Some people say that, to save the planet, humanity is faced with a terrible dilemma: as the world cannot support 8 billion humans and more all with the same living standard as in the West, either a quarter of the world’s population is going to have to remain living in dire poverty or those in the West are going to have to have their living standard cut drastically.
This is to assume that the standard of living that a lot of people in the West have can only be met in a capitalist way, that is, as a byproduct of the accumulation of more and more capital out of profits, or ‘growth’ as it is often called. But this is not the only way in which such a standard of living could be sustained, as Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan explain in an article ‘How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis’ published last September.
They start from what a ‘decent living standard’ might be:
‘Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc’.
Then they work out how much resources would be required if production were to be geared to meeting these needs of everyone on the planet, and conclude:
‘Provisioning decent-living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments’.
What they are calling for is the redirection of the aim of production from seeking profits to be accumulated as more capital towards meeting people’s needs. They are aware that this goes against the logic of capitalism:
‘This is challenging within a capitalist market economy, however, because capital generally requires increasing aggregate output (GDP) to stabilize accumulation and because in capitalist economies any reduction of aggregate output triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment. Furthermore, under capitalism, decisions about production are made by wealthy investors with the primary goal of maximizing private profits, rather than meeting social and ecological goals. Necessary goods and services that are not profitable are often underproduced’.
However, although they talk in terms of ‘post-capitalist’ approaches, they still envisage production aimed at giving people a decent living standard being introduced while retaining finance (even though ‘public’) and money income (even if at or above a guaranteed minimum). To be fair, they do envisage many of the services and amenities being provided free of charge.
This is to be achieved through the state intervening in the capitalist economy and overcoming its economic laws. This in effect is global economy reformism. But, experience of the many reformist governments at national level in many different countries has shown that governments cannot overcome the economic laws of capitalism and that, if they go too far in trying to do this, this ‘triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment’. Which leads either to the government doing a U-turn or to it being voted out of office.
The plain fact is that production under capitalism cannot be redirected from profit-seeking to meeting people’s needs. That can only be done after capitalism has been abolished and society reorganised on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources.
Despite not realising this, Hickel and Sullivan are to be commended for having shown that the world can support all its current population (and more) without exacerbating ecological breakdown.
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