Back to the future: Today's and tomorrow's politics of degrowth economics (décroissance) in light of the debate over luxury among eighteenth and early nineteenth century utopists

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volumn 75, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 13-29

  Sippel, Alexandra ^a  

^a SORBONNE UNIVERSITÉ   (France)

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EID: 68449105092     PISSN: 01475479     EISSN: 14716445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0147547909000039     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. This debate was, of course, much commented on, as is exemplified in "Blair's moment: Scrapping Clause Four is the start, not the end of Tony Blair's struggle to reinvent the Labour Party. But what a good start!" The Economist, April 29, 1995.
2. The intellectual debate in the eighteenth century was not bound by national frontiers, which makes it possible, in my opinion, to compare English and French thinkers and to illustrate the relevance and continuity of décroissance arguments through English radical treaties and utopias of the modern period. For another questioning of the indebtedness of décroissance to the eighteenth century, it is possible to turn to Jean-Claude Michéa's Impasse Adam Smith, de l'impossibilité de dépasser le capitalisme par sa gauche (Paris, 2002), which exposes the influence of French Physiocrats on the contemporary economic debate. My paper deals with pre-Marxist socialism.
3. Décroissants also call themselves "objecteurs de croissance"in French, which is very close to "objecteurs de conscience,"conscientious objector. This definition implies a total and moral rejection of values considered as unacceptable as those of war. This is made even clearer by their definition of commerce as the contemporary form of military colonization.
4. For the theory of legitimate appropriation, the best modern illustration is Locke's theory as exposed in his Second Treaty of Government: Human beings belong to no one but their individual self. As such, their toil and activity also belong to them in the state of nature so that they have a legitimate right to appropriate the parts of nature to which they apply their energy. This right ceases to be legitimate if they allow some of the product of the earth to rot and thus deprive some of their fellow beings from resources that might have been useful.
5. Christopher Berry, The Idea of Luxury; A Conceptual and Historical Investigation. (Cambridge, 1994), 129.
6. Godwin, Political Justice, 308. My emphasis.
7. Serge Latouche, Survivre au développement; de la décolonisation de l'imaginaire à la construction d'une société alternative. (Paris, 2004), 44. He quotes from a 1992 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) report. My translation.
8. Berry, The Idea of Luxury, 130.
9. Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits, London: (1714), lines. 177-190.
10. This idea is found in Berry, The Idea of Luxury, 154.
11. Latouche, Survivre au développement, 15. My translation. This essay was written at the invitation of the UNESCO and was the result of the international symposium entitled "undo development to recreate the world" ("Défaire le développement, refaire le monde") held from February 28, 2002, to March 3, 2002, at the Palais de l'UNESCO in Paris.
12. Once more, Thomas Robert Malthus would not have disagreed with the ideas promoted by the newly elected French president, Sarkozy, who claims that economic growth is needed to bring unemployment down, and that consumption is the key that will allow French economic growth to rise again.
13. Berry, The Idea of Luxury, 11.
14. François Brune, "Une aisance partagée," www.decroissance.info. My translation.
15. Godwin, Political Justice, 316.
16. François Brune, "Une aisance partagée," www.decroissance.info. My translation.
17. Ibid.
18. Godwin, Political Justice, 346.
19. Catherine Tarral: 'François Partant sur la dé croissance', on www.decroissance.info. My translation.
20. Latouche, Survivre au développement, 116. My translation.
21. Godwin, Political Justice, 142. My emphasis.
22. Latouche, Le pari de la décroissance (Paris: Fayard, 2006), 268.
23. Rosa M. Tristàn 'Ces peuples sans malades mentaux', Courrier International, n881, September 20, 2007, 58. My translation.
24. Rousseau, Discours sur l'inégalité, 96. My translation.
25. Mandeville, Fable, v.403-408.
26. Godwin, Political Justice, 345.
27. Muriel Gehlen, describing an "éco-village" in an interview for the Web site ecorev: http://ecorev.org/article.php3?id- article=308. My translation.
28. George Ellis, New Britain, (1821), in Gregory Claeys, Modern British Utopias, vol. 6 (London, 1997), 174.
29. Ellis, New Britain, 165.
30. Mandeville, Fable, v. 409-424.
31. Interview of Serge Latouche and Hubert Védrine by Hervé Kempf. Le Monde, May 26, 2005.
32. William Godwin, "Of Riches and Poverty," The Enquirer (London, 1797), 130.
33. Jean Starobinski, "Introduction" to Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité entre les hommes (Paris, 1980): 27. My translation.
34. Latouche, Survivre au développement, 97. My translation.
35. Latouche, Survivre au developpement, 96. My translation.
36. Interview between Serge Latouche and Hubert Védrine. Le Monde, May 26, 2005. My translation.
37. For a detailed analysis of the relationship between Marxism, contemporary Communism, and other antiliberal or degrowth movements: Martelli Roger, "Croissance et Decroissance: du côté du communisme politique" in Pour une Politique de la Décroissance, 21-28, Villeurbanne, Golias, 2007.
38. Dominique Voynet was a former minister for national and regional development and environment for the Green Party who served in Lionel Jospin's socialist government from 1997 to 2001. She was the first minister ever from the Green Party to serve in a government and took part in the negotiations in Kyoto.
39. This formula refers to a national concertation between actors from different backgrounds (agriculture, transports, energy, political parties, and environmentally conscious associations together with government members) over environmental issues. "Grenelle" is a short way of signifying that crucial questions are at stake, as was the case in May 1968 when Prime Minister Georges Pompidou summoned political, economic, and unionist spokespeople to the Ministry of Labour in order to ratify agreements (Les accords de Grenelle) that would bring back social peace after the massive strikes and demonstrations.