Are the SDGs Today’s “Opium of the Masses”? Interview with Prof. Kohei Saito https://jneb.net/sdgs-and-engaged-buddhism/sdgs-todays-opium-of-the-masses/ the concept has been trivialized and simplified into an environmental issue, even though the SDGs encompass human rights and gender equality. The SDGs are goals, but they have become a means to economic growth.
Buddhism and religion were originally based on a totally different philosophy than the one of constant growth. They have remained for hundreds or even thousands of years in the form of tradition, so in this respect, they are sustainable. In other words, they have been sustainable without depending on growth.
Although the “limits to growth” debate has temporarily receded, the crisis is not over. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Small is Beautiful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene
Saito advocates for degrowth, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production.
In practical terms, Saito's conception of degrowth involves the end of mass production and mass consumption, decarbonization through shorter working hours, and the prioritization of essential labor such as caregiving. The author argues that capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on commodity value rather than the usefulness of what is produced, citing the privatization of the commons for purposes of capital accumulation as an example. Saito argues that by returning the commons to a system of social ownership, it is possible to restore abundance and focus on economic activities that are essential for human life.
Counter:
Terence Corcoran: Let’s debunk the neo-Marxist degrowth craze November 18, 2022, https://www.yahoo.com/now/terence-corcoran-let-debunk-neo-123949519.html
As a Financial Times columnist wrote the other day in reference to Saito’s promotion of degrowth in Japan, “Marxism is back for the modern age.” Saito, a 35-year-old ideological wunderkind, says he “discovered how Marx was interested in sustainability and how non-capitalist and pre-capitalist societies are sustainable, because they are realizing the stationary economy, they are not growth-driven.”
But there’s more to degrowth than realizing the dream of a stationary economy (whatever that might look like in reality). The dominant degrowth model tends to envision a world economy in which wealthy developed nations — Europe, Canada, the United States — deliberately reduce their economies to allow developing nations to fill the gap. One