... or so wrote one of the economics editors of Le Monde, the big French daily, in a column last week:
L'obscure lubie des objecteurs de croissance.
I'm taking advantage that I have almost good quality internet access for the evening to post a story from my holidays. Read this comment below to see what I've been up to...
This diary is about a French press story, but it is relevant because Le Monde is in many ways the equivalent of the New York Times: the so called paper of record, the voice of the Establishment, mostly centre-left but carrying, consciously or unconsciously, a lot of the ideological baggage of the right, in particular on the economics front.
Adapted from the European Tribune
"Chacun comprend qu'une croissance infinie est matériellement impossible dans un monde fini", affirme dans son programme le Parti de la décroissance, né en avril 2006, et qui organise, cet été, plusieurs marches prosélytiques. Car il s'agit de remettre dans le droit chemin les pauvres pécheurs consommateurs. "La décroissance est d'abord une désintoxication, une désaliénation, un désencombrement."
"Everybody understands that infinite growth in a finite world is impossible", claims the degrowth party, born in April 2006 and which organises this summer several events to proselyte its ideas. Because the point is to bring back sinning consumer flock to the rightful path. "De-growth is first and foremost a deintoxication, a desalienation, a disencumberment"
The author does not respond (of course, how could he?) on the main argument provided, but focuses instead on presenting the people trying to give visibility to that idea as a sect, intent on "proselyting", passing jugement on "sinning consumers" - i.e. sanctimonious, moralising bores (probably with totalitarian tendencies). Degrowth is thus presented as an ideology, a belief, which can thus all the more easily be dismissed that it is a depressing one.
Les objecteurs de croissance (...) profitent aussi de la perte de vitesse, chez les altermondialistes, du combat contre le libéralisme, moins mobilisateur depuis que ce dernier n'est plus incarné par les Etats-Unis mais par des pays émergents comme la Chine, l'Inde ou le Brésil.
The growth objectors also take advantage of the fact that anti-globalizers are on the decline now that free market ideas are pushed by emerging countries like China, India or Brazil and not by the USA.
Translation: they're just sore losers. Now that their anti-globalization antics have been shown to be nothing more than thinly disguised anti-Americanism, they need a new cause. I won't even comment on the assertion that the USA have dropped the mantle of "free-market" economics to China...
Note the underlying arguments: (i) China, India and Brazil are successful because they are growing, and thus it is hard to argue against that, and (ii) that growth is caused by free market policies.
Les "décroissants" se proclament humanistes, mais ils ne croient pas en l'homme. Leur pessimisme leur fait dire que l'humanité ne sera pas assez inventive pour trouver des énergies de substitution au pétrole ni assez raisonnable pour éviter un désastre écologique. Mais ils laissent à son sort le milliard d'êtres humains qui vit avec moins de 1 dollar par jour.
"Degrowers" claim to be humanists, but they do not believe in man. Their pessimism makes them say that mankind will not be inventive enough to find substitute energies to oil nor reasonable enough to avoid environmental disaster. But they leave to their own devices the billion human beings who live with less than a dollar a day.
Strange pessimism there - thinking that man can do better instead of doing more. Again, the ad hominem attacks on degrowers's "claim" and their supposed assertions about mankind. It is all the more ironic that the examples chosen, that degrowers don't believe that the oil and environmental crises can be solved, are not even acknowledged as crises by the mainstreamers. Isn't the only way to solve a problem to recognize that it is actually there and to look for solutions in the full knowledge of what may go wrong if nothing is done? If the very basic assertions that resources are running out or that the environment is being gravely disturbed are flat out denied, then there is no crisis and no need for optimism or pessimism? Or is optimism simply denying the crisis? The article is inconsistent, if not dishonest. In fact, describing the degrowers as pessimists (and blaming them for world poverty to boot) reflects a very real ideological choice - that of the "grab what you can" economy - resources, and of course, wealth.
Si les économistes ne croient plus à l'idée, dominante dans les années 1960, selon laquelle une croissance forte est une condition suffisante pour vaincre la pauvreté, ils s'accordent en revanche pour dire que la progression du PIB est une condition nécessaire. "Il est impossible de faire reculer la pauvreté s'il n'y a pas de croissance économique", résume Humberto Lopez, coauteur du rapport de la Banque mondiale "Poverty Reduction and Growth : Virtuous and Vicious Circles". "Une politique de réduction de la pauvreté sans croissance n'est pas viable, ajoute l'économiste Pierre Jacquet. Pour produire des biens publics et promouvoir des objectifs sociaux, il faut un flux de ressources nouvelles, et donc de la croissance."
(...)
Selon certaines simulations, l'extrême pauvreté [en Chine] sera éradiquée dans quinze ans si le PIB continue à progresser au même rythme. Le scénario catastrophe par excellence pour les objecteurs de croissance.
Economists no longer believe in the idea, dominant in the 60s, that strong growth is enough to eliminate poverty, but they agree that increases in GDP are a necessary condition. "It is impossible to lower poverty without economic growth", summarises Humberto Lopez, coauthor of the World Bank report "Poverty Reduction and Growth : Virtuous and Vicious Circles". "A policy of poverty reduction without growth is not viable", adds economist Pierre Jacquet. "To provide public goods and fulfill social goals, an input of new resources is needed, and thus growth.
(...)
According to some projections, extreme poverty in China will be eliminated in 15 years if GDP growth continues at today's rythm. The worst possible scenario for growth objectors.
The poverty argument is milked for all its worth. First of all, there is the fallacy that only growth provides new resources. Yearly GDP (with all its flaws as a tool) is the yearly addition of value to the economy, i.e. new resources. Growth is the acceleration of resource creation, not its speed (as explained earlier in this diary: Wealth, income, growth). Zero growth only means you have as much resource as last year, not that you have none. Use more of the yearly amount to investment rather than consumption and you do more for public goods than otherwise.
Second is the fact that GDP is an imperfect instrument, as we have already abundantly discussed on European Tribune.
But most of all, the argument is dishonest because saying that there are not enough resources on the planet to sustain a Western lifestyle for 6 billion humans or more does not mean that you actually want to deny any progress to the have nots (in fact, it says more about the sacrifices expected of the current haves). Saying there isn't enough for all and that we must learn to share better does not mean favoring poverty, it simply means that our current model will NOT solve poverty either, because it cannot. Chinese growth may be reduce poverty in China (an assertion that would need more substantiation, as studies appear to show that most gains on that front came in the 70s, from agrarian reform, and not in more recent years, which have mostly seen the enrichment of the coastal urban minority), but it is only making our global resource problem worse because of the way it is happening.
So the author reaction is one of typical denial: shoot the messenger and the bad news will go away - or even better, blame the messenger itself for the bad news ('the degrowers love it that billions in the poor world are poor and want to keep them that way')
Au-delà des préoccupations écologiques légitimes qui sont les siennes, il faut prendre la doctrine de la décroissance pour ce qu'elle est, une théorie élaborée par des individus habitant des sociétés prospères. Une lubie de gosses de riches parfaitement égoïstes. Mais cela va généralement ensemble.
Beyond the legitimate environmental it carries, we have to understand the doctrine of degrowth for what it is: a theory developed by individuals living in rich societies. The capricious idea of perfectly selfish spoilt kids. They usually go together.
Shoot the messenger - but slander him first.