Ecologica

by André Gorz, Chris Turner (Translator)

Writing in 2007, French social philosopher André Gorz (1923–2007) was remarkably prophetic, foretelling the international economic meltdown of 2008: “The real economy is becoming an appendage of the speculative bubbles sustained by the finance industry—until that inevitable point when the bubbles burst, leading to serial bank crashes and threatening the global system of credit with collapse and the real economy with a severe, prolonged depression.” This prescient article is collected in Ecologica alongside many of Gorz’s final writings and interviews, which together offer practical and often path-breaking set of solutions to our current economic and political problems.             In his writings Gorz condemns the speculative global economic system and anatomizes its terminal crisis. Advocating an exit from capitalism through the self-limitation of needs and the networked use of the latest technologies, he outlines a practical, democratically based solution to our current predicament. Compiled by Gorz, Ecologica is intended as a final distillation of his work and thought, a guide to the survival of our planet. It is a work of political, rather than scientific ecology—Gorz aruges that the key to planetary survival is not a surrender to environmental experts and eco-technocrats, but a switch to non-consumerist modes of living that would amount to a type of cultural revolution.             Praise for André Gorz “To my mind the greatest of modern French social thinkers.”—Herbert Gintis, author of Schooling in Capitalist America “Gorz’s work was always within the Utopian tradition—a label he welcomed but which was used pejoratively by his opponents. . . . Many of his derided early warnings about globalization and environmental degradation have become commonplace discourses in political debates today. Ultimately, Gorz’s Utopianism was expressed in a very practical sense—we never know how far along the road we are if we have no idea of the destination.”— Independent  

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, Ecology, Economics, Theory, Environment

186 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

André Gorz , pen name of Gérard Horst, born Gerhard Hirsch, also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet, was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964. A supporter of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist version of Marxism after World War Two, in the aftermath of the May '68 student riots, he became more concerned with political ecology.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a main theorist in the New Left movement. His central theme was wage labour issues such as liberation from work, just distribution of work, social alienation, and Guaranteed basic income

Reviews

[samsam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be used as an introduction to André Gorz's philosophy, compiling seven essays and articles published between 1975 and just before his death in 2007.
Gorz is what we could call an ecolo-communist thinker: he's one of the first thinkers to really think political ecology beyond the frame of capitalism, in a way reviving the ancient Epicurean and Stoic philosophies of "living well, without too much". He is quite clear in his distinction between "self-imposed ecology", where a Leviathan-like state imposes economic constraints to try and drive society towards a more respectful-of-nature way of living, and a change of paradigm, where the quantities of work and production would be reduced, and we would transition from a supply-based economy to a demand-based one where superfluous demand would progressively disappear by means of self-containment.
His views on economic bubbles and crises of capitalism are very insightful, and have very justly anticipated the late capitalism stages we're experiencing at the moment. His view on the use of the car is extraordinary and revolutionary, and I'm shocked it is not more re-used.

All in all, Gorz is really one of the essential modern political thinkers that we need to (re)discover as we're trying to save our biosphere before it's too late, since the keys he gives are quite on point as regards to what we need to strive towards. In that sense, this book is, once again, a must-read!

[Josh Pendergrass]

This is an excellent, short collection of essays that I stumbled across randomly, years ago in a Barnes and Noble. I had never heard of the author but I was obsessed with the idea of linking Economics and Ecology, tired of the main stream view of economics as a purely quantitative discipline. I think Gorz hits the nail on the head in describing exactly what our global economy is - “The real economy is becoming an appendage of the speculative bubbles sustained by the finance industry—until that inevitable point when the bubbles burst, leading to serial bank crashes and threatening the global system of credit with collapse and the real economy with a severe, prolonged depression.” I don't think I've found a more succinct description of what our "economy" has become, with the whole edifice only being held up by ever increasing bubbles. For instance. right now NVidia is one of the largest companies in world based largely in part on the speculation concerning Artificial Intelligence. The real question is how much does our "economy" create of actual value as opposed to just financial value; and what are the externalities that our planet, our communities, and we ourselves have to bear in the process.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting series of essays on the relationship of economy and preserving a livable environment: limiting needs and desires as a foundation of degrowth, planned socialization of economic activities, focus on intrinsic riches like creating a quality environment, quality education, encourage mutual assistance networks, develop culture, etc.

"De-growth is a good idea: it indicates the direction in which we must go and invites us to imaging how to live better while consuming and working less and differently. But this good idea can find no political expression; no government would dare implement it, none of the economic actors would accept it, unless its implementation were fragmented into measures subordinate to other imperatives, stretched out over one or more decades, and were thus emptied of its radical potential and made compatible with the perpetuation of the dominant economic system" (p.119)

[Daniele Conti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scoperto grazie a "Il capitale dell'antropocene" di Salito Koehi, questo libro apre spunti di riflessione interessantissimi.
È una raccolta di sei testi sul capitalismo e sul sui rapporti che questo ha contribuito a formare. Al di là del titolo, il tema dell’ambiente inteso come “natura” non è poi così centrale, ma va bene così. In compenso si trovano tante riflessioni stimolanti sul mito della produzione, sul suo legame con il lavoro e i lavoratori, e sull’ideologia che sostiene la società dei consumi.
Gorz analizza con brillantezza la differenza tra valore d’uso e valore di scambio, e offre un’interessante lettura dell’economia della conoscenza.
Leggere questi testi aiuta a costruirsi un’immagine più consapevole del mondo e a comprendere, almeno in parte, l’assurdità di alcuni meccanismi alla base del capitalismo contemporaneo.
Anche se alcuni passaggi sono un po’ ostici, nel complesso è un libro chiaro, che ha gettato luce su molti temi che prima ignoravo.

[Alejandroduro · Rating 4 out of 5]

6 ensayos entorno a el trabajo en el capitalismo, el consumo, el capital y la ecología. Desde los 70s a los 00s, toma tópicos de la relación capital-trabajo para desmenuzar sus formas, consecuencias, despliegues y mas. Lo mas interesante es como siendo marxista su ojo no esta únicamente puesto en el capital y como destruirlo sino también en la noción de trabajo, fundamental para la existencia de la relación que hace posible el funcionamiento del capitalismo.
Sumo a esto la idea de "suficiencia" en vez de "necesidad" como objetivo para las organizaciones y personas que traten de superar el actual modo de producción y proponerse una alternativa de organización social mas acorde con el medio ambiente, el resto de los humanos y la vida en gral.

[Moge · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and insightful collection of essays. This may serve as a good introduction to Gorz's work.

[Nao Dupre · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - des sujets intéressants et qui font réfléchir à une différente manière de faire les choses, parfois trop compliqué pour moi

[Ian Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This would be a great introduction to Gorz, it's a collection of five articles and two interviews from between 1975 and 2007 that he compiled himself. He was an inspirational and relevant thinker and I was very lucky to study his ideas at Uni.

The book covers many different strands of his thinking over the years, but the other reviews I've seen draw attention to how he predicted the financial crisis. I thought it was interesting enough to quote in full (in place of a review, which is beyond me):

"The secret of the growth of the United States economy during the 1990s, years characterized by a quasi-stagnation of the European economy, resides in a policy that no other country can afford itself and which, sooner or later, will have fearsome consequences. Like the other northern economies, the United States economy suffers from a shortage of creditworthy demand. However, it alone is capable of offsetting that shortage by allowing itself to accumulate debt or, in other words, by effectively printing money. To prevent creditworthy demand falling and the economy going into recession, the Central Bank encourages households to get into debt with their banks and consume what they hope to earn in the future. It is the growing indebtedness of 'middle class' households that was and remains the main engine of growth. At the end of the 1990s, each household owed on average as much money as it hoped to earn in the next 15 months. In 1995, households spent 350 billion dollars more than they earned and this consumption, which was not linked to any productive work, was reflected in a deficit of 100 billion dollars a year in the United States current account balance. It was entirely as though the United States was borrowing externally what it was lending internally: it was financing a debt with other debts.

By buying overseas 500 billion dollars worth of goods more than they sold, the United States was keeping the world awash with liquidity. Virtually every country in the world competed to sell the Americans more than the Americans bought from them - that is to say, for the 'privilege' of working for American consumers. Far from ever thinking of calling in US debts, America's creditors did exactly the opposite: they returned to the United States what that country was losing, by buying American Treasury bonds and Wall Street stocks.

However, this amazing state of affairs can last only so long as the Wall Street Stock Exchange continues to rise and the dollar doesn't fall in relation to other currencies. When Wall Street goes into long-term decline and the dollar begins to weaken, the fictional character of outstanding dollar balances will become evident and the world banking system will be in danger of collapsing like a house of cards. Capitalism 'is teetering on the edge of the abyss'."

In the notes section for this point, Gorz continues:

"Every bubble ends up bursting sooner or later, bringing serial bankruptcies in its wake, unless it is followed very quickly by a new and larger bubble. In this way, the stock-market bubble was followed by the dot.com bubble, and the bursting of that bubble was followed by the current property bubble, which is, according to The Economist, 'the biggest of all time'. In three years, it has increased the stock-market value of the property sector from 20 to 60 trillion dollars. No one can predict what will follow. The bigger a speculative bubble, the more it threatens, when it bursts, to bring about the collapse of the banking system and of currencies."

Gorz wrote this in 2005. The trouble of course - as he mentions himself with a quote from Robert Kurz - is that the financial bubble is just 'a marvelous machine for creating money'.

[Cocodras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace un tiempo otra becera y yo quedamos en leer un libro que siempre recomendábamos y nunca nadie leía. Su recomendación era esta, Ecológica. Tardé bastante en ponerme con él, pero una vez acabado me ha parecido muy muy interesante. Coincido con muchas de las teorías que expone, disiento con otras, pero he aprendido muchísimo. Y digo muchísimo porque tristemente no sé nada sobre el tema, aunque ese tema sea el mundo en el que vivimios, solo lo que mi intuición y mi sentido común me dicen.

Requiere un esfuerzo, tomar notas, releer, pensar (no solo lo requiere sino que te empuja a ello) e incluso buscar alguna que otra información complementaria, pero merece la pena, lo explica muy bien y es corto. Además, los capítulos son independientes porque cada uno se corresponde con artículos publicados en diferentes momentos por el autor, uno de ellos solo una semana antes de morir.

Creo que puedes estar o no de acuerdo con sus ideas. Si estás, genial, te dará una visión muy interesante de cómo está hecho el mundo y te hará pensar que tú puedes poner tu granito de arena para cambiar, al menos, tu estilo de vida. Si no estás, puede que te desesperes (si no eres tolerante con las ideas de los demás) pero seguro que te dará un punto de vista diferente.

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Translated to English. A collection of essays written and selected by a French socio-economic philosopher.

I adore the essay on the car. I wanted to copy it and paste it ... all over every dashboard in the world.

I wish my socialist friends would read this book.

[June · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays--the one on cars is just brilliant! I read it while I was taking the light rail, so I didn't feel guilty...