Leftist outlets like The Atlantic seem to have a bad habit of yanking the most insane political ideas out of the ether to make them sound less nutty than they are. Its recent treatment of “degrowth communism” to fight climate change is no exception.
“Is America Ready for ‘Degrowth Communism,’” read the magazine’s head-turning May 28 article. The author, Atlantic writing fellow Christopher Beam, tried to soften the expected blowback from such an off-the-wall idea being popularized by leftist Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito. Saito “knows he sounds like a madman,” Beam wrote. “That’s kind of the point,” he continued. “The crazy idea” of “degrowth communism,” Beam summarized, is based on the proposition “that there will always be a correlation between economic output and carbon” emissions. In essence, wrote Beam, “the best way to fight climate change is for wealthy nations to cut back on consumption and reduce the ‘material throughput’ that creates demand for energy and drives GDP.”
Beam pontificated how “[d]egrowth captures a core truth of the fight against climate change: What we’re doing is not enough and might even be making things worse.” He further claimed, “Degrowth might fail too, but in the eyes of its supporters, at least it’s directionally correct. It’s the protest vote of climate activism.” Beam wasted 3,661 words pushing deranged propaganda credentialing Saito’s “degrowth communism.”
That anyone could write this drivel with a straight face without laughing like a hyena on a sugar high is a great feat. But readers shouldn’t be surprised given that The Atlantic is the same outlet that tried to argue that nuclear war was a “climate problem,” the eco-effects of which would be on par with the catastrophic death toll from the mass slaughter.
Climate Depot founder Marc Morano at least credited The Atlantic for saying “the quiet part out loud” in comments to MRC Business. “Net zero in the climate agenda is really nothing short of Soviet-style central planning. Every sector of our economy is subject to long range planning to meet net zero goals.”
In order to not come across as completely co-signing Kaito’s extremism, Beam took care to note that Saito had his fair share of “haters” and critics from all sides of the political spectrum. Saito’s critics apparently also included Marxists who saw the philosopher as distorting the radicalism of communism’s preeminent icon Karl Marx. But Beam couldn’t resist casting Kaito as some kind of climate crusader fighting against the system:
It’s understandable that Saito provokes so much ire: He rejects the mainstream political consensus that the best way to fight climate change is through innovation, which requires growth. But no matter how many times opponents swat it down, the idea of degrowth refuses to die. Perhaps it survives these detailed, technical refutations because its very implausibility is central to its appeal.
Beam further legitimized Saito by claiming that the “[t]he question of whether Marx was a degrowther is academic—and so is degrowth itself, unless it can find a viable political path.” Beam bemoaned the state of today’s politics that is somewhat still averse from telling the citizenries to do with less: “In today’s politics, proposing sacrifice seems like an obvious form of political suicide that would only empower politicians who don’t care about climate change.” Morano saw right through The Atlantic’s ploy to mainstream psychotic climate change fanaticism and underscored what the real agenda is:
“Every sector of our economy is subject to long range planning to meet net zero goals. This agenda is nothing short of the rationing of energy food and transportation in order to create chaos and give the government more Covid lockdown like controls. After all, what was a Covid lockdown but the governments' attempt at forcing degrowth on the world. We have truly entered the era of climate communism.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact The Atlantic at (202) 266-6000 and demand it quit legitimizing Saito’s climate change extremism.
