4 quotes
In the absence of more consumers, capital finds ways to get existing consumers to consume more. Indeed, the dominant story for the past few hundred years: the growth rate of material use has always significantly outstripped the growth rate of the population.
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)
It was only with the rise of capitalism over the past few hundred years, and the breathtaking acceleration of industrialization from the 1950s, that on a planetary scale things began to tip out of balance.
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)
We are sleepwalking into a mass extinction event – the sixth in our planet's history, and the first to be caused by human economic activity. The rate of extinction is now 1,000 times faster than before the Industrial Revolution.
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)
The same process of enclosure and forced proletarianization played out over and over again during the period of European colonization – not just under the British but under the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch as well ... In all these cases scarcity was created, purposefully, for the sake of capitalist expansion.
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)