Civil and Uncivil Actors for a Degrowth Society

Abstract

Within the context of the ecological crisis and technocratic drift of western nations whose overarching goal is economic growth, a plea for degrowth is emerging. In this essay, the concept of degrowth is adopted as an interpretative frame to describe a variety of forms of grassroots activism, mainly across crisis-ridden Europe. Particular attention is devoted to the distinction between forms of alternative activism that respect conventional societal norms and forms of resistance that fundamentally reject some of the key tenets of contemporary market economies. These two forms of grassroots mobilization, whose actors we define, respectively, as ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’, constitute different (albeit perhaps complementary) imaginaries emerging out of the civil society arena, thus likely to lead to a profound reconsideration of authority (and legitimacy). The integration of both dimensions may contribute to the construction of a new degrowth society.

Keywords:

• Degrowth
• civil society arena
• frame
• civil and uncivil actors

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the ‘Research & Degrowth’ group in Barcelona for a series of long and convivial discussions. In particular, we acknowledge the contribution of Francois Schneider, Filka Sekulova, and Joan Martinez Alier. We also thank for their valuable comments the participants to the workshop ‘Citizens vs. Markets’ held at the Centre for Social Investment of the University of Heidelberg in December 2012, and especially to Lorenzo Fioramonti. Last but not least, we owe much to those activists, practitioners, and writers who have devoted their lives to degrowth without receiving much recognition. This paper contributes to the following projects: CSO2011-28990 (Beyond GDP growth: Investigating the socio-economic conditions for a Socially Sustainable Degrowth), CSO2010-21979 (Social Metabolism and Environmental Conflicts), and the Marie Curie Action—Initial Training Networks—FP7—PEOPLE—2011; contract N° 289374—ENTITLE (European Network for Political Ecology).

Notes

This definition refers to the idea of civil society that Putnam (1993) had in mind when he wrote his famous book about civic traditions in Italy.

The uncivil actors contribute to building networks and interpersonal trust, which increase the legitimacy of their action and improve their ability to spread around ‘nowtopias’ (Carlson & Manning, 2010), but they do not capitalize on it to increase the value circulation of the socio-environment in which they are embedded in. For this reason, we do not use the concept of social capital to define the kind of alternative systems they give a life to.

Some authors (Van den Bergh, 2009; Van den Bergh & Kallis 2012) recommend using a-growth as this term highlights the need to ‘ignore’ GDP. However, such a position may be misleading insofar as agnosticism is not enough to debunk the growth fetishism.

In terms of approaches, Anheier, Glasius, and Kaldor (2001) refer to rejectionist, alternative and reformist; in relation to capitalism, Chatterton and Pickerell (2010) refer to ‘anti-capitalist’, ‘post-capitalist’, and ‘despite capitalism’.

Some examples are in Italy, Rete per la Decrescita; in France, Réseau des Objecteurs de Croissance pour l'Après-Développement; in Switzerland, Réseau Objection de Croissance; and in Brazil, Rede pelo Decrescimento Sustentável.

http://picnic4degrowth.wordpress.com/.

http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/article13381.html.

http://www.decrescita.it/joomla/index.php/component/content/article/4/20-rigenerazioni-proposta-per-un-soggetto-politico-non-elettorale.

For more information, see: www.kanpasqual.ourproject.org, www.canpiella.cat, www.canmasdeu.net.

Calafou featured in the Degrowth conference in Montréal in May 2012 in the section tellingly called ‘experiences’. More information at: cooperativa.ecoxarxes.cat.

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