this may be the most rational discussion I've ever seen from an eco-socialist on the debate about "productivism" vs "degrowth". The very unfortunate term "degrowth" itself has stopped a lot of discussions. It's absolutely terrible in is explicitly (when people read it for the first time) see it as a synonym for austerity. I think Löwy here gets it at least half way and addresses the issue: anything that implies a lower standard of living will simply be rejected, be it in a full industrialized nation or a developing one, where calls for economic expansion (integration int other world Imperialist market) are seen as the only way to raise their nations out of poverty. This is one of the main political issues and, ultimately, contradictions with the degrowth crowd.

His point on automobiles and trucks are accurate as far as I can tell. He ignores, though more of an oversight, the fact that there are far more distribution trucks than long-haul freight trucks but I think he is on the right track (pun intended) by a call to reestablish long distance freight. This could take a simple combination of regulatory changes for transporting freight in the form of shipping containers to putting in serious money to upgrade rail for freight. Europe really is in a position to deal with this in a regulatory manner since their freight rail system is highly developed, unlike the US where the ruling class by developing the Interstate Highway System purposely and explicitly reduced rail to a single digit percentage of long haul freight.

For me one my biggest conundrums are the suburbs. Literally half of all USonians live in "The 'Burbs". One has to drive to the super market or the Home Depot to get any shopping done. I don't see a way around this. The Ecomodernist are big into high density housing around transit hubs, something I endorse in theory, but it usually means massive gentrification and displacement of working class folks, something they "divorce" totally from their ideology. Social-justice never rears it's head among Ecomodernists, generally. But reducing the suburbs and increasing high density housing near extended and rebuilt transit hubs in the suburbs is quite a long term process. It doesn't address the desire of many to own their own homes or have yards or not hear traffic day and night. Those kind of issues should be addressed (I live in what is considered a single-family home that I pay a mortgage on) as they are not irrelevant.

David Walters

(Surprised to see the reference to Hans Jonas below. He was my professor when I was working on a PhD in philosophy at the New School in 1965-67. He was very close to Hannah Arendt when they were young philosophy students themselves but broke with her when she developed the "banality of evil" analysis of Eichmann. The article below was written by Michael Lowy. Unfortunately, it lacks any economic data, which is necessary if you are going to write a critique of degrowth.)

Many de-growth theoreticians seem to believe that the only alternative to productivism is to stop growth altogether, or to replace it by negative growth, i.e. to drastically reduce the excessively high level of consumption of the population by cutting by half the expenditure of energy, by renouncing individual houses, central heating, washing machines etc. Since these and similar measures of draconian austerity risk being quite unpopular, some of them - including such an important author as Hans Jonas, in his Principle Responsibility - play with the idea of a sort of “ecological dictatorship”.

https://www.letusrise.ie/rupture-articles/2wl71srdonxrbgxal9v6bv78njr2fb