A Concrete Utopia
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Stern report (Stern 2006: 15), China has already adopted a vast programme to reduce the amount of energy used per unit of GDP by 20% between 2006 and 2010 and to promote the use of renewables. India is in a similar position and is preparing to implement a policy to improve energy efficiency over the same period. A resolute commitment to a de-growth society that demonstrates that the 'model' is desirable and therefore exemplary is the best way to convince China, India and Brazil to change direction, to give them the means to do so and, in doing so, to save the planet from a terrible fate.
Is
De-Growth Reformist or Revolutionary?
It is indeed a revolution. I should add, howevei that, like Cornelius Castoriadis, I believe that 'revolution does not mean civil war or bloodshed'. That kind of violence seems all the less unavoidable in that, if André Gorz (1994 [1991]: 7) is to be believed (and Castoriadis would not have contradicted him in his last years), 'Capitalist civilization is moving inexorably towards catastrophic collapse. There is no longer any need for a revolutionary class to overthrow capitalism; it is digging its own grave, and that of industrial civilization in general.' That is just as well, as it is obvious that the triumph of capital has put an end to the class struggle. There are more losers than ever in this clash, which has lasted for centuries, but they are divided, destructured and decultured, and do not (or no longer) constitute a revolutionary class. Whilst the collapse of capitalism may be desirable, it by no means guarantees us a radiant future, and this is where revolution comes into its own. 'Revolution,' Castoriadis goes on (2005: 177), means that certain of society's central institutions will be changed thanks to the action of society itself: the explicit self-transformation of society condensed into a short space of time. . . . Revolution means that the majority of the
