Climate, Class, and Degrowth

Join the MEP’s Ecosocialist Study Group as we reconvene to consider two new Verso titles that are provoking wide discussion and debate: Matt Huber’s Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, and The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism, by Matthias Schmelzer, Aaron Vansintjan, and Andrea Vetter. As one reviewer noted, “Both take as foundational premises that we must move beyond capitalism to solve the climate crisis, yet they critique political economy in fundamentally different ways. While The Future is Degrowth argues for abolishing the capitalist growth imperative, Climate Change as Class War argues against degrowth and advocates for a decommodified Green New Deal.” We will address such questions as: What do advocates of “degrowth” mean by this term? How and why do capitalist growth and accumulation threaten human survival? What are the most useful frameworks to help us organize movements for climate justice? What demands should we prioritize and what lessons can we draw from previous historical movements? How can utopian thinking expand our horizons in what must be a massive fight for a more sustainable future? Where does working-class organizing come into the picture, and what other allies and social forces can be mobilized?

Ten weekly sessions, convened by Fred Murphy and Steve Knight, who have co-led the Ecosocialist Study Group since 2016.