#N. Georgescu - Roegen

[melidonium]

Emilia Țuțuianu: De la inginerie la filozofie – interviu cu prof. univ. dr. Tudor Ghideanu

Emilia Ţuţuianu: Stimate domnule profesor, vă invit la o întoarcere acasă – pe acel drum al fiinţei umane, în devenire, rost și împlinire. Puteţi să ne comunicaţi o anamneză a vieţii dvs.? Continue reading Emilia Țuțuianu: De la inginerie la filozofie – interviu cu prof. univ. dr. Tudor Ghideanu

[dailyanarchistposts]

Preface

Does degrowth have any relevance to anarchism? Taking an academic and popular public stance against capitalist growth or, more accurately, the degrowing total material and energy throughput of techno-capitalism is extremely relevant to anarchism, green or otherwise. Degrowth, in theory, is a natural companion of anarchism and other anti-capitalist autonomist tendencies, with direct linkages through authors such as Ivan Illich and Jacques Ellul. Yet where is degrowth in practice? Do degrowthers join the riots against police repression or, more relevant and discussed below, the combative ecological struggles to stop capitalist growth? If they stand by watching, is it with condemnation, support or a righteous criticism that the rioters should be making community gardens? These dispositions matter and some positions are easier to take than others.

A phenomenon with a long intellectual history (e.g. Andre Gorz; Cornelius Castoriadis; Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen; Sergio Latouche) that arose from the anti-globalization movement, it has actually remained rather marginal or inconsequential in struggles to defend habitats and maintain autonomous spaces. Meanwhile, degrowth has become a booming academic topic, slowly taking over the halls of universities with an enormous amount of academic articles, books and special issues. In fact, degrowth has now created an important space within universities, yet what is the quality of this space and how is this space experienced by so-called “militants”?

While degrowth intellectuals have made great efforts to connect degrowth with environmental justice movements (Akbulut et al., 2019) and direct action (Treu et al., 2020), ambiguity reigns regarding politics and qualities of direct action. This coincides with an implicit academic conflation of environmental justice with all land and territorial struggles logged into the Environmental Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/), which lumps in armed action with vandalism and arson. The interface of direct action and academic labelling is murky, and maybe rightfully so, yet how does environmental justice speak with or—more concerning—for to all the indigenous, autonomist and anarchist tendencies at war with techno-capitalist progress? Does this labeling preform some type of academic recuperation of political struggle, if so what are the consequences? Does environmental justice and degrowth support and/or profit from environmental conflicts where Indigenous, anarchists and autonomist tendencies are a driving force? These questions deserve further consideration and development within and outside the academy.

The article below attempts to begin this conversation, offering feedback for the degrowth movement to support combative struggles with the space they have created. This short article offers feedback from over a decade of personal experience, but also more immediate observation by working with land defenders in France and Iberia fighting energy infrastructure and wind energy power plants. There is a strong affinity that exists between degrowth and land defenders, yet the academy has a way of excluding disruptive anarchistic and autonomist elements by employing self-referential theory from the narrow lens of the academy, mainstream (or popular) movements and nonprofits. It is my hope the degrowth intellectual and organizers will affirm and work to create greater affinity with anarchist and autonomist land defenders, which—to be clear—some are already doing. Yet the article below identifies some easy ways to further bridge this gap.

References

Akbulut B, Demaria F, Gerber J-F, et al. (2019) Who promotes sustainability? Five theses on the relationships between the degrowth and the environmental justice movements. Ecological Economics 165(106418.

Treu N, Schmelzer M and Burkhart C. (2020) Degrowth in movement (s): Exploring pathways for transformation: John Hunt Publishing.

***

Why do degrowth intellectuals publicly neglect combative self-defense against “growth” projects? The connection between degrowth and anti-capitalist, autonomist and (ecological) anarchist movements exists, and it can be strengthened by acknowledging the legitimacy of a diversity of tactics as necessary pathways towards degrowing the techno-capitalist system and protecting habitats form infrastructural invasion.

Degrowth is about reducing total material and energy throughput, which entails rejecting elite accumulation and the ideology of capitalism itself. For some—those acquiescing or clinging to the growth euphemism—degrowth is a provocative term. “Trying to avoid provocation, or trying to be agnostic about growth,” explains Jason Hickel referring to degrowth, “creates a milieu where problematic assumptions remain unidentified and unexamined in favour of polite conversation and agreement.” However, in matters of political struggle, it seems that the same applies to degrowth.

Currently, influential degrowth approaches veer towards polite political conversation, mainstream movement politics and largely ignore the combative struggles putting degrowth into practice closest to home. While ambiguity can create space, we ought to acknowledge—and support to various degrees—the full range of degrowth action. Specifically, the land defenders fighting economic growth and its interconnected infrastructural schemes.

This issue gained increasing relevance for me after designing a course on degrowth and following three months of connecting with people fighting energy infrastructure projects in France, Catalonia and Spain. Combative ecological struggles are important, yet the degrowth community tends towards ignoring or selectively mentioning antagonistic struggles enacting lived practices of degrowth. Struggles embodying “monkey wrenching,” “diversity of tactics” and articulating a “brisantic politics” are quite literally stopping—or attempting to stop—the expansion and/or growth of capitalist infrastructure into forests and ecosystems. Why do degrowth intellectuals publicly neglect these struggles?

The connection between degrowth and anti-capitalist, autonomist and (ecological) anarchist movements, as they converge to defend habitats, can be strengthened. The connection exists, yet remains vague in the popular degrowth literature. Inversely, when asked about “degrowth” in ecological struggles in France, Catalonia and Spain, land defenders see little relevance, associating degrowth with NGO politics, university culture and middle-class environmentalism.

One visible obstruction to this connection is degrowth’s ambiguity regarding “diversity of tactics” and combative direct action. In response, degrowth should embrace the “de” in “degrowth:” Recognizing the legitimacy in destruction or, more accurately, combative self-defense in struggles against “growth” projects and all that entails. This translates into degrowth intellectuals, teachers and organizers acknowledging these struggles vocally—including them into the degrowth lexicon—by recognizing their contributions to combating (capitalist) growth projects and defending habitats.

This short essay, in addition to highlighting this issue, further draws a link with degrowth and four socio-ecological struggles in Europe. Degrowth is vitally important, yet—following Hickel’s approach—the time has come for degrowth to become less polite and unambiguous about the importance of combative socio-ecological movements.

Recycling has many forms: A Hambach Forest barricade, 2015. Source: Wikicommons

[aneddoticamagazinestuff]

INTRODUCTION TO INNOVATION

New Post has been published on https://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/introduction-to-innovation/

INTRODUCTION TO INNOVATION

In a state of nature human beings live through consistent patterns or “regularities” in the way living systems evolve over time.

We can articulate these patterns in the form of theories, and sets, as follows:

  1. Theory of Completeness of Parts.

Ecosophy arises as the result of a synthesis of previous separate matters (disciplines) into a single whole. In order to live and to be viable the system includes three basic sets:

Demand Set

Production Set

Taste or Psychological Set.

Each set is an open set. If any of these sets is missing or inefficient, to that extent the ecosophic system is incapable of surviving and prevailing against its competitor systems (i.e., those which impose power, e.g., Political, Military, and any Violence System.)

  2. Theory of Entropy and Energy Conductivity. 

An Ecosophic System evolves in the direction of increasing efficiency in the transfer of energy from outside to inside. This transfer can take place through a condition or state that can be called entropy, as in Physics (it is the case of using the same term just because it indicates the same phenomenon.)

The higher is the entropy, the higher the conductivity. Therefore, the higher is the conductivity, the lower the enthalpy.

Entropy can be argued as the thermodynamic quantity that characterizes the trend of closed systems (i.e., those systems, which do not exchange matter or energy with surrounding environment) to evolve to the maximum equilibrium. Entropy is the quantity that signifies the non-reversibility of natural phenomena, as it is the index of energy degradation. Energy and matter degrades while entropy increases, thus resulting inapplicable.

N. Georgescu-Roegen firstly used the theory of entropy in Economics, in order to emphasize, as economic processes are not “circular”, and non-reversible, and that the stock of natural resources is tending to exhaust itself (this theory is also used by major ecologists.)

In Information Theory people use the term entropy as the “quantity” of information (the higher entropy, the lower information.)

In Physics any entropy increase indicates the system’s passage to a state of greater disorder.

Imagine, for example, the passage of water from solid state to liquid state: in solid state molecules are tied each other in the ice crystal lattice, (thus easier to be identified in any fixed position), whilst in liquid state molecules, subject to weaker cohesion forces, are stimulated by a less thermal motion, that is, they are more irregular. In order to transit from solid to liquid state the system has to absorb heath (energy, enthalpy) at constant temperature, therefore its entropy variation shall be positive, i.e., entropy increases in correspondence of the passage to a phase characterized by a greater disorder.

We apply to entropy as the natural chaos, the microscopic disorder of a system, which allows enthalpy (Information, Culture, etc.,) to be acknowledged by and transferred to ecosophic systems (i.e., we can argue that entropy and enthalpy are in a reverse function than that given by Information Theory.

This transfer can take place through a state more or less state of entropy, and the entropy level will be the meter of transfer efficiency. In a scale of entropy, we consider the U.S. as the highest entropy system, and Australia as the lowest.

  3. Theory of Harmonization of Rhythms.

      4. Theory of Ideal Efficiency.

An Ecosophic System evolves in such a direction as to increase its degree of efficiency. Efficiency is defined as the quotient of the sum of the system’s benefits, Bi, divided by the sum of its cost effects Cj.

ΣBi

Efficiency = E = ──

ΣCj.

    Benefit effects include all the valuable result of the system’s functioning. Cost effects include either individual or system cost.

Taking this trend to its limit, we can assume the notion of Ideal Efficiency is obtained when the Bi are maximum and the Cj are minimum. The theory thus states that as the system evolves, the sum of the Bi trend upward and the sum of Cj trend downward.

  From Mechanics we can assume, as stated by Stan Kaplan “A technical system evolves in such a direction to increase its degree of ideality”.

  From Economics we can assume the following theories:

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Profit Maximization

Scarcity (as a prerequisite for any economic behaviour)

  Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, (Konstanz 1906), Rumanian economist, who first applied Thermodynamics laws to Economics. See Economics and Economic Process, (1971).

Stan Kaplan, An Introduction to TRIZ, Ideation International Inc., 1996