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.     

生态社会主义与和谐社会的构建

生态社会主义提出要建立一个以维护生态平衡为基础、以满足新型需要为目标以及人与自然和谐发展的社会主义社会,其理论中蕴含着丰富的社会和谐思想,对于今天我们构建社会主义和谐社会有着重要的启迪。     

生态社会主义与中国特色社会主义

生态社会主义是一种新的社会主义思潮，它以保护全人类的生存环境为宗旨，把克服全球生态危机和实现社会主义目标结合起来，为社会主义增加了新的内容。尽管生态社会主义是一种非马克思主义的社会主义思潮，与科学社会主义有着原则性的区别．但它谋求一种新的发展观与社会主义目标相结合，具有积极的社会功能，并且对建设中国特色社会主义具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。     

Exiting Capitalist Globalisation: Westra’s Unoist Approach

Published in 2015, Richard Westra’s Exit from Globalization employs a variation of Kozo Uno’s levels of analysis approach to the comprehension of economic life under capitalism and beyond. The approach has three elements. First, a dialectical pure theory that simultaneously exposes both the logic that capital and its impersonal society-wide competitive market employed in its largely successful attempt to regulate and reproduce material/substantive/real economic life and capital-labour relations during liberal capitalism and the economic norms that all historical societies must observe by whatever means so as to continue to reproduce material economic life. Second, a stages theory (mercantilism, liberalism and capitalist imperialism) of capitalism’s historical development. Finally, empirical studies of aspects of historical capitalism, informed by the pure and stages theories and a knowledge of general economic norms, may be conducted. Following Albritton, Westra advances a theory of a final fourth stage of capitalism that Uno, who died in 1977, never contemplated. He theorises the ongoing disintegration of consumerism and capitalism itself in the present era. In fleshing out a model advanced by Sekine, Westra theorises the functioning of a vibrantly democratic, partially relocalised eco-socialism.     

马克思主义与苏联社会主义对生态社会主义的影响

二战以来,资本主义的发展和新变化对社会主义产生了重大影响,已引起人们的高度重视。但我们也应关注自凯恩斯主义实施以来,马克思主义和苏联社会主义对西方政治运动及其社会思潮的影响。本文选取当前西方较活跃的生态社会主义人手,分析了马克思主义与苏联社会主义对其产生的深刻影响,从而了解生态社会主义与马克思主义的关系及其本质区别,坚定科学社会主义信念。     

马克思主义视阈下的生态社会主义理论新发展

20世纪90年代以来,生态社会主义不断克服原有局限,在哲学、经济学和未来社会理论中取得了系统的成果,丰富发展了马克思主义,为生态文明的社会主义代替资本主义提供了更加深入系统的理论成果。本文在马克思主义视阈下就生态社会主义理论最新成果展开全面的解读,并按照马克思主义的三个组成部分系统阐释生态社会主义对马克思主义的理论贡献。     

Eco-feminist Organizing in South Africa: Reflections on the Feminist Table

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the activities of a modest feminist initiative called “The Feminist Table.” Established in 2012, it is one of a number of initiatives trying to develop grassroots eco-feminist solidarity among black women in contemporary South Africa. It uses the Marxist feminist notion of social reproduction, i.e. the unpaid care work which these women do outside the market, both in their households and in their communities. This work is both essential to sustaining capitalism and has potential to contribute to its overcoming. By focusing on the legacy of colonialism and the apartheid, and by drawing on black women’s experiences of socially and ecologically destructive capitalism in contemporary South Africa, we aim to contribute to the literature on eco-socialist feminist struggles and resistance from a Southern perspective. This paper draws on informal conversations and key informant interviews, as well as on our experience of participation in various initiatives trying to develop eco-socialist feminism in South Africa during the last five years.     

Socialism Without Growth

In this article, I take issue with (eco-)socialists who embrace an ecological critique of growth under capitalism, but remain supportive or agnostic of the prospects for socialist growth. First, I argue that economic growth is ecologically unsustainable—whether it is capitalist or socialist does not make a difference. Second, I claim that economic growth rests to a large extent on exploitation. While it is logically possible to have non-exploitative socialist growth, in practice it is unlikely. Third, socialist policies are likely to have a negative effect on growth. A transition to socialism is a transition beyond growth.