Mark Burton describes himself as an Independent Scholar-Activist who explores the relationships between economy, environment and social justice in the context of the Manchester city region, and how we can take the first steps towards and post-growth society and economy. He is a member of the colective Steady State Manchester (SSM) and the author of In Place of Growth, and much of The Viable Economy (2014), The Viable Economy … and Society (2020) and Policies for the City Region (2017) and edited the collection of works by SSM, A Viable Future (2021). He used to work as a research and clinical psychologist and a senior manager in health and social care services for disabled adults. On this interview, we talk to him about his work as coordinator of the Getting Real initiative and about degrowth in Manchester and the United Kingdom.
Elena Martín: Can you explain the Getting Real movement and when and why was it born for the people in Spain that maybe do not know about it?
Mark Burton: Getting real is an initiative within the DegrowthUK network, an informal network of people interested in, working on, or promoting degrowth.
In Spring, 2023, we knew that a general election was soon to be called and believed that there needed to be a coherent, comprehensive statement about the degrowth alternative to the dominant growthism of the main political parties, and indeed throughout British society.
There was initial interest and a working group was established which met online: we planned to have a face to face writing day. Unfortunately the loss of some key members, due to various unforseen personal events, meant that it was a much smaller group that actually did the work, and we weren’t able to arrange a face to face event.
A further problem was that the general election was called early so we weren’t able to launch the report in time. In any case we had decided not to restrict the focus of the work on the general election but to launch as a resource for the medium term – more about this later.
Nevertheless we did get the advisory input from a number of policy experts in various areas covered by the report, and it has been disseminated among potentially sympathetic networks, including to approximately 50 parliamentarians whose stances have been consistent with at least some elements of our approach, and a number of key influencers of policy and politics nationally.
The response from the degrowth movement has actually been disappointing, with a few exceptions, there has simply been little interest and use made of the work we have done, despite it being the most comprehensive statement available on what degrowth might look like at the UK national level.
EM: It is focused on the UK, but I think it can be extrapolated to almost any other country. Do you think we are in an ecological, political and social world crisis?
MB: Undoubtedly. The signs are all around us, from the indicators of planetary heating and ecosystem collapse, to the conjoint social, political and economic crises and disasters that fill the news. We are unnervingly on track for the multiple systems collapse foreseen by the Limits to Growth report more than 50 years ago. Typically there is still the arrogance in the richer countries to assume that it won’t much affect us, or that is something for our grandchildren to worry about, but actually it is here now – a country like the UK is so dependent on transnational supply chains, so exposed to economic shocks and so connected to the Washington-dominated war machine, that it is very much a matter of concern to us. My friends in the global South are experiencing severe environmental stress, in cities such as Manaus and Cape Town and of course we see almost unprecedented levels of barbarity in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar and so on.
EM: In the UK, you say no political party has a serious intention to address this pancrisis, it is time for the society to stand up and do something to reverse this situation? Can you talk briefly about the Stop the Damage proposals for this?
MB: We don’t think it is feasible for civil society actors to do this alone, or even en masse, since ultimately it will require action from government / the state. So the question is, how can influence be brought to bear on the state apparatus.
There are several ways and they are discussed in the literature on strategy and degrowth. In that we have to understand the state, whether national, local, or transnational, as a contestable terrain, that while dominated by powerful sectional interests, is not entirely closed – there are multiple opportunities, that vary over time in their openness, for influence.
Two things I would add to that are an emphasis on building counter-hegemonic blocs, a la Gramsci, and political education or conscientisation, a la Paulo Freire.
The first entails building a vision of an alternative that multiple actors and sectors can identify with. That is done through the kind of work we do, to articulate the alternative in a well-researched, rigorous way, as well as through struggles at the multiple points of conflict that the hegemonic growthist accumulation model generates, and also through the on-the-ground practical projects that demonstrate another way. That’s a huge task, so we need to be clear about our own role in that, somewhat opportunistically acting as a resource to the movement of movements and framing / reframing ideas, concerns, issues and demands within the counter-hegemonic ideology of managed, equitable, degrowth. In our own practice in Manchester, this is very much what we do, supporting key campaigns on things as diverse as public transport, divestment of public funds from fossil fuels, and the protection of green spaces and nature, while also exploring, critiquing and producing policy proposals. As small activist groups we have to work together, collaborating on the things we agree on.
The second is an area that is often neglected: if change is to happen, then people need to have their own understanding of social and political reality, not that received from a combination of official propaganda and via the ideological embodiment of capitalist relations in everyday life. It means de-ideologising reality, that is to read the world and not the appearances we are presented with – last year we ran a workshop called Pulling Things Apart, using objects brought to the repair cafe as the basis for an exploration about the nature of the manufactured goods we tend to take for granted.
What are these things made from? Where did those materials come from and how were they processed? Who did the extraction and processing? Who put made the items and where? How did they get to us? How durable are they? Where and how do they fail? Can they be fixed? What happens to them at the end of their useful life? The session explored some of these questions by means of a facilitated, open-ended discussion. We couldn’t answer all the above questions but mapping the extent of our knowledge, and ignorance, was itself revealing. That is one example of an alternative way of doing that necessary political education, that has been so lacking.
EM: And, apart from this pancrisis, now there is a genocide in Gaza, there are talks about a possible new World War and all over the world far right extremist parties are winning elections. Is this related to the other crisis? How can we address this? Do you think it is possible for common people to stop this situation?
MB: I think my response to the previous question partly answers this, but the relevance of mass demonstrations, direct action, and work through the legal system to challenge violations of human rights and international law, also play an important part.
EM: At the same time, people are getting in trouble for trying to report this reality. What do you think about the fact that many activists for the climate and even scientists are being treated as terrorists for, for example, throwing paint to famous paintings and, at the same time, CEOs of big corporations (or Governments) do not suffer any consequences for their actions?
MB: In a way it shows the strains that the dominant system is experiencing. The more fragile it, and the position of those in positions of power, become, the more repressive it will be when challenged. We see this manifestation of the empire fighting back in many ways, from the examples you mentioned to the neutralisation of what was a potential challenge and alternative to the UK political system from the left, in the form of the radical leadership (and supportive grassroots movement) of the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. The establishment successfully mobilised to use propaganda, misinformation and manipulation to destroy the chances of that political moment.
EM: Another good point of your manifesto is when you talk about the need for the UK to recognise and make good historic injustices in terms of climate finance, compensating those countries whose natural resources and/or labour fuelled UK industrial development. Can you talk more about this?
MB: It isn’t just a matter of the expropriation of resources and value from those countries but also the disproporionate responsibility of the UK for the climate crisis. As the first industrial country, the UK has been emitting high levels of greenhouse gases for some 200 years, we no longer have much industry but we still use the extracted value and resources to maintain high material and energy consumption, creating the climate and ecological emergency. We aren’t he only country with responsibilities of course. So the moral responsibility is both to compensate for what has been, and still is, effectively a robbery, and to compensate for the damage done, in both the industrial and post-industrial eras via carbon pollution. In Getting Real, we set out the issues and review proposals for making amends, so enabling the poorer countries to take climate action while improving and protecting living standards.
EM: What is clear is that we have to stop growing and stealing the resources from other countries, right?
MB: It’s what Ulrich Brand has called “The Imperial Way of Living”.
EM: I feel that sometimes, when people think about pregrowth, they only focus on the bad parts of it maybe because that is what interests capitalism: saying that changing our way of life is going to be terrible. Yet, on your manifesto, there are a lot of positive points and changes that can make the lives of most people much better. How would you explain this to people that do not know about it?
MB: You have to start from people’s experience, their current understanding, otherwise you are just pushing alien concepts down their throats. So, when people complain about taxes, we can engage them in conversation about a more equitable tax system, as outlined in the report. I find that people do tend to be open to the ideas if they are approached in a con-confrontational way – people want to improve their lives and we can show them how a degrowth settlement would enable that.
Of course there is a lot to overcome, as indicated above, but at root, people aren’t enjoying a consumerist, competitive, high speed and expensive lifestyle. We just have to show them why not and what would be better. Of course that does require the creation of opportunities for dialogue and that’s not always easy, especially when people have adopted highly confrontational, reactionary positions.
EM: Lately more and more people are suffering from depression and anxiety. Do you think degrowth can help our mental health too?
Yes, as indicated in the last answer, the imperial, consumerist, competitive, high octane way of living is bad for us all. It makes us insecure and encourages many to feel that they are failures. That’s the havoc that late capitalism causes in the lives of its subjects.
EM: Last month there were more than 200 people killed in Valencia because of an isolated high level depression (or DANA in Spanish). Do you think this is going to make people realise that climate crisis is not something of the future but the climate change is already here and affecting us all?
MB: There is already a generally good understanding that climate change is an issue and these events make it more immediate. We have to show the connections, the contexts, and most importantly show people that it doesn’t have to be like this, that there are ways they can take action, individually and collectively.
EM: What would you tell to people and companies that continue destroying the environment but cover it under an image of green good intentions?
MB: We just have to expose them: politely if they appear to have good intentions (for example, not everyone understands that ‘offsets’ don’t actually offset the damage) and rather savagely if they are are doing it as cynical propaganda.
EM: As a person who suffers from ecoanxiety myself, I sometimes feel that I need to focus on the positive parts too to keep on with the fight. What would you say to finish this interview on a positive note?
MB: The dominant growthist model is less and less credible, while more and more alternatives are appearing, mostly at a local level. Change can happen unpredictably and suddenly, as well as more gradually. To paraphrase Gramsci, have to keep trying, even if we remain pessimistic.
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