As a scholar who is something of a theoretical and ideological bricoleur, taking bits and pieces that appear useful from many political projects and areas of scholarly enquiry, it is always gratifying to see other people coming to similar materials and arriving at similar conclusions. It suggests not only that one is on the right track, but importantly with projects like degrowth, that there are fellow travellers with whom to converse, discuss and debate across overlapping fields of theory and practice. As Zorzin points out in the discussion above, one of the issues facing the field is how to arrive at imagined utopian (or ‘atopian’) futures from what looks like an increasingly dystopian present.

The degrowth conversation in archaeology features many areas of clear overlap with anarchist archaeologies (Black Trowel Collective 2016; Flexner and Gonzalez-Tennant Reference Flexner and Gonzalez-Tennant2018; Rathbone Reference Rathbone2017), which are themselves a utopian project. Both degrowth and anarchism propose a resistance, deconstruction or destruction of capitalism and simultaneously of the state mechanisms that enable it. Both would generally propose a shift towards more collegial and convivial ways of living, in which people autonomously choose their own associations, forms of labour and means of exchange within an environment of freely constituted and independent collectives. As with the degrowth movement, there are, of course, innumerable disagreements about how these things are to be accomplished, but at the least there are largely overlapping visions for the kinds of future societies we might construct within the shells of those crumbling around us.

Another source of wisdom hinted at in Zorzin’s paper that bears further unpacking is the notion of ‘decolonization’ in archaeology (e.g. Menzies and Wilson Reference Menzies and Wilson2020; Smith and Jackson Reference Smith and Jackson2006) not only of minds, but of the very economies and societies that we participate in. One possible route towards decolonization is to engage with knowledge produced by indigenous scholars of the areas where we happen to be located,Footnote ¹ and where we do our work, if those two things are not in the same place. For example, Bruce Pascoe’s (2014) book Dark emu, despite providing some technical nits to pick from an archaeologist’s perspective, provides a fascinating vision for an Australia where Country (not only environmental ‘resources’ but a variety of human and non-human actors) is looked after appropriately, and in which Indigenous knowledge and heritage are properly respected. Pascoe’s observations concerning pre-European agriculture, marine resource management and even ‘urbanism’ in Aboriginal Australia would be important to integrate into any visions of degrowth in this continent. Considering the diversity of Aboriginal cultures, pathways to degrowth would be as many and varied as the environments, languages and cosmologies encompassing the many expressions of the Indigenous concept of Country.

In the Pacific Islands, where I do most of my fieldwork, there are likewise deep and varied traditions to take into account in any local proposals about degrowth, from the kapu system of Hawaii, to the thousands of traditional ways of life expressed under the umbrella of kastom in Island Melanesia. Archaeologists are often, though not always (e.g. Kawelu and Pakele Reference Kawelu and Pakele2014; Willie Reference Willie, Leclerc and Flexner2019), outsiders in these environments (see Flexner Reference Flexner2018). Zorzin calls for ‘civil disobedience’ as an element of a degrowth-oriented archaeology. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, archaeologists are on the wrong side of the barricades when indigenous communities stand up to attempt to defend their heritage. Many archaeologists, I imagine, worry about their livelihoods, while others, particularly non-white archaeologists, are rightfully fearful of becoming the targets of state violence in the support of capital. Nonetheless, for those in a position to speak out or be present in spaces where clashes between indigenous communities and capitalism emerge, from Standing Rock, to Mauna Kea, to Juukan Gorge, to not get involved is a missed opportunity. This is not to say that archaeologists should seek to control or dominate these scenarios, but to use relatively privileged positions where appropriate to challenge the mechanisms and actors that constitute institutions of power in the neo-liberal order, whether physically or intellectually – ‘accomplices rather than allies’, as the common phrase goes.

What I want to focus on now is the question of how we get to there, from here. This is the chorus that inevitably emerges from people who see no possible alternative to the social order we have now (see Fisher Reference Fisher2009) whenever an alternative such as degrowth is put forward. What concrete steps can be taken in the present? Who drives the process? Have you considered … (insert any number of possibilities that are complicated and difficult to prognosticate about)? One of the biggest questions people often have about movements like degrowth (and anarchism, for that matter) is what happens to all of the superstructural mechanisms that enforce a certain kind of order: state governments, militaries, police, private security firms? In short, what to do with power and violence in a more equitable future? The neo-liberal order that Zorzin lays out in stark contrast is not going to surrender without a fight, and these elements of society will be a part of the dynamic. Archaeologists at present rarely engage directly with the superstructure of our own society, aside from arranging lucrative contracts with major corporations and capitalist developers or following whatever mechanisms the state requires for ‘managing’ its heritage. Perhaps this is as it should be, particularly if the degrowth proposal is a ‘bottom-up’ and voluntary process. But we still need to be cognizant of what the top is doing, even as we organize from below, since our organizing might have to adapt depending on the future we find ourselves in.

Futures are highly unpredictable, particularly when it comes to imagining large-scale societal arrangements, as Asimov did with ‘psychohistory’ in his Foundation series. Using a combination of observations of contemporary trends, and broad readings of science fiction, Peter Frase (Reference Frase2016) has crafted a reasonably compelling account in his book Four futures. Life after capitalism. Rather than attempting to identify ‘the’ future, Frase offers four possibilities, and in reality elements of all four will probably be a part of whatever futures humanity lives through in the near and distant times ahead.

The four futures Frase identifies are based on the question whether societies become more equal in their power relationships, or whether existing power structures are entrenched and expanded, and whether resources and therefore material wealth are relatively abundant or relatively scarce in the context of changing planetary dynamics. Frase’s four possibilities are:

• Communism (equality/abundance). Inspired partly by the Star Trek universe, in this scenario resources are plentiful and easily accessible for all. Because material needs are universally, and in many cases basically instantly, met, people focus on the pursuits of knowledge, creative expression and exploration. Cultural capital rather than consumerism confers prestige and value on individuals and organizations.

• Socialism (equality/scarcity). In this version of society a planetary collapse has led to a forced degrowth. Human activities largely revolve around repurposing the existing material ruins of capitalism for the purposes of survival. Paradoxically, human existence in such a scenario involves a high degree of autonomy and freedom of choice. A science fiction correlate is Kim Stanley Robinson’s California trilogy, particularly the novel Pacific edge, which apparently would have been Robinson’s preferred universe to inhabit of all the different ones he created, given the option.

• Rentism (hierarchy/abundance). Technological solutions have solved basically all of humanity’s resource problems, but neo-liberalism has adapted to retain a measure of control over the social order. Capital now rests largely in the area of intellectual property (for example, particular trademarks or 3D printing patterns), which is fiercely and violently protected. Elements of this are already present in contemporary society in the form of shell corporations whose sole purpose is to submit specious patent lawsuits, or academic publishers who threaten legal action against scholars for attempting to share their own work, phenomena which in future could be managed by artificial intelligences, streamlining the process.

• Exterminism (hierarchy/scarcity). The most cynical and dystopic outcome sees the wealthy and powerful realizing that once technical solutions to resource problems have reached a certain level, the majority of human labour and therefore human beings are simply disposable according to neo-liberal logics. The rich retreat to palaces in the sky or sea, as demonstrated in the television series 3%, and the rest are left to eke out a living in slums, rubbish dumps and ruins.

All of these scenarios are, of course, imaginary, and none of them is likely to emerge in a straightforward way. However, they provide some useful alternatives for thinking through degrowth, and archaeology’s role in it. They also suggest some of the forms that power is likely to take in each possibility. The kinds of strategy Zorzin identifies – civil disobedience, voluntary simplicity, redistribution process – will need to be adapted to the kind of future people are living in. How badly will climate change ravage the planet and how difficult will survival be for human communities at a variety of scales? Are societies able to redistribute power to encourage the kinds of autonomous, relatively small collectives degrowth envisions, or does the ruling class use its monopoly on large-scale violence to prohibit the flourishing of new forms of social organization (the result being an extension of a kind of militant neo-liberalism)?

One common element in the four futures is the idea of ruins and rubbish as a key feature of future human endeavours. With recent reports that there is more anthropogenic mass than biomass on the planet (Elhacham et al. Reference Elhacham, Ben-Uri, Grovoski, Bar-On and Milo2020), at some point degrowth societies will be picking through the remains of our era to fulfil a variety of material and economic needs. As the discipline best developed to deal with the detritus of past human societies, documenting, systematizing, categorizing, sorting, interpreting and in some cases repurposing, archaeology surely has a role to play in a future living with the ruins of capitalism.

Depending on the form of future societies, archaeologists’ skills and roles might take a variety of forms. We might exist as shadowy saboteurs, subverting the surveillance systems of the powerful to scavenge for valuable resources to contribute to our communities. We might be masters of the rubbish tip, mapping and identifying resources among the enormous piles of artefacts from the current era. We could serve as expert cultural recyclers, applying knowledge in how to systematically dismantle, identify and explain what objects from a partial and fragmentary material record were in their original context, and what they might mean or be used for in a future context. Archaeology might become something of a universal discipline for humanity, as the skills to understand and manipulate the remains of a growth society emerge as a necessity for the practices and processes of degrowth.

Whatever future people end up with, clearly archaeology and archaeologists have a major opportunity to add degrowth to our theoretical and methodological toolkits to contribute to the communities we live in, whether they be local, scholarly, or indigenous, in the present and looking ahead to many possible futures.