Prosperity without Growth?

The UK's Sustainable Development Commission has released a major new report: 'Prosperity without Growth?: the transition to a sustainable economy'. Fuller details at this address. Reproduced here under the SDC's Creative Commons Licence.

The economy is geared, above all, to economic growth. Economic policy in the current recession is all about returning to growth – but an economic crisis can be an opportunity for some basic rethinking and restructuring.

Two objectives other than growth – sustainability and wellbeing – have moved up the political and policy-making agenda in recent years, challenging the overriding priority traditionally given to economic growth.

SDC's "Redefining Prosperity" project has looked into the connections and conflicts between sustainability, growth, and wellbeing.

As part of a two year programme of work, we commissioned thinkpieces, organised seminars, and invited feedback. This project has now resulted in a major SDC report: 'Prosperity without Growth?: the transition to a sustainable economy' by Professor Tim Jackson, SDC’s Economics Commissioner. Prosperity without growth? analyses the relationship between growth and the growing environmental crisis and 'social recession'. In the last quarter of a century, while the global economy has doubled, the increased in resource consumption has degraded an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems. The benefits of growth have been distributed very unequally, with a fifth of the world’s population sharing just 2% of global income. Even in developed countries, huge gaps remain in wealth and well-being between rich and poor.

While modernising production and reducing the impact of certain goods and services have led to greater resource efficiency in recent decades, our report finds that current aspirations for 'decoupling' environmental impacts from economic growth are unrealistic. The report finds no evidence as yet of decoupling taking place on anything like the scale or speed which would be required to avoid increasing environmental devastation.

Prosperity without growth? proposes twelve steps towards a sustainable economy and argues for a redefinition of "prosperity" in line with evidence about what contributes to people’s wellbeing.

SDC intends to generate discussion and debate on the challenges on the issues that Prosperity without Growth? raises. We have sent the report to the Prime Minister, government leaders in the devolved administrations, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other government ministers, as well as business and civil society leaders.

The following is the Foreword to the report. You can download the whole report from the url at the top (3MB pdf). Well worth reading the whole thing.

Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.

This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems.

For the most part, we avoid the stark reality of these numbers. The default assumption is that – financial crises aside – growth will continue indefinitely. Not just for the poorest countries, where a better quality of life is undeniably needed, but even for the richest nations where the cornucopia of material wealth adds little to happiness and is beginning to threaten the foundations of our wellbeing.

The reasons for this collective blindness are easy enough to find. The modern economy is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. When growth falters – as it has done recently – politicians panic. Businesses struggle to survive. People lose their jobs and sometimes their homes. A spiral of recession looms. Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries.

But question it we must. The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. It has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival. It has failed, spectacularly, in its own terms, to provide economic stability and secure people’s livelihoods.

Today we find ourselves faced with the imminent end of the era of cheap oil, the prospect (beyond the recent bubble) of steadily rising commodity prices, the degradation of forests, lakes and soils, conflicts over land use, water quality, fishing rights and the momentous challenge of stabilising concentrations of carbon in the global atmosphere. And we face these tasks with an economy that is fundamentally broken, in desperate need of renewal.

In these circumstances, a return to business as usual is not an option. Prosperity for the few founded on ecological destruction and persistent social injustice is no foundation for a civilised society.

Economic recovery is vital. Protecting people’s jobs – and creating new ones – is absolutely essential. But we also stand in urgent need of a renewed sense of shared prosperity. A commitment to fairness and flourishing in a finite world.

Delivering these goals may seem an unfamiliar or even incongruous task to policy in the modern age. The role of government has been framed so narrowly by material aims, and hollowed out by a misguided vision of unbounded consumer freedoms. The concept of governance itself stands in urgent need of renewal.

But the current economic crisis presents us with a unique opportunity to invest in change. To sweep away the short-term thinking that has plagued society for decades. To replace it with considered policy capable of addressing the enormous challenge of delivering a lasting prosperity.

For at the end of the day, prosperity goes beyond material pleasures. It transcends material concerns.

It resides in the quality of our lives and in the health and happiness of our families. It is present in the strength of our relationships and our trust in the community. It is evidenced by our satisfaction at work and our sense of shared meaning and purpose.

It hangs on our potential to participate fully in the life of society.

Prosperity consists in our ability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological limits of a finite planet. The challenge for our society is to create the conditions under which this is possible. It is the most urgent task of our times.

Tim Jackson, Economics Commissioner, Sustainable Development Commission, March 2009

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On maritime metaphors and sustainable development

Submitted by Anthony Nolan on May 20, 2009 - 2:27pm.

I have been reading this thread with increasing mirth especially derived from Paul Morrella's contributions of which more below. I am especially amused because it is increasingly clear that the educated middle classes are abandoning their old class allegiances in favour of exercising their own political authority towards sustaining a habitable planet. I see this development as a payoff for many years of activism by armies of people prepared to cop the abuse and ridicule directed towards those who criticised industrial capitalism as a culture of death and an unsustainable way to live. The middle classes are immensely powerful and their political leadership will be welcome from here on in.

To illustrate my point here is part of the profile of one of the commissioners for the UK Sustainable Development Commission (linked above to thread article). One Professor Alan Knight OBE:

He is currently the Independent Sustainable Development Advisor to the Virgin Group, Body Shop and has advised companies such as Coca Cola, Prudential, Fortnum and Mason and Wyevale Garden Centres.

He certainly doesn't sound like a person averse to making a quid now does he, Paul?

In the meantime, as we discover how like a lifeboat the Earth really is and exactly what it means to be all in it together, one amongst our number is determined to behave like Captain Ahab whom I now quote:

Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Starbuck, of course, realising that Ahab is barking effing mad cites the rules of the company association which are that:

A captain who, from private motives, employs his vessel for another purpose from that intended by the owners, is answerable to the charge of usurpation, and his crew is morally and legally entitled to employ forceful means in wresting his command from him.

There is the message for the ruling classes and their lickspittles. Take heed, Paul.

Stealing from future generations

Submitted by John Pratt on May 20, 2009 - 9:09am.

Sustainable development is defined as “Paths of economic and social progress that meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generationsto fulfill their own needs.” It might help to compare it with most people’s goal for retirement savings: ideally, they would like to be able to accumulate enough “principal” that when they do reach retirement age, the interest from that principal is enough to live on. Otherwise, if they have to dip into their principal, they might run out of funds before they die.
If we’re living “sustainably” in terms of the Earth’s resources, we’re living off the earth’s “interest” and not touching her “principal:” that is, we’re using resources only as fast as they are able to be renewed. The fact is, however, that we’ve been dipping into our planet’s “principal” for about three decades now. Obviously, this is NOT sustainable!

As we chew up all available resources and pollute the planet to the point of extinction we give little thought to future generations. It is about time we took responsibility for our actions. Not only are we condemning billions to starvation, we are also threatening our grandchildren and their children.

Continual growth is impossible and if we continue with this folly we will condemn generations following us to a diminished life.

This one really goes the extra distance

Submitted by Paul Morrella on May 19, 2009 - 10:15pm.

Jay Somasundaram, I read the whole report, pdf, twice. I couldn't believe it the first time.

It's contemptible.

This report wasn't written for your everyday environmental cheering mook. They wouldn't get it. It's a little more insidious than that.

I believe a natural crime in profession is to allow oneself to pass, without firstly passing on one's learned knowledge. After all, someone once past knowledge to us. Somebody, somewhere taught this guy the basics of his craft. At least in one instance proving my belief optimistic.

This guy would know this fantasy will never come to pass. One being an asshole, doesn't automatically make one a fool. It'll get coverage though, and lots of it. And that means tour time.

This prick's staple diet will be down at the local pleb comprehensive school. Yeah, he'll probably grab a couple of tally-ho names for the show (as if it'll matter if they listen or not). No, his best work will done talking some "over reaching pleb" (in a 80% fail rate area), hopefully out of evil finance or equivalent, or at worst carrying a bucket lot guilt for any future "evil" success.

These nut-jobs may have even come to believe in their holy mission, who knows. One thing for sure he at least won't be around to survey any future damage.

Rest easy pal, the world will be dead by then. Just keep telling yourself that.

Let us pray

Submitted by Paul Morrella on May 19, 2009 - 7:28pm.

John Pratt: "Let say we are all in a life boat. If half the people on the boat decide to eat ninety percent of the food what do you think the other people on the boat are going to do? They will mutiny!"

We're not in a lifeboat.

Once, socialists attempted to prove how their economics would be good for at least some people. Seems they gave up on trying sell the economic benefits. Now it's fear all the way. It's now apocalypse for big government.

"Unless we move to a sustainable economy we will all sink."

In my most simple terms: you don't need to live like a bum to survive. And living like a bum isn't going to save anyone, anywhere. And demanding others needlessly accept the life of a hobo isn't an attractive quality. And if that's the socialist grand plan, I don't blame them taking up on the apocalypse fetish.

We are all in the same boat

Submitted by John Pratt on May 20, 2009 - 8:44am.

Paul, believe it or not the Earth is our lifeboat.

Like a ship at sea our Earth moves through the hostile vastness of space, and like a ship we are all in the same boat. If Earth’s life sustaining ecological systems fail we will all perish. On the Titanic the rich as well as the poor died. Today we are taxing the ability of our Earth to support the multitude of persons on board. It is becoming increasingly important that we make wise decisions. If Economics could place a valid long-term value on the environmental systems and living creatures living on our Earth perhaps this would be valid, but Economics is too short sighted to place realistic values on these things.

It only takes one to grow many

Submitted by Paul Morrella on May 19, 2009 - 7:12pm.

Sheesh, I just read that report. Wow.

Dude's got himself some serious guilt of success issues. Someone has really worked him over in his formative years, without doubt. It's the stuff of lengthy therapy. No run of the mill self sabotage for this guy. It's freaken Communist Manifesto time! It's destroy society!

And this guy wants his hands on the children. They always want the children.

Well my man, I say no. It's time that generation anger stops with this generation. And what is it with these pissed off types and their assumed devined right to pass the poison?

Children should learn all about competition. It's normal for human beings. Normal human beings, like, compete.

Children should learn about defeat and how to deal with it, and they should learn about victory, and to be self proud and also graceful with it. Neither defeat nor victory is something to be feared. And no person from lowest to the highest socioeconomic bloc should be taught (brainwashed) otherwise.

This guy wants to change the meaning of the word prosperity! Not for him mind, no perish the thought, for the general good of society. Who do these people really think they're fooling?

Brainwashing

Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on May 19, 2009 - 8:06pm.

Paul Morrella: "And no person from lowest to the highest socioeconomic bloc should be taught (brainwashed) otherwise."

Sounds very much like just another form of totalitarianism.

How about another form of human interaction called collaboration, Paul? It often results in more for both parties, and leaves both parties happier.

Through poverty looms wellness

Submitted by Paul Morrella on May 19, 2009 - 2:02pm.

Anyone else see the irony selling a no growth message over the Internet?

The only time I can think a government of sorts, actively pursuing negative growth, was that of the Pol Pot regime in the 70's. It's utterly insane for any rational person to advocate such a policy. I thus assume most people don't know what economic growth really is. Perhaps on hearing the term, they may get "head pictures" of Hummers and the like, who knows.

"The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day."

And I wonder who "us" is. It certainly hasn't failed me. And if you're on the Internet it hasn't failed you.

Now these $2 a day people: was their economic standing any better before growth? Because I can't work out how lowering growth is going to help them.

"The benefits of growth have been distributed very unequally, with a fifth of the world’s population sharing just 2% of global income."

Capitalism is unequal, and since most growth has taken place under capitalism, there's your answer.

"A commitment to fairness and flourishing in a finite world."

Keep in mind that was is "unequal" can be shown using a mathematical formula, what is "unfair" is of course a personal perspective, very much dependant on who's telling the story.

"A spiral of recession looms. Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries."

And don't forget self servers.

The Earth is our lifeboat and we are sinking

Submitted by John Pratt on May 19, 2009 - 4:46pm.

Paul Morrella, if you fail to see the problem with continuous growth how about this for an analogy?

Let say we are all in a life boat. If half the people on the boat decide to eat ninety percent of the food what do you think the other people on the boat are going to do? They will mutiny!

That is why we will have continual war.

Wouldn't it be smarter to share the available food?

If we continue to add more people to the boat do you think that eventually the boat will sink? Or if we do manage to keep the boat afloat we will eat up all our food faster.

What happens when all the food is gone or we cannot catch enough fish to feed everyone?

The Earth is our lifeboat. We are not sharing our food and we are continually adding more to the boat.

Unless we move to a sustainable economy we will all sink.

If we don't find a solution, nature will

Submitted by John Pratt on May 19, 2009 - 9:12am.

There are nearly three times as many people on the planet as when Attenborough started making television programmes in the 1950s - a fact that has convinced him that if we don't find a solution to our population problems, nature will. "Other horrible factors will come along and fix it, like mass starvation."
Trying to pin him down about the specifics of what to do, however, proves tricky. He says it involves persuading people that their lives and the lives of their children would be better if they didn't exceed a certain number of births per family. And that dramatic drop in birth rate rests on providing universal suffrage, education - particularly for women - and decent standards of living for all. It's a daunting task, but the first step, he argues, is to acknowledge that population is a problem.

Not only do we demand economic growth, we also have population growth.

As David Attenborough says. if we do not find a solution to these problems nature will.

Rudd says we will need 4 per cent growth per year to dig us out of debt. If this is duplicated around the globe we will all face ecological disaster.

We cannot continue to grow at the expense of billions who live on less than $2 a day.

Almost half the world's population, 2.1 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. Of these people, 880 million live on less than $1 a day

We need a sustainable economy. Heading into massive debt to continue growth will only decrease the chance of us ever having a sustainable economy.

We have to admit that the music has stopped, and the party is over.

Stop reading

Submitted by Alan Curran on May 20, 2009 - 7:26pm.

John Pratt, you have to stop listening to Bob Brown and Sarah Hanson-Young (the Greens spokesperson for everything). These clowns don't even live on the same planet as the rest of us.

When we eventually look as though we are running out of resources, we will head out into our own galaxy. We will have the technology by then, as long as scaremongers like Bob Brown are not around.

Our society is based on a cargo cult mentality

Submitted by John Pratt on May 20, 2009 - 8:16pm.

Alan, the belief in technological solutions has become a cargo cult.

Moderns today may smile at this quasi-accurate portrait of World War II's impact on the South Pacific. Simultaneously, we must admit that most of us are members of a very similar and far more dangerous “Cargo Cult”, just as caught in the isolation of time and technology as the Melanesian islanders were in the isolation of space. Not only are we wholly removed from the experience of our pre-industrial ancestors, upon whose unseen and unremembered shoulders our civilization stands, but most of us are equally isolated from the origins, mysteries and consequences of global technologies upon which we have become likewise hopelessly dependent.
When we want something to eat, we go to a “store” and buy a can of Spam, or perhaps something more delectable. How it comes into being is as mysterious to most of us as it was to the Melanesians. We have vague notions, of course: hopefully, it starts out as a cow or a pig which just ate a nice, zesty rain forest some place south of here. Then it goes on to some kind of slaughterhouse (something we really don't want to know about). Then into a “tin can” from somewhere and onto the grocery store shelf. When emptied, the can and other waste conveniently disappear into our bottomless trash can, or an equally hungry white porcelain hole in the house, never to darken our door, beach or liver tissue again. Living in apparent security on what we fancy to be the islands of our individual lives, we have little idea and less care about what's happening on distant shores. Just keep it coming (and going). World without end, Amen.

Growth

Submitted by Alan Curran on May 19, 2009 - 8:52pm.

John Pratt, supposing our two financial geniuses Rudd and Swan take off on another overseas trip to lecture the world leaders, and come up with a nation building scheme that will enable the 2.1 billion people living on $2 a day, to earn about $100 a day.

How many extra cars and plasma TVs could be bought with the extra earnings? That would certainly get the economy going much to the chagrin of Senator Brown & Co. who only seem to preach gloom and doom.

As for Rudd’s 4 per cent growth per year, I would not worry about it as it is another Labor con and the growth will get nowhere near 4 per cent.

As for you saying “We have to admit that the music has stopped, and the party is over”, it might be where you live, but not in my part of the world.

no harm in a try

Submitted by Paul Walter on May 18, 2009 - 11:53pm.

Too late David. They had to strike while the iron was hot, before, no later than, the G20.

But Obama and co were always captives of big capital, so that the international changes needed to see capital redirected back to investment rather than speculation never eventuated.

We are back to scare campaigns to convince the masses not to rock the boat.

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