Degrowth or Class Struggle? A Critique of Matthew Huber’s Climate Change as Class War

Abstract

This article interrogates Matthew Huber's criticism of degrowth theory, specifically his claim that the socialist project must foreground class struggle over and against calls for degrowth. We identify two key problems with Huber's approach. First, he offers no response to the central empirical thesis of the degrowth literature, i.e. that ecological sustainability is incompatible with increasing aggregate material throughput. Second, he limits his discussion to class struggle internal to the “Global North,” obscuring the global character of production that so concerns degrowth theory. When these two points are understood, it becomes clear that degrowth should not be positioned against class struggle. In fact, the former should be understood as a prerequisite for any authentic realization of the latter (as well as vice-versa). This article therefore defends a version of ecosocialist degrowth.