[tomp]

The problem is you swallowed the “capitalism is evil” pill and now you’re confusing everything.

But it’s not complicated. GDP is literally ”the total sum of what humans value” (per year). GDP growth is “creating more of what humans value”, and profit is “reward for those who create value”. You can split what humans value into essentials (food, sex, medicine, security, …) and non-essentials (nice car, nice house, nice vacations, nice nature, …). The basic premise of Western civilisation (i.e. the most well-functioning society we’ve invented so far) is to satisfy the essentials of almost everyone and allow many people to satisfy many of their non-essentials.

> More products, more material extraction, more profits, more reinvestment - all to grow.

Sounds like a good thing! More people getting their needs met.

As it turns out, people do value nature etc but only after their basic needs are fulfilled. So the best way to protect nature is to create companies that make profit satisfying essential needs and higher-priority non-essential needs, so people start valuing nature etc.

Which isn’t to say capitalism is without problems - e.g. tragedy of the commons, principal-agent problem, negative externalities - but they should be solved within capitalism (maybe with better regulation or more aligned market incentives).

But if you support “degrowth” you literally support people living worse lives (less non-essentials) and dying (less essentials). And if you don’t, well, your movement needs better marketing.

[palata]

> The problem is you swallowed the “capitalism is evil” pill and now you’re confusing everything.

I think the problem is that you don't realize how bad the situation is, given the state of science today (which is pretty good, to be honest).

I don't care about capitalism. I'd say I care about living in peace and having food. Where we are going now, I am not sure I will have that.

I don't support living worse lives, I actually support living a better life. But I still have quite a few years to live (hopefully), and with most people thinking like you, it seems like my life will gradually get worse.

[gremlinsinc]

you could create degrowth libraries, or community sheds where you store items used irregularly that people can borrow like lawn mowers, drills, saws, 4 wheelers, cleaning supplies, etc, and even have a free Laundromat, and other tools and a free clothing swap. In this way you can buy less, do you really need a drill if you only use it twice a year? A lawn mower if you only use ur 20 times per year, etc? isn't it a waste to build and horde these things?

Degrowth doesn't mean ending capitalism, it just means living a little bit more communal, you need to check out items from the local community garage which there'd be one every two blocks.

With less material possessions also comes the need for less space in homes, so we can build homes just big enough, saving resources, etc. We can also use new building techniques life binishell homes that cost under 20k and are earthquake proof and very well insulated.

Nothing I've said ends capitalism, it just tapers materialism a bit

[tomp]

This is actually something I 100% support. As long as degrowth or similar non-sensical ideologies ("luxury beliefs") are practices within free-market capitalism.

The obvious problem, of course, is that 99% of people won't willingly choose lower quality of life (as described in your post, and as most "green" solutions end up being) voluntarily. So ultimately degrowthers end up trying to coerce others.

[theossuary]

Creating communes of tools and such is not "within free-market capitalism." It's individuals choosing to ignore the free-market imperative to make profit for common good. The sooner we deprogram people the better, but sadly I don't think we'll make it before capitalism destroys this beautiful world.

[tomp]

Sorry I meant the whole Western civilisation framework of "democracy + rule of law + contract law + freedom of association + free market + capitalism (private property) + ...".

As in, you create a non-profit (rule of law), buy tools under this non-profit (private property / capitalism), maybe put some specific language in the non-profit's charter to specify what rules members must abide by (contract law), etc.

There's plenty of existing examples of this (such as cooperatives, e.g. Waitrose/John Lewis in the UK and Mondragon in Spain).

The beauty of free market capitalism is that it supports all these!

Instead, communism / degrowth want to trample on several of these principles, starting with "private property":

1. steal stuff from other people

2. ...

3. run out of stuff to steal

4. collapse

[theossuary]

To be fair, almost none of that is free market capitalism, or requires it. To me, you're implying democracy, rule of law, contract law, freedom of association, or free markets require capitalism. I don't see why this would be the case, just because we happened to package all those together doesn't mean they all necessitate one an other.

Getting rid of capitalism also wouldn't require getting rid of the concept of private property. Capitalism is simply the concept that wealth can generate revenue through investment. It's a way of allocating money by way of a ruling class of the most wealthy. This isn't the only way, or in my opinion the best way, to decide what resources are allocated where.

I think coops, nonprofits, and even open source software all show the limits to capitalism. They are examples of people rejecting capitalism in order to persue higher goals than the ever increasing profit margins capitalism demands. I think our economic system should reward them.

[rajanaccros]

Capitalism is literally evil based on first principles [0]. The fact that you have swallowed the "capitalism is the only thing that is good in this world pill" is the result of 500 years of propaganda.

> Sounds like a good thing! More people getting their needs met.

And less of everything else getting their needs met. It seems like you have a very dualistic view that humans are somehow outside the realm of ecology. Infinite growth is literally impossible in a finite system. And is a core tenet of capitalism. I really don't know what else to tell you at this point.

You are basing all of your arguments on capitalism being the solution to itself, which is the problem.

> As it turns out, people do value nature etc but only after their basic needs are fulfilled.

The problem with capitalism is that once basic needs are met, companies need won't be met - the growth imperative. Profit means taking more than what you give. It is the sole idea of what capitalism is built on. And it has appropriated nature as a means to this end. So what happens then? Artificial scarcity, more manipulation, more marketing all to sell people what they don't need.

It seems to me that you have latched onto an idea, and you will argue anything to fit that narrative. I have no idea where these arguments are coming from that degrowth means that people are not getting their needs met. Do you have sources to back up any of what you are saying? It just seems so synthetic to me.

Degrowth is removing the profit motive for the sole benefit of reinvestment and accumulation to continue growing. It does not mean that the market economy goes away. It does not mean that people do not have their needs met. It means that capitalism as a religion is finally put to an end. That we are able to subsist on finite resources instead of eliminating everything that we depend on for survival. And to use your beloved's terminology, a (positive) market externality would allow species to thrive without the material extraction of their habitat that you have placed a positive value on for some reason (eg. "Sounds like a good thing!").

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism#Enclosur...