세르주 라투슈와 탈성장의 선순환 - 불가역적 전환의 논리는 어떠해야 하나?
세르주 라투슈는 잘 알려진 탈성장론을 대표하는 학자인데 간단히 생태사회주의로 가자고 주장하지는 않는다. 의외로 전환과정에서 일어날 수 있는 혼란에 대해 언급하고 있다. 중요한 지적으로 들린다. 그러면서도 '탈성장의 선순환'을 위한 대안적 개혁 패키지를 제시한다. 탈성장론자들에서 많이 보는 기본소득에 대한 언급도 없다. 라투슈의 이 견해가 최근까지도 유지되고 있는지 확인이 필요하다.
Serge Latouche, “The globe downshifted” (2006)라는 글에서 -
“A society based on economic contraction cannot exist under capitalism. But capitalism is a deceptively simple word for a long, complex history. Getting rid of the capitalists and banning wage labour, currency and private ownership of the means of production would plunge society into chaos. It would bring large- scale terrorism. It would still not be enough to destroy the market mentality. We need to find another way out of development, economism (a belief in the primacy of economic causes or factors) and growth: one that does not mean forsaking the social institutions that have been annexed by the economy (currency, markets, even wages) but reframes them according to different principles.”
"A number of simple, apparently anodyne measures would be enough to set the virtuous circles of degrowth (탈성장의 선순환) in motion (8). A reformist transition programme, of just a few points, could be arrived at simply by drawing some commonsense conclusions from our diagnosis of the problem. We should -
1) Reduce our ecological footprint so that it is equal to or less than the sum of Earth’s resources. That means bringing material production back down to the levels of the 1960s and 1970s.
2) Internalise transport costs.
3) Relocalise all forms of activity.
4) Return to small-scale farming.
5) Stimulate the production of “relational goods”(관계재) - activities that depend on strong interpersonal relationships, such as babysitting, caring for the bereaved or terminally ill, massage, even psychoanalysis, whether traded commercially or not, rather than on the exploitation of resources.
6) Reduce energy waste by three-quarters.
7) Heavily tax advertising expenditure.
8) Decree a moratorium on technological innovation, pending an in-depth assessment of its achievements and a reorientation of scientific and technical research according to new aspirations.
Key to this programme is the internalisation of external diseconomies(외부불경제의 내부화) - those costs incurred by the activity of one player but borne by the community at large (such as all those related to pollution). This idea is ostensibly in full keeping with orthodox economics. But it would clear the way towards a degrowth society. It would place the costs of our social and environmental problems on the books of the companies responsible for them. Imagine the impact that this would have: if businesses had to accept the costs of the transport, security, unemployment and education that their functioning requires (not to mention the costs of their environmental impact), then our societies would start to function differently. These reformist measures, whose principles were outlined in the early 20th century by the liberal economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, would bring about a revolution.
(Le Monde Diplomatique, January 2006)
*라투슈와 TAKIS FOTOPOULOS의 논쟁 참고. 또한 존 벨라미 포스터는 라투슈의 견해를 개량주의라고 비판.