Terminology

This paper calls for a new paradigm for archaeology that focuses on and works toward ‘degrowth’. The argument is framed in the context of and in reaction to neo-liberalism, which Zorzin notes is a concept that resists definition. Even so, he presents it mainly in idealist terms, and actual material conditions are barely visible in Zorzin’s discussion. ‘It’ is described as a ‘doctrine,’ ‘ideology’ and ‘mindset’. Zorzin posits degrowth as a concept to replace ‘the dogmatic neo-liberal imaginary based on growth’ (p. 5).

I personally have a lot of problems with the term ‘degrowth’ and find the emphasis on degrowth as a radical action unfortunate. To be fair, my reaction is to this whole body of literature and not simply to Zorzin’s contribution. A quick Google Books Ngram Viewer for degrowth shows an explosion in the use of the term in about 2007. This literature, emerging from political-ecology and ecosocialist concerns, defines the problem as growth and is largely framed in the context of fossil-fuel-driven industrialization and the environmental devastation wrought by it. Framed this way, the concept has fostered its own growth industry in academic wrangling. Scholars have been arguing whether the problem is really the abstract concept of economic growth or the concrete reality of capital accumulation (Foster Reference Foster2011, 30). Others recognize that economic growth and its environmental devastation have equally characterized the capitalist West and the Soviet Bloc countries of the East (I cannot bring myself to refer to them as socialist!). Thus, if the problem is growth as surplus production in general rather than capitalism itself, burning issues become whether socialism is possible without growth (Kallis Reference Kallis2019; Andreucci and Engel-Di Mauri Reference Andreucci and Engel-Di Mauri2019). Others have argued that the focus on growth sidesteps other equally vital issues, such as labour, work and alienation (Barca Reference Barca, Chertkovskaya, Paulsson and Barca2019a; Brownhill Reference Brownhill, Turner and Kaara2012, Turner and Kaara). Vergara-Camus (Reference Vergara-Camus2019, 226) argues that we need to move beyond our obsession with growth and realize that ‘the problem is the need for relentless and continuous capital accumulation that the imperative of competition triggers’.

Timing is everything, and I found myself in the position of ruminating on the idea of growth during the COVID pandemic, a situation rife with capitalist contradiction. As a result, there has been a manufacturing slow-down around the world that has driven a record drop in greenhouse gas emissions. The stock market rebounded in record time and is currently experiencing continued ‘growth’. And all this is accompanied by catastrophic levels of unemployment, homelessness and poverty. Thus we are experiencing degrowth in emissions, growth of the stock market and growth of unemployment, homelessness and poverty (or degrowth in the ability of people to sustain themselves). I worry that the focus on growth reproduces a progressive, almost Malthusian trajectory that ignores, or distracts us from, the periodic crises that are endemic to capitalism and regional dispossession (see McNally Reference McNally2011). For example, I am writing this in the copper country of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, an environment littered with the ruins of the abandoned copper industry, an environment with the clearest air and cleanest water (well, except for the superfund lake sites) I have ever seen. A focus on growth begs the question: degrowth of what?

Since growth is a necessary internal condition for capitalism itself, the idea of degrowth is anathema to capitalism (including the neo-liberal form) and would actually mean a different economic system. I could not agree more with the larger goals of the degrowth movement, and once you get past the term, there are many revolutionary anti-capitalist ideas in Zorzin’s article and the literature in general. For example, Barca (Reference Barca, Chertkovskaya, Paulsson and Barca2019a, 175) talks about ‘degrowth as liberation from (waged) work’. Yes, but this means it is anti-capitalist. Zorzin argues that the degrowth movement ‘would aim for the ending of the current capitalist system and for the re-establishment of human interactions centred on a set of values such as social justice, empowerment, dignity, solidarity and collaboration, grounded in a set of possible common actions’ (p. 14). Yes, this means it is anti-capitalist. If the problem is capitalism, why are we talking about growth; why can’t we just say so? Zorzin uses the term ‘degrowth’ 60 times in this article, ‘neo-liberal’ or ‘neo-liberalism’ appears 54 times, while the word ‘capitalism’ occurs in only 6 instances not counting are in bibliographic citations. Personally, I would rather be more direct. Is it perceived as more palatable to hide behind the rhetoric of growth? Will this help people accept the message and avoid a knee-jerk reaction that anti-capitalism may engender?

Overall, I am not that worried about what you call it, but this is more than just a semantic issue. There are real consequences of this terminology that should be considered. It is just as politically dangerous not to be clear and direct, and I worry that the term ‘growth’ hides or obscures the real problem. As I noted above, the term directs our attention toward certain aspects of the totality of the capitalist system and necessarily away from others that are just as (or more?) important. We can also point to many examples where radical ideas have been neutralized and turned to ideologically serve capital. The term ‘sustainability’ is an obvious example, awash in a green corporate veneer. We should not be making this easier.

Another consequence results from the split literatures based on separate terms that narrows and limits the literature Zorzin mobilizes for his purposes. There are few bodies of literature more expansive than discussions of Marxism, socialism and serious consideration of capitalism and its alternatives. Sadly, I find little of that reflected here (Brincat (Reference Brincat2014) is a great place to start). The literature on degrowth is easy to command, and fosters a practice that I’ve started calling the ‘Google Scholar syndrome’, where a quick search gives the appearance of being thorough, while hiding the enormous bodies of literature attempting the same thing using different terms. Should we not want to link to them? To communally produce anti-capitalist literature that helps us think about a different world? Instead, discrete keywords help insulate us in our own academically defined bubbles, resulting in a growth industry for new publications we can produce and a niche we can control. I worry that this represents a quintessentially academic exercise, well-meaning but ultimately toothless.

Archaeology

Given my concerns about the framing of this article noted above, it is not surprising that, while I do not necessarily disagree, I am equally uncomfortable with some of the suggestions and solutions Zorzin offers. Since neo-liberalism is mainly discussed in idealist terms (as a doctrine, ideology, collective psyche), many of the solutions seem to represent choices to be made by individuals. He suggests that archaeologists can participate in the degrowth movement by increasing the standards of their work, work slowdown, ‘simply by taking the time to talk to the public’ (p. 8), taking personal risks, and voluntary simplicity. Zorzin notes that these measures would likely result in not getting future contracts, closing shop or even bankruptcy, and this is ‘the unfortunate prerequisite to a refoundation’ (p. 8). But not to worry, archaeological expertise will still be necessary as long as ‘national laws continue to protect heritage’ (p. 8). He argues that a radical opposition will come necessarily with taking personal risks and with putting the entire professional archaeology community as we know it, in danger (p. 8). I admire Zorzin’s honesty, that he has made peace with the prospect of losing his job and ‘accepted its potential professional and personal consequences’ (pp. 15–16).

But these ideas grossly simplify the class realities of archaeological (and all capitalist) labour. Solidarity is great, but it is not just a personal choice and it is much more complicated than this. Most of the technicians who perform archaeological labour need that pay cheque to feed their families, not to mention pay the student loan debt they acquired to get the credentials to even qualify for these positions. Zorzin never reports the result of the 2015 mega-project where the team of archaeologists engaged in joint opposition and sabotage other than to say that the efforts were relatively successful. Was the mega-project completed? I suspect it was. As capitalists have known since its origin, labourers who can only survive by selling their labour power will always make sacrifices (even of principles) for that wage. Counterbalancing this with ‘job guarantees’ at the level of the communities and NGOs/NPOs ignores how NGOs are totally embedded in and foster capitalist (and thus growth) scenarios. Reference to a basic minimum income (BMI) or efforts to redistribute wealth takes the place of a sustained examination of capitalist class structures. But it is just as easy to argue that the idea of a basic minimum income is a method to redistribute wealth to overcome the social consequences of a world without work (underemployment, precarious employment, etc.) that have resulted from neo-liberal capitalist transformations while still allowing continued consumption after jobs are shed as automation takes over and people no longer earn wages (in other words, BMI can be seen as a redistributive method to save capitalism). Of course, none of those calling for a BMI explain why capitalists would be willing or interested in ‘sharing the wealth’ in this way (they never have before). Nor does it confront the implications of the relationship between nation states and neo-liberalism in a context of weakening state power and social welfare, or the fact that the state does not exist outside capitalist social relations.

And here is the crux of some of my discomfort – that archaeology is discussed as if it exists separate from but impacted by neo-liberalism itself. Zorzin talks about how neo-liberalism transformed archaeological practices in the 1980s and 1990s, moving the discipline toward a commercial form based on market principles. For Zorzin, degrowth represents an ‘opportunity for a return to a pre-1980s situation’ (p. 8), when, supposedly, the market (neo-liberalism, capitalism, etc.) did not control the discipline or our labour. There is violence in these abstractions (sensu Sayer Reference Sayer1987) that perpetuate facile dualisms that assumes a correct and true in opposition to what is wrong or unethical: ‘it is up to archaeologists to continue supporting the destruction of heritage for the interest of developers (corporate or state-controlled) or to refuse to play this role any longer and return frontally to political contestation, something that is unavoidable while dealing with archaeology and cultural heritage’ (p. 8). But the reality is that archaeology is the ‘child’ of capitalism and would not even exist without it. Nor would heritage, history or any abstract idea of the archaeological record. This is equally true for all of the social sciences, the idea of science in general, education and the academy itself (Wallerstein Reference Wallerstein2001; Giroux Reference Giroux2011; Chomsky Reference Chomsky2000). In other words, capitalism is internal to the very structure and practice of archaeology. As part of the internally related dialectical whole, archaeology is capitalism, so working within our disciplinary boundaries means that our work can only perpetuate and reproduce those structures. This is essentially why I find the question whether archaeology is conceivable with the degrowth movement more than a little problematic. If neo-liberalism (growth, capitalism, etc.) no longer existed, neither would archaeology.

And this leads me to my final point: that I think Zorzin has missed an opportunity to really contemplate what archaeology may look like in a world without capitalism (which is what degrowth is, after all). Since every aspect of archaeology is implicated in capitalist structures, archaeology would (hopefully) not exist as such in any form that we may recognize – the academy, CRM, NGOs, community organizations, etc. I do not think many of the ideas presented here are successful or satisfying, mainly because the framing is based on reified externally related entities, such as neo-liberalism and archaeology, that freeze complex dynamics and social relations. Rather than thinking about a ‘golden age’, in either the past or the future, that stems from facile either/or framing, I find it more useful to think about the complexity of dialectical relations that both limit and enable action. Archaeology is capitalism but has always also been against capitalism. Archaeology has always served the nation state and thwarted it at the same time. Instead of seeing the solution in terms of a scheme of temporal stages, embracing the internal dialectical connectedness allows us to see that it is both at the same time. For me, the problem is not simply ‘growth’, but how to think about post-archaeological alternatives where we can participate in creating a different life, one that is not based on the logic of capitalism, one that subverts and transforms inequalities and oppression, striving for social justice and dignity for all humans, and our ability to realize the free conscious life activity that lies at the heart of our species-being.