Notes on “Prosperity without Growth” by Tim Jackson:

  • Prosperity: ability of human society to flourish within ecological limits
  • Rich get richer, poor get poorer
  • How – and for how long is continued growth possible without coming up against the ecological limits?
  • Financial and ecological sustainability are intimately linked
  • Two critical factors that limit our capability to live well:
    • finite nature of resources
    • the global population
      • the larger the global popn. the faster we hit the “ecological buffers”
  • Consumption drives growth, growth and technological progress drives consumption.
  • “Efficiency” can actually drive growth forwards. Efficiency brings down the cost of goods over time which has the counter-intuitive effect of stimulating demand and promoting growth.
  • Technological efficiency is both an outcome from and a fundamental driver of economic growth
  • Joseph Schumpeter – novelty and innovation are vital in driving economic growth
  • Novelty is linked to the symbolic role that consumer goods play in our lives
  • We need to identify opportunities for change within society – ie. changes in values, changes in lifestyles, changes in social structure – which will free us from the damaging social logic of consumerism
  • There is little resilience within the current system – once the economy starts to falter, feedback mechanisms push the economy in the opposite direction toward recession
  • A sustainable economy must be capable of resisting the external shocks
  • Fixing the economy is only part of the problem. We need to address the social logic of consumerism.
  • “Intentional communities”:
    • Findhorn community in northern Scotland
    • Plum Village
    • Downshifting Downunder
  • Structures and values that dominate society affect people’s behaviour and their ability to “behave sustainably”
    • We need change in the social structure to help shift people’s values and behaviours. Structural changes of 2 kinds are needed at the core of any strategy to address the social logic of consumerism:
      • to dismantle or correct the incentives for unsustainable status competition
      • to establish new structures that enable people to flourish and participate fully in society in less materialistic ways
    • Need balance between “altruism” and “selfishness”. Where this balance is depends on social structure
      • ie. social structures that favour altruism and tradition, self-transcending behaviours are rewarded and selfish behaviour may even be penalised
    • Need changes in underlying social structure which require governments to act. However govts have systematically promoted materialistic individualism and encouraged the pursuit of consumer novelty because that’s what it takes to keep the economy afloat.
  • Assymetry between people’s values and social world around them
    • People find themselves at odds with their own social world. People are trying to live, quite literally, in opposition to the structures and values that dominate society.
      • ie. govts sending “wrong signals” to the public (pg 151)
      • even highly-motivated individuals experience conflict as they attempt to escape consumerism
    • Changing the social logic of consumption cannot simply be relegated to the individual – we need to put in place changes in the social structure
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