Jonas Elvander is the editor of foreign affairs at the Swedish socialist magazine Flamman and a PhD researcher in history at the European University Institute in Florence.
Karl Marx’s anti-utopian line is often used to avoid discussion about what socialism would be like. But engaging in the nuts and bolts of how a postcapitalist economy might work is also necessary, to make it more than a distant dream.
Proponents of degrowth rightly argue that free market capitalism is threatening the planet. But pushing austerity on workers in either the Global South or the Global North is no way to achieve a just, sustainable future.