Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

There is now a fast-growing list of alternative metrics, including the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and the Genuine Progress Indicator, both of which set out to correct GDP for social and ecological costs. And this new thinking is beginning to trickle into policy too. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern captured headlines in 2019 w

‘GDP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country … it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.’

We need to be able to specify growth for whom, and for what ends. We must learn to ask: where does the money go? Who benefits from it? In an era of ecological breakdown, are we really content to accept an economy where nearly a quarter of total output goes into the pockets of millionaires?

the claims about the putative relationship between growth and human progress are just an alibi. Of course, they hope that growth will end up improving the incomes of the poor, and in so doing pacify social conflict. After all, elite accumulation is more politically palatable if the incomes of the poor are rising too. But this strategy cannot be sus

by ideology I mean in the technical sense: a set of ideas promoted by the dominant class, which serves their material interests, and which everybody else has internalised to such an extent that they are willing to go along with a system they might otherwise reject as unjust. The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci has called this ‘cultural hegemony

It means, following the example of states like Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Kerala, investing in robust universal social policy to guarantee healthcare, education, water, housing, social security.

Instead of pursuing growth for its own sake and hoping that it will magically improve people’s lives, the goal must be to focus on improving people’s lives first and foremost – and if that requires or entails economic growth, then so be it. In other words, organise the economy around the needs of humans and ecology, rather than the other way around

The richest 10% of the world’s population are responsible for more than half of the world’s total carbon emissions since 1990.

The data on this is clear: people who live in highly unequal societies are more likely to shop for luxury brands than people who live in more equal societies.21 We keep buying more stuff in order to feel better about ourselves, but it never works because the benchmark against which we measure the good life is pushed perpetually out of reach by the