AnotherMarcus

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design” - F. A. Hayek I’m no economist, but honestly the Nature puff piece about degrowth is such low hanging fruit I don’t think I need to be to make such a demonstration. They say that, given the levels of power, they would reduce production of “fossil fuels, mass-produced meat and dairy, fast fashion, advertising, cars and aviation, including private jets” while at the same time providing universal public services a green jobs guarantee and a universal basic income. How will they pay for all these goodies you might ask? “New forms of financing will be needed to fund public services without growth. Governments must stop subsidies for fossil-fuel extraction. They should tax ecologically damaging industries such as air travel and meat production. Wealth taxes can also be used to increase public resources and reduce inequality.” In other words, they want to pay for a socialist revival by taxing the production they just intentionally reduced and the wealth they intentionally destroyed (or drove away to other countries) They aren’t entirely clueless - they know their government spending spree in a background of constrained production would cause inflation. They have a fix: “if increased demand outstrips the productive capacity of the economy. Earmarking currency for public services reduces cost-of-living inflation. But a degrowth strategy can also reduce demand for material goods — for example through progressive taxation, by encouraging shared and collaborative consumption, incentivizing renovation and repair, and supporting community-based services.” In other words, rationing through the use of a CBDC, and reduction in standards of living. Strict rationing would probably be needed, given their agricultural policy: “researchers should study political movements that are aligned with degrowth values — from La Via Campesina, the international peasants’ movement that advocates food sovereignty and agroecological methods”. The buzzwords can be translated by looking at what Via Campesina advocate. They oppose both the Green Revolution and GMOs, and as such are campaigning to halve the world’s agricultural output. So it seems we have the communist full house - planned economics, rationing, and collectivisation that will kill millions. It’s presented here as a new and exciting idea and given institutional credibility by a leading scientific journal. Read it, and know the enemy.