You Can Add Up the Parts, You Won’t Have the Sum

Abstract

Matt Huber’s Climate Change as Class War offers a compelling ecosocialist strategy for achieving energy transition and social transformation by way of class struggle. Its critique of the strategic emphasis on knowledge and individualised guilt is persuasive. Its proposed focus on organising among energy workers is suggestive. However, on two related points, it misses the mark. First, its attack on degrowth as a form of ideology is tendentious. Second, its effort to ground struggle in ‘objective class interests’ fails to cohere. By addressing these two points, the proposed strategy will become more viable, and the relationship to degrowth activists more productive.