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Revolutionary movements come with several key advantages. Only by fighting for revolutionary transformations that present an existential threat to the existing order -for example, a world without rich people, without police, without governors, without corporations have we ever achieved important concessions. All of the labor laws, paid vacations, limited working days, rent controls, public healthcare, unemployment benefits, and safety regulations that are being chipped away year by year are the vestiges of reforms won by revolutionary movements of anarchists and communists in the first part of the twentieth century, or since then by the organizations arising from those movements and institutionalized as a way to pacify them. In other words, when we fight for revolution, we win even when we lose.

— The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos (58%)

The oppressed peoples of the world recognise each other in the first gesture of struggle and are willing to make alliances. We just have to examine our differences and work on what brings us together. There are two words of wisdom that we echo at the end of our writings and that we wanted to share here: What unites us is greater than what separates us; Peace among us, war on tyrants.

— The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos (41%)

It has become clear that cultures that have traditionally viewed the soil or water as living things are effective at preserving them, while the culture that treats soil and water as inert resources has created a planetary catastrophe in which most fertile soil has been destroyed and huge swathes of the globe are facing water shortages. No healthy response to the catastrophe is possible without acknowledging that Western civilisation is a failed civilisation, and that its notions should be interrogated in light of its consequences.

— The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos (22%)

To sum up, we cannot look at climate change alone, because the emission of greenhouse gases is directly affected by innumerable other ecological processes, and the ability of the planet and its inhabitants to adapt to the warming, desertification, and sea level rise already under way depends on the health of ecosystems, the presence or absence of specific species, and the impacts of human economic practices, knowledge systems, and legal regimes. Following this thread, every aspect of the ecological crisis is caused by certain practices of human socioeconomic systems, each of which replaced other human socioeconomic practices as part of the global process of colonialism. Some of those suppressed practices constitute effective forms of ecological stewardship that harmonize the needs of the ecosystem and the needs of its human community for health, happiness, and freedom.

— The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos (10%)

Those who currently hold power in our society, those who have failed us tragically, do not have our interests at heart, nor those of the planet. And in fact, our interests and the interests of the earth are one and the same. We do not know how disastrous these next decades will be. But there is one certainty that can give us hope and courage: there is not a single scenario in which taking action, in defense of ourselves, in defense of one another, in defense of all the interconnected life on this planet, will not make things better.

— The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos (5%)

But if we truly wish to challenge capitalism, we must redefine abundance in such a way that it cannot be confused with capitalistic consumerism. We should stop betting our future on the possibility that exponential growth in technological development will take care of things for us, exempting us from the need to modify our mode of living. Rather, we must change our mode of living so we can discover new forms of abundance. In short, we must break the link between economic growth and abundance and think seriously about how abundance can be linked to degrowth. We must face reality in our call for a new abundance. If we do, we'll notice something right away. The world undergoes 'structural reforms' over and over to foster growth, and yet the results are always the same: gaps widen between the rich and poor, and rates of both poverty and austerity increase. The fact is, the wealth held by the twenty-six richest capitalists in the world is equivalent to the total assets belonging to the world's poorest 3.8 billion people (nearly half the world's population). Can this be a coincidence? Surely not - we should think of it the following way. We usually think of capitalism as something that provides wealth and abundance, but the truth is quite the opposite. Capitalism is a system that functions by producing scarcity.

— Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō (Page 148)

We must bring about a free, equal, just and sustainable society that overcomes class divides of exploitation and domination and that radically revolutionizes labour. This is the true face of degrowth for a new generation.

— Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō (Page 85 - 86)

Under capitalism, we have consistently sought to raise the GDP in the belief that economic growth brings prosperity to everyone. Yet this prosperity has yet to arrive for the average person. In truth, the GDP is an extremely superficial indicator developed around a hundred years ago, and one that has enormous statistical limitations. Given how much we've progressed since then, why are we still allowing ourselves to be manipulated by this crude measure? As its antithesis, degrowth emphasizes forms of prosperity and quality of life that aren't necessarily reflected in the GDP. Degrowth is a transition from quantity (growth) to quality (flourishing). It's a grand plan to transform the economy to a model that prioritizes the shrinking of the economic gap, the expansion of social security and the maximization of free time, all while respecting planetary boundaries. Therefore, if new coal-burning plants continue to be built, as they are in Japan, degrowth is not taking place. If growth is stalling but the gap between the rich and the poor is still widening, degrowth is not taking place. Even if production shrinks, the resulting rise in unemployment is a far cry from 'maximizing free time'. What needs to be reduced is the number of SUVs and the amount of beef and fast fashion being consumed, not funding for education, social security and the arts.

— Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō (Page 84)

The Imperial Mode of Living refers, essentially, to the societies of the Global North that rely on large-scale production and consumption. This is what makes our rich lifestyle possible. Beneath this surface, there exists a structure by which the cost of our consumption is extracted from the lands and labour of the people of the Global South. Without the exploitation of others who pay the cost, the Imperial Mode of Living would be unsustainable. Lowering the standard of living for those in the Global South is a prerequisite for the workings of capitalism, and the power imbalance between North and South is no anomaly - it is, in fact, a result of the system functioning normally.

We experience this way of life as desirable, though, and are loath to give it up. If we were to acknowledge the state of things in the Global South, we would be forced to lower our own standard of living. Our way of life is, in fact, a terrible thing. We are all complicit in the Imperial Mode of Living.

— Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō (Page 9)