For the Amendment to Resolution 16: Degrowth and Strategy

The author motivates in favor of the amendment to Resolution 16. “Ecosocialism Beyond the Green New Deal” for the 2024 YDSA National Convention.

Degrowth is an objective necessity. The struggle for a democratically planned economy which keeps material and energy throughput within planetary boundaries is our only hope for confronting the full scope of the ecological crisis and arriving at a just solution. Capitalism is a system which cannot function without continued economic growth, but we inhabit a finite world. As the profit motive desperately expands through imperialism, colonialism and environmental extraction it also wears out the earth and the conditions for life. This process undermines the possibility of socialism by eroding the productive capacity of humanity. Consequently, the longer the ecological crisis continues, the less likely it becomes that socialists will be able to meaningfully fight it.

However, recognizing objective necessity is only the beginning. The capitalist state withstands opposition through violence and undemocratic repression, and in so doing it has broken the confidence of the working class over time. We are living through the consequences of defeat; rebuilding the socialist movement requires a proactive approach, finding ways to advance an independent program through every battle. It is not enough to stake out a position based on what is objectively necessary while expecting the consciousness of the working class to reach that necessity. People must learn through struggle.

The 2024 YDSA Convention resolution “Ecosocialism Beyond the Green New Deal” proposed by comrades in Marxist Unity Group is a powerful step in the right direction. By embracing degrowth and amending the YDSA platform to acknowledge ecological limits, the resolution is preparing us to work through important questions about the long-term programmatic goals of the socialist movement. However, the resolution makes a critical error in its orientation to the Green New Deal. Conceptualizing degrowth in strict opposition to the Green New Deal abandons the ground on which the working class can be convinced of revolutionary ecosocialism. As the author of Reform & Revolution’s amendment to this resolution, I would like to address how a Green New Deal can be a transitional step toward ecosocialism and why it remains programmatically significant today.

Fighting for a Contested Program

The resolution states that “even if fully realized, the program of the Green New Deal would fail to adequately address the scope of the ecological crisis, because the ecological crisis is rooted in the fundamental tendency of capitalism towards infinite growth on a finite planet, and the Green New Deal does not aim to lay the foundations for a society beyond the fundamental laws of capitalism…” This much is true. We must be committed to fighting the capitalist mode of production head on, and the Green New Deal alone cannot do this. Reformist illusions must be overcome if socialists hope to end capitalism. The question for us is how we can break through these limitations. 

At its most radical, the Green New Deal rallied a disparate environmental movement around a program which confronted the fear of climate austerity. It put forward demands such as transitioning to 100% clean and renewable energy sources, creating millions of green union jobs, a just transition for workers in environmentally destructive industries, and more. These are strong demands which managed to build an impressive base of working class support. Were they to be implemented, it would pose a significant challenge to the capitalist economy. Opposition from the ruling class through the undemocratic structures of the state prevented these demands from being realized, but this is what made the Green New Deal worth fighting for. Battles like this show working class people what they’re up against and how necessary it is to fight back.

It’s not uncommon that radical demands become co-opted by capitalist forces. This is a consistent problem in DSA, which itself didn’t embrace a radical vision fully. AOC gave too much credit to Joe Biden by using the language of the Green New Deal to support his moderate policies. But these are issues that won’t go away by abandoning the Green New Deal and starting again. Degrowth should be a framework we use to guide our environmental work, but within that we must consciously build support and organization for it.

The responsibility of socialists is to begin pulling at capitalism’s foundations, exposing its weaknesses over time. As the struggle for reforms advances, direct confrontation with the ruling class is unavoidable. To guide the working class to power, and to implement a degrowth program, we must be fully prepared to go beyond the framework of capitalism. But it’s only by standing alongside people in the struggles of today that we can make our own movement and program heard. Trust in the revolutionary process won’t be built unless we can prove ourselves in action, and we don’t get to pick and choose the ground we fight on.

Ecological theorists Riccardo Mastini, Giorgos Kallis, and Jason Hickle argue in “A Green New Deal without growth?” that the Green New Deal is not a dead end for degrowth advocates: “It is a contested concept, it is a battlefield, and its meaning and ambition will be the result of the struggle waged by social movements. Therefore, climate justice and degrowth activists should neither accept it acritically nor reject it, but rather hijack it towards more radical positions.” If we want YDSA to mount the strongest possible offensive for degrowth and ecosocialism, we can’t afford to be apart from the broader environmental movement; we must be a distinct force within it.

Building the Ecosocialist Movement Now

The amendment to “Ecosocialism Beyond the Green New Deal” expands on parts of the base resolution and commits YDSA to fighting for degrowth on the terms of today’s struggles. It also commits the International Committee’s Youth Leadership Committee, or its successor, to hosting international discussion with other socialist youth groups about the ecological crisis. I believe that these changes make the resolution stronger, and help build a genuine ecosocialist movement by working to convince our comrades and the broader working class that the objective necessity of degrowth and revolutionary socialism is just that – necessary.

Comrades, vote YES on the amendment to R16: “Ecosocialism Beyond the Green New Deal” at the 2024 YDSA Convention.