Utopianism for a Dying Planet: Life after Consumerism

Product Information

Gregory discusses the role of utopian and dystopian narratives as useful mechanisms for imagining meaningful social and political change. He explains how utopia can help in preparing us for climate change. Ending fossil fuel extraction within this decade, while warming would still continue for some time, could enable us to avoid its worst effects, and to level off global temperatures before the earth burns up. A transition to renewable energy sources, to wind and solar and wave power, is viable and realistic even within slightly more than a single decade. Around 80% of Europe’s energy could be renewable by 2025, for instance, eliminating virtually all coal and gas. What utopianism almost uniquely offers us is firstly a demand that we think about long-term futures rather than the short four- to five-year economic and political cycles which typically dominate our thinking. Secondly, utopian thought usually envisions a vastly better future than the one we live in. Thirdly, it involves a concern with the common good rather than the profits of the few. And fourthly, it is predicated on a vision of improved social relations between people, on enhanced solidarity, amicability, mutuality, respect, and greater social equality. These are the key utopian values, portrayed in thousands of ideal worlds from the Renaissance to the present. Fifthly, restraining population growth will suppress demand for commodities. Sixthly, we must reduce our sense of self-identity as a reliance on having a choice of consumer goods. Social solidarity can only grow where an attachment to objects diminishes.

Je klik- en zoekgedrag. Als je dit aan of uit zet, doe je dat alleen voor het apparaat waar je dan op zit. Je kan het dus bijvoorbeeld aanzetten op je smartphone en uitzetten op je laptop. There can now be no viable political theory which does not centrally offer an analysis of humanity’s long-term future. And all forms of existing social and political theory which rely on ideas of an indefinite expansion of production, consumption, and population growth, which include most forms of both liberalism and Marxism, are no longer relevant and must be superseded. So we are at a real turning-point in history.Fourthly, we need to shift towards a concept of public luxury, shared by all in museums, festivals, including free public transport and the like, and away from private luxury, and at the same time shift our values towards ‘consuming’ experience shared with others (or alone, as in some computer games) and away from consuming unsustainable commodities. This will require remodelling cities to give a feeling of neighbourhood and ‘belongingness’, a sense of place with which we can identify, and which is in my view also a central goal of utopianism historically. The destruction all around us at a warming rate of 1.2°C will bring us to this end if we remain on our current course. It indicates that the entire global warming narrative of a “sustainable” increase of 1.5-2°C has been false, and misleading. So, we need to achieve warming of below 1°C. And this means more dramatic interventions than any previously mooted. Note: The post gives the views of its authors, not the position USAPP– American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. Predicting our climate future: what we know, what we don't know, what we can't know October 12, 2023

This blog post is based on book, Utopianism for a Dying Planet: Life After Consumerism (Princeton University Press, 2022) and first appeared at the LSE EUROPP blog. Luxury, Sociability, and Progress in Literary Projections of Utopia: from Thomas more to the eighteenth centuryNinthly, we require a vibrant feminism which results in equalising gender opportunities across society. Women, who possess considerably more power than men in disposing of household budgets, need full choice over their reproductive capacities, which will reduce family sizes. Christian Høgsbjerglaunched his new publication for the Socialist History Society on March 27th at 7pm Renewables are now vastly cheaper sources of power than fossil fuels. The immediate savings would be vast, and the long-term benefits immeasurable. For at stake is nothing less than the threat of the collapse of civilisation, and the extinction of humanity itself as temperatures rise above 3°C and our planet becomes one vast Sahara. What would your utopian society look like? You argue that the content of utopianism has historically been associated with sociability, equality, and sustainability. But is this contingent or necessary to utopianism? To what extent do you think that utopia–in its various forms–belongs to the left? It seems as though we don’t see many right-wing utopias, even though dystopia is utilized by both sides. There is no doubt, though, that Utopianism for a Dying Planet is a very important contribution to the study of the utopian tradition, as well as a notable statement of contemporary utopian thinking about how best to face the catastrophic consequences of modern consumerism. It is a fine testament to a Gregory Claeys’s exceptional scholarship and wide-ranging political imagination.

This schematic division of utopian phases doesn’t do justice to the richness and subtlety of Claeys’s historical analysis. He effectively synthesizes huge swathes of work produced by historians of political thought and literary scholars during the last half century or more, while approaching the material from his own distinctive vantage point. He traverses the literatures on humanism, commercial society, political economy, the emergence of liberalism and socialism, and the evolution of Marxism, with clarity and formidable erudition, all the while framing them in relation to his overarching concerns with enhanced sociability and sustainability. This part of the book is a tour de force of historical exposition. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities.Everyone interested in the past, present, and future of utopianism will find something of value in this book, as well as things to argue against. Here I want to focus on one point where I diverge from Claeys. Throughout Utopianism for a Dying Planet, and in his others writings on the utopian tradition, Claeys is adamant that it is necessary to draw a distinction between utopianism and science fiction. They are different genres, with different aims and ambitions. In Utopianism for a Dying Planet he makes the point in several places. Science fiction, he writes, is “generally excluded” from his analysis (18n38); elsewhere, he contends that utopian fiction “is a form of fantasy fiction but is closer to the realistic or realizable end of the spectrum, compared with the more extreme fantasy of science fiction” (27). This move follows, in part, from his commitment to the enhanced sociability model of utopianism; he wants to exclude science fiction narratives because, on his account, they do not engage extensively with this topic. As such, they are not serious instances of utopianism. I am not persuaded by this boundary-work.