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thomasindc 's review for:
Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto
by Kōhei Saitō
I have eyeballed this book at my local shop for weeks and weeks, picking it up and flipping through it probably four or five times. I decided to put a hold on it at my local library instead of purchasing it – and I’m glad I did. Not because I find it a little odd that a book all about the ills of capitalism to be sold for $18 before tax. Rather, because I think this book means well but I think it is rather wrapped up in itself to the extent that it forgets two things: who it is written for; and, what the point it wants to make is. Those are big problems.
First, I expected a book called a “manifesto” to be a lot more about what the author sees as the actions and policies needed for <i>today</i>. This book goes 184 pages before introducing the first pillar of its philosophy. There are only about 230 pages in the text, outside of index and notes. The preceding 184 pages do some meaningful work, notably chapter 1 sets up climate change and Saito’s “Imperial Mode of Living” framework, which is important to his framing. Chapters 2 through 6 essentially roll through the history of Marx, Capitalism/Communism, <i>Capital</i>, and a few offshoot ideas like accelerationism. Each of these is surely important, but couldn’t we have worked through some of these within the context of the Pillars? Hence my question: who is this book for? A communist flirting with degrowth? A lapsed capitalist? One of us poor fools floating around life knowing that there is a climate problem, but not really having a good understanding of what to do about it, either personally or on a systemic level?
I do not think this book serves any of those people, but perhaps the last category it serves the least. Until chapter 8 (though to a much lesser extent parts of chapter 7), there is not a shred of practical advice or wisdom for the average person. Despite the closing pages call to action—only 3.5% of people are needed to stand up for broad societal change—the text doesn’t tell us how we can start! It doesn’t really even tell us what to believe in! Certainly, the author makes a lot of proclamations and statements that I find either gigantically optimistic or totally without base (or citation, in a relatively well cited book).
<blockquote>We must say it plainly—communism or barbarism! This is the only choice left! It’s obvious we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid.
</blockquote>
(page 180)
Who is this line for? Communism or barbarism? I am much more interested in the communism side than the barbarism side, but please! As far the remark about experts and the state, I simply can’t disagree more. I don’t understand this statement at all. Saito spends the first half of the book quoting scientists, economists, Marx, etc., etc., and now tells us not to rely on experts?
The neatest way I can rationalize this comes from a total chance encounter with Danielle Allen. I read Arendt’s <i>The Human Condition</i> a while back but failed to go back and read Allen’s foreward. I was chatting with a friend this weekend and he told me I should do so, so I did this evening right after finishing Saito’s book. Here is what she has to say about the role of science in reality:
<blockquote>
…where we can, we also want to draw on and validate our judgments through rigorous science or social-science research. But it is crucial to keep in mind that science will always remain limited by the fact that it can’t catch up with reality, and it can never tell us what we should do. We must supplement science with other instruments for understanding current, lived reality.
</blockquote>
<i>The Human Condition, 2nd Ed., Danielle Allen’s foreward, pg xvi-xvii</i>
<b>Population Growth</b>
<blockquote>
One thing that’s important to remember is that before the emergence of primitive accumulation, the commons of land and water were plentiful and abundant. Any member of the communal societies organized around them could freely take what they needed and use it.
</blockquote>
(page 150)
Perhaps the most significant problem that I have, other than the gigantic optimism and faith in locally-run-everything, is that the book does not discuss population growth at all. A reasonable person might think that all of Saito’s discussion of economic growth can be tied to population growth; that population grows as a side-effect of striving for economic growth. I am not sure if this is the case. I think it would be been important to make that case. After all, it is impossible to discuss a “return to abundance”—particularly a radical abundance, as Saito desires—without at least casting a sideways glance at the incredible population growth. A quick google suggests a yearly rate of increase between .6 and 1% yearly over the past decade. You cannot discuss a “return to the commons” without discussion of this current reality.
<b>The State</b>
The other major (series of) problem(s) I have is with Saito’s approach to The State. It would be fair to say that Saito does not believe in the State as an instrument of social or indeed civic good. He sees it, at best, as an administrative bureau and at worst as a captive of capitalists (and the latter is likely true, at this time).
<blockquote>
An important point to remember is that the management of the commons can easily occur independently of the state. Water can be managed by autonomous regional bodies, and electricity and farmland can be managed at the citizen level. Sharing-economy services can be managed collectively by app users. There are even cooperative platforms for advancing innovation in the IT sector. The space taken up by commodification decreases as radical abundance is restored. For this reason, the GDP would also decrease. This is degrowth.
</blockquote>
(page 167)
I suppose a critique I have here is… when does “the state” become “the state” ? Are these autonomous regional bodies not defacto administrative entities, and destined to be a state, by any other name?
But then I have to address the fact that I <i>do</i> see The State as a <b>potential</b> force for tremendous social good. The fault is thinking that The State is an singular thing, and not a tool held at the whim of its people and leaders. Perhaps in a world outside of capitalism, in a world where it had never existed, or was totally eradicated, the collective power of The State would not be needed. I am skeptical. I don’t believe that people, in large numbers, are capable of harmonious self-regulation. I am optimistic to a point, but I think we are prone to tribalism. Saito talks a lot about “local” efforts, needs, and collaboration. But what is “local” and where are its boundaries? I think these are questions that need to be addressed by Saito.
Unfortunately, I am allergic to Saito’s distaste for the State. Even today, where I feel a captive working as perhaps not a bureaucrat, sort of not a technocrat, but certainly an “expert” in an administration that holds values diametrically opposed to mine. We are seeing a State be used as a weapon against its people and against the rest of the world, in search of religious and identitarian conquest. This is a failing not of The State as an idea, but of Our State. There is a difference. You could even say it is a failure resulting from the total capture of Our State by capitalists.
<blockquote>
…the art of using the power of the sovereign state to help its people, particularly the least fortunate among them, people who couldn’t help themselves, who were fighting forces too big for them to fight alone. His father, who was a passionately idealistic rural legislator, had a wonderful phrase for it. He said that the duty of government is to help people who are caught in the tentacles of circumstance.
</blockquote>
(I read this in one of Caro’s LBJ books, but I can’t remember where, luckily it is also here: https://www.robertcaro.org/post/robert-caro-on-the-art-of-biography)
It is safe to say that this is closer to my view of the State and role of government in society. Perhaps of the two of us, I’m even more naively optimistic than Saito.
<b>Other Problems</b>
A few other, smaller, problems or concerns I have with Saito’s text:
<blockquote>
Once a more stable lifestyle is attained, the amount of time and effort we can devote to mutual aid will increase, as well as the capacity to devote ourselves to nonconsumerist activities. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time once again to play guitar, paint pictures, read. We can host those close to us in our homes and eat with friends and family. We will have the free time to volunteer or engage with politics. The consumption of fossil-fuel energy may decrease, but the community’s social and cultural energy will rise up and up.
</blockquote>
(page 167)
Is my skepticism a failure of imagination, or simple pessimism? Despite Saito’s stroll down memory lane, there is nothing in actuality to support these conclusions. Certainly, they flow from a certain view, but I think we could have a little more exploration of how these things happen instead of just proclaiming them. I’m also aware of the catastrophic and potentially lasting damage of the Protestant work ethic on, particularly, the United States. Saito paints a pretty picture of what society looks like in a post-Capitalist world that has embraced degrowth communism. Very good. But it does not describe <i>the process for getting there and managing the decades of change and transition</i>. If you want to navigate that, you <i>must</i> do more than paint a pretty picture. We are talking about more than “simple” economic change, we are talking about a cultural revolution that is really unlike anything contemplated since the Enlightenment.
<blockquote>Even though contagious viruses like SARS and MERS had spread in similar ways in the not-so-distant past, the major pharmaceutical companies of the developed world continued to concentrate their research and development on profitable medicines like antidepressants and treatments for erectile dysfunction, letting the development of antibiotics and antiviral medications lag far behind.143 The cost of this choice was the collapse of resilience in most major cities of the developed world.</blockquote>
(page 178)
I am annoyed at this because it creates a false equivalency between anti-depressants and ED medications and then considers them both seemingly superfluous. This is remarkably dumb, to be frank. Capitalism is responsible for a great, great, great, deal of mental health problems in our present society. But not all of them. Further, a society not obsessed with growth and the toxic masculine nonsense that comes with uber-capitalism may be one more open to a variety of sexual health discussions, including the use of medications that help raise people’s quality of living. I think there are a lot of drugs and artifacts of the Big Pharmaceutical Industry that Saito could have taken a pot shot at here, and yet he aimed at these two medication types. This is quite bizarre to me. Surely, insulin and epinephrine manufacturing and price gouging are better examples?
<blockquote>
We would no longer need convenience stores and family restaurants to be open all night. Same-day delivery and overnight shipping would become things we can do without.
</blockquote>
(page 191)
A variety of things: in Saito’s world, who defines the following:
* need
* want
* local
* “can do without”
There are a lot of assumptions made in his work. But let me be selfish in saying that, I <b>want</b> to be able to go grab coffee at 6pm or have dinner at 8pm if I work late. Maybe Saito is not against these things, perhaps he is. It is hard to say because we only get cursory glances of the world he imagines, but they are often rather strange sounding and inconsistent unto themselves.
<blockquote>
According to Marx, the first step toward returning creativity and autonomy to work is the abolition of the division of labor. Under the division of labor compelled by capitalism, work is restricted to its most <b>standardized</b>, efficient form. To make work attractive again, we must establish sites of production that allow workers to engage in a wide variety of tasks and activities.
</blockquote>
(pg 195)
There are practices where standards are not a matter of efficiency, but <b>safety</b>. I work on housing standards—standards that you will desire persist even in a post-capitalist world. Degrowth communism, as presented, does not mean the end of construction, manufacturing, medical practice, mental health practice, care giving, or any other wide number of professions and practices where regulations and standards are not “needless” as he says in a different spot of the book (p 199), but are in fact safety elements often written in the blood of past failures.
This is emblematic of much of Saito’s text, for me, a lack of precision. I need this work to know its audience, to know its goal, and then to be precise in how it communicates its message. It fails to do this.
Re: efficiency. Things can be efficient to a degree. But a system that is 100% efficient is necessarily evil. So, I am with Saito in condemning a search for needless efficiency, and am glad when he discusses our need to slow down decision making and not be so concerned with efficiency.
—
All in all, I am not sure I’d recommend this book, except to people already quite interested in communism and degrowth communism specifically. I don’t think it knows its audience, and that is a failure. I don’t think this will communicate anything to anyone not already in heavy flirtation with communist ideas, or at least who has been burnt by capitalism <i>and knows it</i>. And that is a real problem, because we need more than just those folks to make a chance.
First, I expected a book called a “manifesto” to be a lot more about what the author sees as the actions and policies needed for <i>today</i>. This book goes 184 pages before introducing the first pillar of its philosophy. There are only about 230 pages in the text, outside of index and notes. The preceding 184 pages do some meaningful work, notably chapter 1 sets up climate change and Saito’s “Imperial Mode of Living” framework, which is important to his framing. Chapters 2 through 6 essentially roll through the history of Marx, Capitalism/Communism, <i>Capital</i>, and a few offshoot ideas like accelerationism. Each of these is surely important, but couldn’t we have worked through some of these within the context of the Pillars? Hence my question: who is this book for? A communist flirting with degrowth? A lapsed capitalist? One of us poor fools floating around life knowing that there is a climate problem, but not really having a good understanding of what to do about it, either personally or on a systemic level?
I do not think this book serves any of those people, but perhaps the last category it serves the least. Until chapter 8 (though to a much lesser extent parts of chapter 7), there is not a shred of practical advice or wisdom for the average person. Despite the closing pages call to action—only 3.5% of people are needed to stand up for broad societal change—the text doesn’t tell us how we can start! It doesn’t really even tell us what to believe in! Certainly, the author makes a lot of proclamations and statements that I find either gigantically optimistic or totally without base (or citation, in a relatively well cited book).
<blockquote>We must say it plainly—communism or barbarism! This is the only choice left! It’s obvious we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid.
</blockquote>
(page 180)
Who is this line for? Communism or barbarism? I am much more interested in the communism side than the barbarism side, but please! As far the remark about experts and the state, I simply can’t disagree more. I don’t understand this statement at all. Saito spends the first half of the book quoting scientists, economists, Marx, etc., etc., and now tells us not to rely on experts?
The neatest way I can rationalize this comes from a total chance encounter with Danielle Allen. I read Arendt’s <i>The Human Condition</i> a while back but failed to go back and read Allen’s foreward. I was chatting with a friend this weekend and he told me I should do so, so I did this evening right after finishing Saito’s book. Here is what she has to say about the role of science in reality:
<blockquote>
…where we can, we also want to draw on and validate our judgments through rigorous science or social-science research. But it is crucial to keep in mind that science will always remain limited by the fact that it can’t catch up with reality, and it can never tell us what we should do. We must supplement science with other instruments for understanding current, lived reality.
</blockquote>
<i>The Human Condition, 2nd Ed., Danielle Allen’s foreward, pg xvi-xvii</i>
<b>Population Growth</b>
<blockquote>
One thing that’s important to remember is that before the emergence of primitive accumulation, the commons of land and water were plentiful and abundant. Any member of the communal societies organized around them could freely take what they needed and use it.
</blockquote>
(page 150)
Perhaps the most significant problem that I have, other than the gigantic optimism and faith in locally-run-everything, is that the book does not discuss population growth at all. A reasonable person might think that all of Saito’s discussion of economic growth can be tied to population growth; that population grows as a side-effect of striving for economic growth. I am not sure if this is the case. I think it would be been important to make that case. After all, it is impossible to discuss a “return to abundance”—particularly a radical abundance, as Saito desires—without at least casting a sideways glance at the incredible population growth. A quick google suggests a yearly rate of increase between .6 and 1% yearly over the past decade. You cannot discuss a “return to the commons” without discussion of this current reality.
<b>The State</b>
The other major (series of) problem(s) I have is with Saito’s approach to The State. It would be fair to say that Saito does not believe in the State as an instrument of social or indeed civic good. He sees it, at best, as an administrative bureau and at worst as a captive of capitalists (and the latter is likely true, at this time).
<blockquote>
An important point to remember is that the management of the commons can easily occur independently of the state. Water can be managed by autonomous regional bodies, and electricity and farmland can be managed at the citizen level. Sharing-economy services can be managed collectively by app users. There are even cooperative platforms for advancing innovation in the IT sector. The space taken up by commodification decreases as radical abundance is restored. For this reason, the GDP would also decrease. This is degrowth.
</blockquote>
(page 167)
I suppose a critique I have here is… when does “the state” become “the state” ? Are these autonomous regional bodies not defacto administrative entities, and destined to be a state, by any other name?
But then I have to address the fact that I <i>do</i> see The State as a <b>potential</b> force for tremendous social good. The fault is thinking that The State is an singular thing, and not a tool held at the whim of its people and leaders. Perhaps in a world outside of capitalism, in a world where it had never existed, or was totally eradicated, the collective power of The State would not be needed. I am skeptical. I don’t believe that people, in large numbers, are capable of harmonious self-regulation. I am optimistic to a point, but I think we are prone to tribalism. Saito talks a lot about “local” efforts, needs, and collaboration. But what is “local” and where are its boundaries? I think these are questions that need to be addressed by Saito.
Unfortunately, I am allergic to Saito’s distaste for the State. Even today, where I feel a captive working as perhaps not a bureaucrat, sort of not a technocrat, but certainly an “expert” in an administration that holds values diametrically opposed to mine. We are seeing a State be used as a weapon against its people and against the rest of the world, in search of religious and identitarian conquest. This is a failing not of The State as an idea, but of Our State. There is a difference. You could even say it is a failure resulting from the total capture of Our State by capitalists.
<blockquote>
…the art of using the power of the sovereign state to help its people, particularly the least fortunate among them, people who couldn’t help themselves, who were fighting forces too big for them to fight alone. His father, who was a passionately idealistic rural legislator, had a wonderful phrase for it. He said that the duty of government is to help people who are caught in the tentacles of circumstance.
</blockquote>
(I read this in one of Caro’s LBJ books, but I can’t remember where, luckily it is also here: https://www.robertcaro.org/post/robert-caro-on-the-art-of-biography)
It is safe to say that this is closer to my view of the State and role of government in society. Perhaps of the two of us, I’m even more naively optimistic than Saito.
<b>Other Problems</b>
A few other, smaller, problems or concerns I have with Saito’s text:
<blockquote>
Once a more stable lifestyle is attained, the amount of time and effort we can devote to mutual aid will increase, as well as the capacity to devote ourselves to nonconsumerist activities. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time once again to play guitar, paint pictures, read. We can host those close to us in our homes and eat with friends and family. We will have the free time to volunteer or engage with politics. The consumption of fossil-fuel energy may decrease, but the community’s social and cultural energy will rise up and up.
</blockquote>
(page 167)
Is my skepticism a failure of imagination, or simple pessimism? Despite Saito’s stroll down memory lane, there is nothing in actuality to support these conclusions. Certainly, they flow from a certain view, but I think we could have a little more exploration of how these things happen instead of just proclaiming them. I’m also aware of the catastrophic and potentially lasting damage of the Protestant work ethic on, particularly, the United States. Saito paints a pretty picture of what society looks like in a post-Capitalist world that has embraced degrowth communism. Very good. But it does not describe <i>the process for getting there and managing the decades of change and transition</i>. If you want to navigate that, you <i>must</i> do more than paint a pretty picture. We are talking about more than “simple” economic change, we are talking about a cultural revolution that is really unlike anything contemplated since the Enlightenment.
<blockquote>Even though contagious viruses like SARS and MERS had spread in similar ways in the not-so-distant past, the major pharmaceutical companies of the developed world continued to concentrate their research and development on profitable medicines like antidepressants and treatments for erectile dysfunction, letting the development of antibiotics and antiviral medications lag far behind.143 The cost of this choice was the collapse of resilience in most major cities of the developed world.</blockquote>
(page 178)
I am annoyed at this because it creates a false equivalency between anti-depressants and ED medications and then considers them both seemingly superfluous. This is remarkably dumb, to be frank. Capitalism is responsible for a great, great, great, deal of mental health problems in our present society. But not all of them. Further, a society not obsessed with growth and the toxic masculine nonsense that comes with uber-capitalism may be one more open to a variety of sexual health discussions, including the use of medications that help raise people’s quality of living. I think there are a lot of drugs and artifacts of the Big Pharmaceutical Industry that Saito could have taken a pot shot at here, and yet he aimed at these two medication types. This is quite bizarre to me. Surely, insulin and epinephrine manufacturing and price gouging are better examples?
<blockquote>
We would no longer need convenience stores and family restaurants to be open all night. Same-day delivery and overnight shipping would become things we can do without.
</blockquote>
(page 191)
A variety of things: in Saito’s world, who defines the following:
* need
* want
* local
* “can do without”
There are a lot of assumptions made in his work. But let me be selfish in saying that, I <b>want</b> to be able to go grab coffee at 6pm or have dinner at 8pm if I work late. Maybe Saito is not against these things, perhaps he is. It is hard to say because we only get cursory glances of the world he imagines, but they are often rather strange sounding and inconsistent unto themselves.
<blockquote>
According to Marx, the first step toward returning creativity and autonomy to work is the abolition of the division of labor. Under the division of labor compelled by capitalism, work is restricted to its most <b>standardized</b>, efficient form. To make work attractive again, we must establish sites of production that allow workers to engage in a wide variety of tasks and activities.
</blockquote>
(pg 195)
There are practices where standards are not a matter of efficiency, but <b>safety</b>. I work on housing standards—standards that you will desire persist even in a post-capitalist world. Degrowth communism, as presented, does not mean the end of construction, manufacturing, medical practice, mental health practice, care giving, or any other wide number of professions and practices where regulations and standards are not “needless” as he says in a different spot of the book (p 199), but are in fact safety elements often written in the blood of past failures.
This is emblematic of much of Saito’s text, for me, a lack of precision. I need this work to know its audience, to know its goal, and then to be precise in how it communicates its message. It fails to do this.
Re: efficiency. Things can be efficient to a degree. But a system that is 100% efficient is necessarily evil. So, I am with Saito in condemning a search for needless efficiency, and am glad when he discusses our need to slow down decision making and not be so concerned with efficiency.
—
All in all, I am not sure I’d recommend this book, except to people already quite interested in communism and degrowth communism specifically. I don’t think it knows its audience, and that is a failure. I don’t think this will communicate anything to anyone not already in heavy flirtation with communist ideas, or at least who has been burnt by capitalism <i>and knows it</i>. And that is a real problem, because we need more than just those folks to make a chance.