunction, letting the development of antibiotics and antiviral medications lag far behind.143 The cost of this choice was the collapse of resilience in most major cities of the developed world.

(page 178)

I am annoyed at this because it creates a false equivalency between anti-depressants and ED medications and then considers them both seemingly superfluous. This is remarkably dumb, to be frank. Capitalism is responsible for a great, great, great, deal of mental health problems in our present society. But not all of them. Further, a society not obsessed with growth and the toxic masculine nonsense that comes with uber-capitalism may be one more open to a variety of sexual health discussions, including the use of medications that help raise people’s quality of living. I think there are a lot of drugs and artifacts of the Big Pharmaceutical Industry that Saito could have taken a pot shot at here, and yet he aimed at these two medication types. This is quite bizarre to me. Surely, insulin and epinephrine manufacturing and price gouging are better examples?

We would no longer need convenience stores and family restaurants to be open all night. Same-day delivery and overnight shipping would become things we can do without.

(page 191)

A variety of things: in Saito’s world, who defines the following:

• need
• want
• local
• “can do without”

There are a lot of assumptions made in his work. But let me be selfish in saying that, I want to be able to go grab coffee at 6pm or have dinner at 8pm if I work late. Maybe Saito is not against these things, perhaps he is. It is hard to say because we only get cursory glances of the world he imagines, but they are often rather strange sounding and inconsistent unto themselves.

According to Marx, the first step toward returning creativity and autonomy to work is the abolition of the division of labor. Under the division of labor compelled by capitalism, work is restricted to its most standardized, efficient form. To make work attractive again, we must establish sites of production that allow workers to engage in a wide variety of tasks and activities.

(pg 195)

There are practices where standards are not a matter of efficiency, but safety. I work on housing standards—standards that you will desire persist even in a post-capitalist world. Degrowth communism, as presented, does not mean the end of construction, manufacturing, medical practice, mental health practice, care giving, or any other wide number of professions and practices where regulations and standards are not “needless” as he says in a different spot of the book (p 199), but are in fact safety elements often written in the blood of past failures.

This is emblematic of much of Saito’s text, for me, a lack of precision. I need this work to know its audience, to know its goal, and then to be precise in how it communicates its message. It fails to do this.

Re: efficiency. Things can be efficient to a degree. But a system that is 100% efficient is necessarily evil. So, I am with Saito in condemning a search for needless efficiency, and am glad when he discusses our need to slow down decision making and not be so concerned with efficiency.

—

All in all, I am not sure I’d recommend this book, except to people already quite interested in communism and degrowth communism specifically. I don’t think it knows its audience, and that is a failure. I don’t think this will communicate anything to anyone not already in heavy flirtation with communist ideas, or at least who has been burnt by capitalism and knows it. And that is a real problem, because we need more than just those folks to make a chance.

---

Notes

So the question becomes, now that time has definitively run out for addressing climate change, what can we possibly do to stop it? > > - Your Highlight on page 16 | Location 439-440 | Added on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:44:37 AM

There’s a famous quotation attributed to the economist Kenneth E. Boulding that goes, “Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” > > - Your Highlight on page 16 | Location 441-442 | Added on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:49:32 AM

In other words, modern agriculture replaces the original nutrients in the soil by using up another nonrenewable natural resource. > > - Your Highlight on page 21 | Location 519-520 | Added on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 11:05:21 AM

But even if such marvelous new technologies were to be discovered, it would still take a long time for them to be adopted effectively across society. This wastes precious time, as the crisis will continue to worsen as the positive feedback loop speeds up while we wait for a hypothetical new technology to spread, resulting in a much more serious environmental crisis in the meantime. > > - Your Highlight on page 24 | Location 566-569 | Added on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 2:48:18 PM

In the midst of this dire situation, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred. But instead of their precious water being used for the handwashing and hygiene necessary to combat the pandemic, it was used to grow more avocados for export. This was due to the privatization of the water supply.22 > > - Your Highlight on page 25 | Location 587-590 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:40:46 AM

This quote still holds true if we replace the words “fossil fuel” and “oil” with the word “capitalism.” We must remember that if the planet fails, it’s game over for humanity. There is no planet B. > > - Your Highlight on page 26 | Location 601-603 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:42:22 AM

The Earth will become uninhabitable for humankind before capitalism collapses. The famous American environmental activist Bill McKibben puts it this way: “The diminished availability of fossil fuel is not the only limit we face. In fact, it’s not even the most important. Even before we run out of oil, we’re running out of planet.”23 This quote still holds true if we replace the words “fossil fuel” and “oil” with the word “capitalism.” We must remember that if the planet fails, it’s game over for humanity. There is no planet B. > > - Your Highlight on page 26 | Location 597-603 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:42:33 AM

Areas within Global North countries will turn into the Global South. > > - Your Highlight on page 27 | Location 613-613 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:44:15 AM

First let me explain the basic idea. The planetary system is supported > > - Your Highlight on page 33 | Location 715-716 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 6:01:04 AM

Capitalism is always trying to raise workforce productivity in order to cut costs. Rises in workforce productivity allow the same amount of production to occur with fewer workers. When this happens, the economy’s size remains constant while unemployment rates rise. But capitalism also makes it impossible for the unemployed to live, and politicians hate high unemployment rates. For this reason, there’s a huge amount of pressure for the economy to keep expanding indefinitely so as to maintain the rate of employment. This is why a rise in productivity results in the expansion of the economy. This is the Productivity Trap. > > - Your Highlight on page 39 | Location 806-811 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 11:02:13 AM

In England at the time Jevons was writing, technological advances had greatly improved how efficiently coal could be used. But this didn’t result in a decrease in the amount of coal being consumed. Rather, the drop in the price of coal due to how little was now needed resulted in it being used in all sorts of ways it hadn’t been before, leading to an overall increase in its consumption. > > - Your Highlight on page 43 | Location 877-880 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 11:12:22 AM

The fact is, if the world’s richest 10 percent were to lower the amount of emissions they produce to that of the average European, overall emissions would decrease by a full third.40 This would likely buy sufficient time for a comprehensive transition to a sustainable social infrastructure. > > - Your Highlight on page 46 | Location 930-933 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:28:36 PM

But we must also keep in mind the following: almost every one of us living in a developed country belongs to the world’s richest 20 percent, and some of those who call themselves “middle class” are actually part of the top 10 percent. In other words, it will be impossible to truly combat climate change if we all fail to participate as directly interested parties in the radical transformation of the Imperial Mode of Living. > > - Your Highlight on page 46 | Location 933-937 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:28:55 PM

Another necessary element for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries is cobalt. The problem here is that almost 60 percent of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of Africa’s poorest and least politically and socially stable nations. > > - Your Highlight on page 48 | Location 959-961 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:34:45 PM

In the south of Congo, informal systems of child and slave labor are flourishing under the rubric of the creuseur—a French term frequently translated as “artisanal digger.” Using primitive tools like hammers and chisels, creuseurs frequently mine for cobalt with their bare hands. Some of these workers are children as young as six or seven years old—there are forty thousand children working in this industry—each making around the equivalent of a single US dollar per day. > > - Your Highlight on page 48 | Location 964-968 | Added on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:36:52 PM

When O’Neill examined quality of life relative to environmental damage, his research proved that the more stable a nation’s social foundation was, the greater the tendency for that nation to overshoot planetary boundaries. Almost every nation satisfied social demands by sacrificing sustainability. > > - Your Highlight on page 62 | Location 1183-1185 | Added on Thursday, May 1, 2025 11:01:31 AM

This is why at this juncture, we can no longer afford to choose capitalism. Capitalism sees even the worsening of the global environmental crisis, climate change and all, as just another opportunity to make money. A rampant wildfire is an opportunity to sell wildfire insurance; a plague of locusts is an occasion to sell more fertilizer. So-called Negative Emissions Technologies, as we’ve learned, may produce side effects that ruin the planet, but even these can be seen as yet more business opportunities. This is precisely what Naomi Klein characterized as “disaster capitalism.” > > - Your Highlight on page 69 | Location 1306-1310 | Added on Thursday, May 1, 2025 11:11:10 AM

According to Žižek, there are four types of commons: the commons of culture, the commons of external nature, the commons of internal nature, and the commons of humanity itself. Global capitalism advances by the “enclosure” of these commons as antagonisms dividing the populace. He states, “It is this reference to ‘commons’ which allows the resuscitation of the notion of communism.” > > - Your Highlight on page 88 | Location 1603-1606 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 7:22:33 AM

In other words, social security originated as part of a series of efforts people made to provide each other with things necessary to live good lives without relying on the market. What happened in the twentieth century was the systematization of these efforts by the welfare state. > > - Your Highlight on page 89 | Location 1616-1618 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:03:42 AM

In Europe, most of the key institutions of what later became the welfare state—everything from social insurance and pensions to public libraries and public health clinics—were not originally created by governments at all, but by trade unions, neighborhood associations, cooperatives, and working-class parties and organizations of one kind or another. Many of these were engaged in a self-conscious revolutionary project of “building a new society in the shell of the old,” of gradually creating Socialist institutions from below.76 > > - Your Highlight on page 89 | Location 1619-1624 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:04:52 AM

Hmmm > > - Your Note on page 89 | Location 1624 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:04:58 AM

The nation-state form is completely unable to adequately address the present global environmental crisis. Furthermore, the vertical nationalized management style characteristic of a welfare state is incompatible with the horizontal nature of the commons. In other words, the commons must be made sustainable at a global level, not turned into something to enrich the lifestyles of some. To this end, they must be reappropriated from their commodification by capital. There must be another way to address the problem; a larger vision is necessary. Only an unprecedented > > - Your Highlight on page 90 | Location 1631-1635 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:07:06 AM

The nation-state form is completely unable to adequately address the present global environmental crisis. Furthermore, the vertical nationalized management style characteristic of a welfare state is incompatible with the horizontal nature of the commons. In other words, the commons must be made sustainable at a global level, not turned into something to enrich the lifestyles of some. To this end, they must be reappropriated from their commodification by capital. There must be another way to address the problem; a larger vision is necessary. Only an unprecedented form of Marxist analysis can answer the demands of the era of environmental crisis known as the Anthropocene. > > - Your Highlight on page 90 | Location 1631-1636 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:07:29 AM

==This misunderstanding has had major consequences; it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that this distortion of Marx’s thought resulted in the birth of the monster known as Stalinism and humanity’s ongoing inability to look at the present environmental crisis directly in its hideous face. We must correct this misunderstanding before it’s too late.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 93 | Location 1682-1686 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:13:31 AM==

==Idealogic purity / fidelity== > > ==- Your Note on page 93 | Location 1686 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:14:05 AM==

Markgenossenschaft. These communes all shared the same types of traditions related to production. In short, they had cyclical, steady-state economies that weren’t designed to grow. > > - Your Highlight on page 119 | Location 2123-2125 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 8:43:02 AM

In short, Marx, having discarded a progressive view of history, incorporated the principles of sustainability and steady-state economics from communal societies into his revolutionary thought. > > - Your Highlight on page 121 | Location 2166-2168 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 8:48:23 AM

THIS NEW WEAPON CALLED DEGROWTH COMMUNISM > > - Your Highlight on page 122 | Location 2175-2176 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 8:49:11 AM

What has become clear at this point is that the only thing that can adequately address the present age of climate crisis is communism. > > - Your Highlight on page 127 | Location 2252-2253 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 3:50:06 PM

But there exists another view, one that calls for bringing about communism via the further acceleration of economic growth. This is what is known as “left-accelerationism,” and it has > > - Your Highlight on page 127 | Location 2257-2259 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 3:50:59 PM

But there exists another view, one that calls for bringing about communism via the further acceleration of economic growth. This is what is known as “left-accelerationism,” and it has gathered increasing support in recent years. > > - Your Highlight on page 127 | Location 2257-2259 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 3:51:06 PM

Underpinning the appeal of this vision are the unprecedented levels of powerlessness experienced by those of us living in the Global North. We feel, unconsciously, that we have no say and that we cannot exist without capitalism. This leads to an impoverishment in the imagination of the Left, which should be thinking up solutions to this conundrum. > > - Your Highlight on page 136 | Location 2410-2413 | Added on Saturday, May 3, 2025 4:10:01 PM

Land prices are created artificially. A drop in price does not affect the land’s use-value at all. Yet people are willing to work themselves to the bone just to barely afford access to this land. The use-value becomes the entire recompense for the price—the tiniest morsel of “abundance.” > > - Your Highlight on page 146 | Location 2566-2568 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:11:40 AM

DIVIDING THE COMMONS MADE CAPITALISM TAKE FLIGHT During our previous discussion of the archaic Markgenossenschaft of the Germanic peoples and the mir of Russia, we saw how precapitalist communal societies lived and worked while managing their land cooperatively. Even after these communes were broken up by war and the advance of market-based societies, communal land practices persisted in the form of commons and public farmland. > > - Your Highlight on page 147 | Location 2586-2590 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:14:29 AM

Does this historicl view lend us practical lessons for today? > > - Your Note on page 147 | Location 2590 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:15:02 AM

This is the typical Malthusian mode of explanation. But as we’ve seen, hydropower already naturally exists in abundance and is a perfectly sustainable and cheap source of energy. To borrow Gorz’s term, it’s an open technology, one that can be managed as a form of commons. So why the shift from free, abundant hydropower to costly, scarce coal? The typical Malthusian explanation fails to convince in this case. > > - Your Highlight on page 149 | Location 2623-2626 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:19:38 AM

==One thing that’s important to remember is that before the emergence of primitive accumulation, the commons of land and water were plentiful and abundant. Any member of the communal societies organized around them could freely take what they needed and use it.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 150 | Location 2639-2641 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:21:41 AM==

==Okay but how does this square with population growth?== > > ==- Your Note on page 150 | Location 2641 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:22:13 AM==

The private property system that followed the enclosure of the commons, by contrast, destroyed this sustainable relationship between humans and nature founded on abundance. > > - Your Highlight on page 151 | Location 2646-2647 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:22:41 AM

Marx is pointing out that the artificial creation of scarcity by dividing the commons is what lies at the very heart of primitive accumulation. The development of capitalism is the extension, continuation, and expansion of this fundamental process of primitive accumulation. The austerity measures characteristic > > - Your Highlight on page 155 | Location 2724-2727 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:31:17 AM

Marx is pointing out that the artificial creation of scarcity by dividing the commons is what lies at the very heart of primitive accumulation. The development of capitalism is the extension, continuation, and expansion of this fundamental process of primitive accumulation. > > - Your Highlight on page 155 | Location 2724-2726 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:31:24 AM

Marx frequently referred to the conditions of labor under capitalism as slavery.129 Workers are like slaves in the sense that they must work and work without breaks, irrespective of their will. Modern workers are infinitely replaceable under capitalism. Once fired, workers face starvation and even death if they cannot find new jobs. > > - Your Highlight on page 158 | Location 2768-2771 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:33:27 AM

Marx frequently referred to the conditions of labor under capitalism as slavery.129 Workers are like slaves in the sense that they must work and work without breaks, irrespective of their will. Modern workers are infinitely replaceable under capitalism. Once fired, workers face starvation and even death if they cannot find new jobs. Marx called this form of precariousness “absolute poverty.”130 > > - Your Highlight on page 158 | Location 2768-2772 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:33:36 AM

Shouldering debt in this way locks workers into obedience, forcing them to become capitalism’s pawns. > > - Your Highlight on page 158 | Location 2777-2778 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:33:55 AM

Consumer dreams can never come true. Even our desires and feelings have been subsumed by capital, twisted into unattainable shapes. > > - Your Highlight on page 160 | Location 2807-2808 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:34:50 AM

Between 20 percent and 40 percent of the price of commodities is their packaging, it’s said, while in the case of cosmetics, the price of the packaging can rise to as much as three times that of the product itself. Of course, the alluring packaging uses a tremendous amount of plastic that ends up simply being thrown away.132 > > - Your Highlight on page 160 | Location 2813-2816 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:35:58 AM

Need the source for the packging cost - amazing > > - Your Note on page 161 | Location 2816 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:36:28 AM

==This doesn’t mean it should be nationalized.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 161 | Location 2827-2827 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:42 AM==

==Wow!== > > ==- Your Note on page 161 | Location 2827 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:48 AM==

==The nationalization of electricity does nothing to prevent the adoption of locking technologies like nuclear energy that sacrifice safety for utility.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 161 | Location 2827-2828 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:52 AM==

==I would imagine nuclear as a key source of energy - pending the disposal element which I can imagine as problematic.== > > ==- Your Note on page 161 | Location 2828 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:38:45 AM==

An alternative way to attain the goal of treating electricity as a form of commons is citizen management. This is a practice by which sustainable energy can be easily handled at the citizen level. > > - Your Highlight on page 161 | Location 2830-2831 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:40:20 AM

This is why the private citizen-ization—that is, the citizen management or municipalization of energy production—is essential to the widespread adoption of renewable energy. > > - Your Highlight on page 162 | Location 2842-2843 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:43:26 AM

Co-ops? > > - Your Note on page 162 | Location 2843 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:43:37 AM

==The welfare state was the prevalent model of wealth redistribution in the twentieth century, one that refrained from touching relations of production directly. Put broadly, it was an attempt to give the profits taken by companies back to the rest of society through income and corporate taxes.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 164 | Location 2879-2881 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:47:56 AM==

Barely!!! > > - Your Note on page 164 | Location 2881 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:48:08 AM

This might sound like a far-fetched dream to some. But it doesn’t have to be. Workers’ cooperatives of this sort are spreading all over the world. Spain’s famous Mondragon Corporation is a federation of workers’ cooperatives with a long history, boasting more than 74,000 members. In Japan, too, there have been workers’ co-ops in sectors like nursing, childcare, forest management, agriculture, waste disposal, and so on for close to forty years. Their collective reach amounts to more than 15,000 people. > > - Your Highlight on page 165 | Location 2891-2895 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:53:32 AM

==Based on the successful model of Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, these co-ops aim to build a network of democratic institutions to empower workers.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 165 | Location 2898-2899 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:53:58 AM==

==What on earth does this mean? “Empowerment” is a curse of vagueness.== > > ==- Your Note on page 165 | Location 2899 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:54:29 AM==

An important point to remember is that the management of the commons can easily occur independently of the state. Water can be managed by autonomous regional bodies, and electricity and farmland can be managed at the citizen level. Sharing-economy services can be managed collectively by app users. There are even cooperative platforms for advancing innovation in the IT sector. The space taken up by commodification decreases as radical abundance is restored. For this reason, the GDP would also decrease. This is degrowth. > > - Your Highlight on page 167 | Location 2918-2922 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:56:11 AM

==Once a more stable lifestyle is attained, the amount of time and effort we can devote to mutual aid will increase, as well as the capacity to devote ourselves to nonconsumerist activities. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time once again to play guitar, paint pictures, read. We can host those close to us in our homes and eat with friends and family. We will have the free time to volunteer or engage with politics. The consumption of fossil-fuel energy may decrease, but the community’s social and cultural energy will rise up and up.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 167 | Location 2924-2929 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:57:00 AM==

==Is my skepticism a failure of imagination ?== > > ==- Your Note on page 167 | Location 2929 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:57:29 AM==

But this is not to say that this expansion should take precedence over the realm of necessity. People need food, clothing, and shelter to live, and we cannot do away with the forms of production necessary to provide these. The realm of freedom, he states, “can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis.” > > - Your Highlight on page 170 | Location 2976-2978 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 8:00:19 AM

The People’s Republic of China and the EU, by contrast, took the health of their citizens seriously and instituted anti–COVID-19 policies in an exercise of state power. This corresponds to the third future outlined in chapter 3: an authoritarian, dictatorial form of governance. Prevention of the disease’s spread became the alibi for restricting citizens’ freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and other freedoms with the power of the state. > > - Your Highlight on page 176 | Location 3071-3074 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:06:43 PM

==Even though contagious viruses like SARS and MERS had spread in similar ways in the not-so-distant past, the major pharmaceutical companies of the developed world continued to concentrate their research and development on profitable medicines like antidepressants and treatments for erectile dysfunction, letting the development of antibiotics and antiviral medications lag far behind.143 The cost of this choice was the collapse of resilience in most major cities of the developed world.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 178 | Location 3101-3105 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:11:00 PM==

==????? Antidepressants and ED meds are a false equivalency .== > > ==- Your Note on page 178 | Location 3105 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:11:48 PM==

In chapter 3, I referred to the fourth possible future with the placeholder term X. Readers must have guessed by now what this X stands for: degrowth communism. > > - Your Highlight on page 179 | Location 3117-3118 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:13:11 PM

You told us already ! > > - Your Note on page 179 | Location 3118 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:13:30 PM

==One thing we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic was that we simply cannot rely on governments to provide this kind of help.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 180 | Location 3125-3126 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:14:25 PM==

==Disagree== > > ==- Your Note on page 180 | Location 3126 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:14:37 PM==

==We must say it plainly—communism or barbarism! This is the only choice left! It’s obvious we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 180 | Location 3134-3136 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:15:46 PM==

But as I will explain in detail later, > > - Your Highlight on page 184 | Location 3199-3200 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:25:45 PM

At the risk of repeating myself, I feel that reevaluating Marx’s argument for revolutionizing labor is important precisely because it allows us to avoid the pessimism that’s so easy to slide into in the face of a crisis as overwhelming as climate change. > > - Your Highlight on page 184 | Location 3202-3204 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:25:54 PM

As Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells astutely put it, “Without social movements, no challenge will emerge from civil society able to shake the institutions of the state through which norms are enforced, values preached, and property preserved.”153 > > - Your Highlight on page 187 | Location 3250-3253 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:30:13 PM

==THE FIRST PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: TRANSITIONING TO A USE-VALUE-BASED ECONOMY== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 189 | Location 3287-3288 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:34:43 PM==

We must prioritize the production of things necessary to respond to the crisis, not things whose worth resides only in their capacity to produce value. > > - Your Highlight on page 190 | Location 3307-3308 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:36:27 PM

Crypto and NFTs must blow this guy’s mind > > - Your Note on page 190 | Location 3308 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:36:50 PM

==THE SECOND PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: SHORTENING WORK HOURS== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 191 | Location 3315-3316 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:38:34 PM==

==We would no longer need convenience stores and family restaurants to be open all night. Same-day delivery and overnight shipping would become things we can do without.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 191 | Location 3321-3322 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:20 PM==

==Hmmm== > > ==- Your Note on page 191 | Location 3322 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:27 PM==

==Once we stop producing so many things we don’t need, we can reduce the hours people work across society as a whole.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 191 | Location 3322-3323 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:52 PM==

==Who definess need?== > > ==- Your Note on page 191 | Location 3323 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:40:06 PM==

==THE THIRD PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: ABOLISHING THE UNIFORM DIVISION OF LABOR== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 194 | Location 3364-3365 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:43:49 PM==

Looking at the sites of production today, we can see how the subsumption by capital enabled by automation is making workers mere monitors of machines. The thorough standardization of production has made efficiency rise by leaps and bounds, but at the same time, it has stripped workers of their autonomy. More and more work has become more and more repetitive, meaningless, and dissatisfying to perform. > > - Your Highlight on page 194 | Location 3369-3372 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:46:44 PM

==According to Marx, the first step toward returning creativity and autonomy to work is the abolition of the division of labor. Under the division of labor compelled by capitalism, work is restricted to its most standardized, efficient form. To make work attractive again, we must establish sites of production that allow workers to engage in a wide variety of tasks and activities.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 195 | Location 3380-3383 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:48:01 PM==

==What about manufacturing , construction, elements where standardization is a factor of safety?== > > ==- Your Note on page 195 | Location 3383 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:48:51 PM==

To bring this about, Marx envisioned lifelong, equalized vocational education for all. > > - Your Highlight on page 195 | Location 3389-3389 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:50:42 PM

==THE FOURTH PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: DEMOCRATIZING THE PRODUCTION PROCESS== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 196 | Location 3402-3402 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:51:58 PM==

Opinions on these matters will naturally differ sometimes, and consensus building in an environment free of authoritarian force takes time. > > - Your Highlight on page 196 | Location 3412-3414 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:56:34 PM

Gigantically optimistic > > - Your Note on page 197 | Location 3414 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:56:47 PM

==THE FIFTH PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: PRIORITIZING ESSENTIAL WORK== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 198 | Location 3430-3431 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:58:34 PM==

Of course, nursing and caregiving can be streamlined into processes dictated by preset patterns and thus be made more “efficient” to a certain extent. But if the work is made too productive in this way in order to increase its value, > > - Your Highlight on page 199 | Location 3449-3451 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:00:39 PM

==Of course, nursing and caregiving can be streamlined into processes dictated by preset patterns and thus be made more “efficient” to a certain extent. But if the work is made too productive in this way in order to increase its value, the service’s quality—that is, its use-value—will inevitably suffer.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 199 | Location 3449-3452 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:00:45 PM==

Essential workers like care workers are currently forced to work long hours for low wages precisely because their work is helpful and considered to be a calling. Indeed, it’s the fact that it’s a calling that’s being exploited. Furthermore, they are often held in contempt by administrators who create needless levels of supervision and regulation without actually helping anyone at all. > > - Your Highlight on page 200 | Location 3476-3478 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:03:57 PM

The term “Fearless City” represents an innovative form of local governance that stands in opposition to the neoliberal policies imposed by the state. Unafraid of not only the state but also global industry, it’s a municipal body whose mission is to fight on behalf of its residents. > > - Your Highlight on page 208 | Location 3581-3584 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:10:15 PM

==A single municipal body can do little to fight global capitalism by itself, which is why cities around the world and their citizens are joining up to exchange information and act in solidarity to create a new society for all.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 208 | Location 3586-3588 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:10:48 PM==

==An enormous change must occur on a global scale.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 216 | Location 3727-3727 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:20:19 PM==

==Human rights, the climate crisis, gender—all these issues are connected through capitalism.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 221 | Location 3806-3807 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:27:32 PM==

==This does not, however, mean that I reject the power of the state entirely. Indeed, it would be foolish to reject the state as a means of getting things done, such as the creation of infrastructure or the transformation of production. Anarchism, which does reject the state, cannot effectively combat climate change. But depending too much on state power may easily lead to a descent into climate Maoism. This leaves communism as the only real choice left.== > > ==- Your Highlight on page 226 | Location 3896-3900 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:34:10 PM==

This does not, however, mean that I reject the power of the state entirely. Indeed, it would be foolish to reject the state as a means of getting things done, such as the creation of infrastructure or the transformation of production. Anarchism, which does reject the state, cannot effectively combat climate change. But depending too much on state power may easily lead to a descent into climate Maoism. This leaves communism as the only real choice left. > > - Your Highlight on page 226 | Location 3896-3900 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:34:17 PM

We are living in an era where mutual aid and trust in others has been thoroughly dismantled by the forces of neoliberalism. The only way to rebuild these trust relationships is through face-to-face community building and local municipal politics, at least at the start. > > - Your Highlight on page 228 | Location 3918-3920 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:35:35 PM

But it would behoove us to remember the figure “3.5 percent.” This is the number that Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth came up with in the course of her research into protest strategies as the percentage of a population that must rise up sincerely and nonviolently to bring about a major change to society. > > - Your Highlight on page 231 | Location 3973-3975 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:38:16 PM

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Notes for Review & Outline

Notes for Review

Opening Thoughts

This misunderstanding has had major consequences; it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that this distortion of Marx’s thought resulted in the birth of the monster known as Stalinism and humanity’s ongoing inability to look at the present environmental crisis directly in its hideous face. We must correct this misunderstanding before it’s too late. > > - Your Highlight on page 93 | Location 1682-1686 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:13:31 AM

Idealogic purity / fidelity > > - Your Note on page 93 | Location 1686 | Added on Friday, May 2, 2025 10:14:05 AM

The Pillars

• THE FIRST PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: TRANSITIONING TO A USE-VALUE-BASED ECONOMY
• THE SECOND PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: SHORTENING WORK HOURS
• THE THIRD PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: ABOLISHING THE UNIFORM DIVISION OF LABOR
• THE FOURTH PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: DEMOCRATIZING THE PRODUCTION PROCESS
• THE FIFTH PILLAR OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM: PRIORITIZING ESSENTIAL WORK

Population Growth

One thing that’s important to remember is that before the emergence of primitive accumulation, the commons of land and water were plentiful and abundant. Any member of the communal societies organized around them could freely take what they needed and use it. > > - Your Highlight on page 150 | Location 2639-2641 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:21:41 AM

Okay but how does this square with population growth? > > - Your Note on page 150 | Location 2641 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:22:13 AM

The State

This doesn’t mean it should be nationalized. > > - Your Highlight on page 161 | Location 2827-2827 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:42 AM

Wow! > > - Your Note on page 161 | Location 2827 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:48 AM

The nationalization of electricity does nothing to prevent the adoption of locking technologies like nuclear energy that sacrifice safety for utility. > > - Your Highlight on page 161 | Location 2827-2828 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:37:52 AM

I would imagine nuclear as a key source of energy - pending the disposal element which I can imagine as problematic. > > - Your Note on page 161 | Location 2828 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:38:45 AM

The welfare state was the prevalent model of wealth redistribution in the twentieth century, one that refrained from touching relations of production directly. Put broadly, it was an attempt to give the profits taken by companies back to the rest of society through income and corporate taxes. > > - Your Highlight on page 164 | Location 2879-2881 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:47:56 AM

One thing we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic was that we simply cannot rely on governments to provide this kind of help. > > - Your Highlight on page 180 | Location 3125-3126 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:14:25 PM

Disagree > > - Your Note on page 180 | Location 3126 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:14:37 PM

Problems

Based on the successful model of Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain, these co-ops aim to build a network of democratic institutions to empower workers. > > - Your Highlight on page 165 | Location 2898-2899 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:53:58 AM

What on earth does this mean? “Empowerment” is a curse of vagueness. > > - Your Note on page 165 | Location 2899 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:54:29 AM

Once a more stable lifestyle is attained, the amount of time and effort we can devote to mutual aid will increase, as well as the capacity to devote ourselves to nonconsumerist activities. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time once again to play guitar, paint pictures, read. We can host those close to us in our homes and eat with friends and family. We will have the free time to volunteer or engage with politics. The consumption of fossil-fuel energy may decrease, but the community’s social and cultural energy will rise up and up. > > - Your Highlight on page 167 | Location 2924-2929 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:57:00 AM

Is my skepticism a failure of imagination ? > > - Your Note on page 167 | Location 2929 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:57:29 AM

Even though contagious viruses like SARS and MERS had spread in similar ways in the not-so-distant past, the major pharmaceutical companies of the developed world continued to concentrate their research and development on profitable medicines like antidepressants and treatments for erectile dysfunction, letting the development of antibiotics and antiviral medications lag far behind.143 The cost of this choice was the collapse of resilience in most major cities of the developed world. > > - Your Highlight on page 178 | Location 3101-3105 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:11:00 PM

????? Antidepressants and ED meds are a false equivalency . > > - Your Note on page 178 | Location 3105 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:11:48 PM

We must say it plainly—communism or barbarism! This is the only choice left! It’s obvious we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid. > > - Your Highlight on page 180 | Location 3134-3136 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:15:46 PM

We would no longer need convenience stores and family restaurants to be open all night. Same-day delivery and overnight shipping would become things we can do without. > > - Your Highlight on page 191 | Location 3321-3322 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:20 PM

Hmmm > > - Your Note on page 191 | Location 3322 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:27 PM

Once we stop producing so many things we don’t need, we can reduce the hours people work across society as a whole. > > - Your Highlight on page 191 | Location 3322-3323 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:39:52 PM

Who definess need? > > - Your Note on page 191 | Location 3323 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:40:06 PM

According to Marx, the first step toward returning creativity and autonomy to work is the abolition of the division of labor. Under the division of labor compelled by capitalism, work is restricted to its most standardized, efficient form. To make work attractive again, we must establish sites of production that allow workers to engage in a wide variety of tasks and activities. > > - Your Highlight on page 195 | Location 3380-3383 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:48:01 PM

What about manufacturing , construction, elements where standardization is a factor of safety? > > - Your Note on page 195 | Location 3383 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 3:48:51 PM

Of course, nursing and caregiving can be streamlined into processes dictated by preset patterns and thus be made more “efficient” to a certain extent. But if the work is made too productive in this way in order to increase its value, the service’s quality—that is, its use-value—will inevitably suffer. > > - Your Highlight on page 199 | Location 3449-3452 | Added on Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:00:45 PM

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