David Schwartzman & Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

ABSTRACT

Kallis’ discussion of degrowth in a transition to socialism is misleading and substantially detached from the current context, especially with recurring cataclysms due to climate change and the requirements to implement a programme to prevent even worse outcomes while there is a narrowing window of opportunity to do so. The fallacies of Kallis’ arguments originate in his misinformed account of economic and physical growth relative to thermodynamics and ecological processes, his feeble grasp of capitalist relations, and his gross misrepresentation of socialist, and specifically ecosocialist, thought.

KEYWORDS

Degrowth, ecosocialism, energy, thermodynamics

From: Capitalism Nature Socialism 2019 30 (3)

Editor: Wang Yi