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This is a good study by Jason Hickel on how ppl in the US and UK respond to the terms degrowth, ecosocialism and well-being economy with and without full policy proposals. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(25)00204-9/fulltext is the full study, this graph is the tldr:
Hickel is one of the most serious comrades we have, people here should pay attention to his work.
Very much agreed! I remember reading some papers a while ago (I think like 2017?) and wondering when he would become clearer about class and political struggles and am so glad for the direction he's been taking recently.
i think in academic papers it is difficult to be explicit about class struggle because it makes you sound """biased""" but in interviews and his social media presence he has been very open about it
Since 2017? I didn't spend too much time on him then, I put him in that "Kate Raworth" bucket of left-libs with ecological focus back then because I found little that seemed anything left of social democrat. But I admit I didn't search too hard. But the past 5 years has been him saying socialist things more and more openly, or at least reaching me and my internet diet.
Yeah i mean I basically agree with you. He identifies as "ecosocialist" and I think he identified as that for quite a long time. He was in Labour's international department under Corbyn for example (idk if that counts as left of social democrat for you). Ecosocialism as an ideology is kind of weird though because it mostly exists in academic spaces rather than political movements/orgs. Ive seen variations of ecosocialism adopted by MLs and Social Democrats alike. What makes Hickel definitely not left-lib or the classic european social dem is that he was always anti-imperialist.
I really like the intellectual integrity he is showing, an academic version of Greta.
A big letdown in climate scientists has always been the way they can point to all the problems, but are unable to arrive at the logical solution that he has clearly arrived to and is saying out loud. Environmentalism without class consciousness and so forth has been on the table otherwise and it's just depressing. The climate crisis and nobody offering anything but end of history is one of the things that radicalized me as well.
I also think he might be hiding his power level in a smart way and the resulting glout in Western academia makes him someone I can share to the libs in my life and they can't dismiss him as easily. Like his recent writing on China was such a good propadanda piece to pass around, because this is a guy with the sort of white Western man credibility that libs can't just wave away. I hate it and like it at the same time, that it has to be this way. But it works.
He said it:
the transformation requires removing the capitalist class from control over finance and the means of production. This is a class war. Ecosocialism captures this element, but other terms may work just as well or better toward this end.
Hickel (the good one) has been sort of doing circles around this imo, probably due to academia. Also promotes modern monetary theory and reformism, or at least did. But he said it.
Hickel has been openly socialist for a long while now. Recently he made a post about fred hampton too.
Really like Hickel and all the work he does. I've read several papers he's published, but neither of his books. Does anyone have a recommendation for which of the two to read?
Both are good. The Divide is more on antiimperialism, and Less is more is specifically about the degrowth movement. I would recommend the Divide because its more general and more applicable to struggle i would say.
I've read the Divide and it is sound. Definitely something I can also cite at uni. Haven't read the other one yet, but planning to.
its also really good / really cite-able.
I've read both. They're both very good. His strength is that he's an excellent communicator, he breaks down complex ideas in very direct language while producing goldmine citations pages.
One way to interpret this is in terms of drawing the fault lines in political strategy: who is vehemently against us, who is a ready ally, and who will go along with the program once they see it in action.
The 20% who support the label are the ones we can recruit from. The 18% (in the UK; 28% in the US) who do not support even the description are the obstacle we will have to fight. And roughly the remaining three fifths are the ones who would acquiesce like they normally do; this matches up with the non-politically-oriented section of the population.