Capitalism,Socialism and the Challenge of Degrowth: Introduction to the Symposium

This is an overview of a symposium on degrowth centred on Giorgos Kallis’ call for a socialism without growth, which insists on the need to be mindful of throughputs and the ecological consequences of any socialist project. Summarising and critically evaluating the various positions expressed by all the symposium participants, we find that Kallis’ ideas can be promising in drawing closer different Green Left perspectives, including ecosocialist, ecofeminist, and eco-Marxist. This complementarity is possible provided that degrowth proponents clearly align themselves politically on the side of the broad anti-capitalist Left and that the critiques expressed by the other symposium participants-especially with respect to Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and practices and the dynamics that subtend the capitalist mode of production—become essential to degrowth platforms. We find already enough overlap among the diverse leftist positions represented in this Symposium for, at a minimum, continuing dialogue and, hopefully, politically beneficial mutual transformation and unification.