Marxian Economics of Degrowth

This article aims at investigating “degrowth” from the perspective of Marxian economics, thereby demonstrating a persuasive path toward degrowth.

In Japan, Kohei Saito′s “degrowth communism” has attracted attention to the idea of degrowth. However, abolishing the market system is too ambitious to be an immediate remedy for climate change. Marxian economics is a key to finding out how to step toward this ideal.

First of all, we must strictly distinguish economic growth and the profit-seeking. Some argue that the end of growth is the end of profit, yet this is not necessarily the case. The “Fundamental Marxian Theorem” shows that the condition of accruing profit is the exploitation of labor, not the economic growth. This means that it is possible to envision a society in which profit is pursued even in the absence of growth.

This would be a society with profit but without accumulation. In such a society, we will still see various serious problems associated with the pursuit of profit, but degrowth will be realized. Since a society without accumulation cannot overcome class society, it cannot be described by terms such as socialism or communism, which refer to post-capitalist social systems. However, this is a realistic first step toward the future, while inheriting some of the ideas of state socialism and market socialism that have been proposed so far.