''Prosperity Without Growth'' is a book by author and economist
Tim Jackson. It was originally released as a report by the
Sustainable Development Commission
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) was a non-departmental public body responsible for advising the UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly Government, and Northern Ireland Executive on sustainable development.
It was set u ...
. The study rapidly became the most downloaded report in the Commission's nine-year history when it was published in 2009. The report was later that year reworked and published as a book by
Earthscan. A revised and expanded edition (''Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow'') was published in January 2017.
Description
By arguing that "prosperityin any meaningful sense of the wordtranscends material concerns", the book summarizes the evidence showing that, beyond a certain point, growth does not increase human well-being. ''Prosperity without Growth'' analyses the complex relationships between
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
,
environmental crises and social recession. It proposes a route to a sustainable economy, and argues for a redefinition of "prosperity" in light of the evidence on what really contributes to people’s well-being.
The second edition expands on these ideas and sets out the framework for what he calls "the economy of tomorrow". By attending the nature of enterprise as a form of social organisation, the meaning of work as participation in society, the function of investment as a commitment to the future; and the role of money as a social good, he demonstrates how the economy may be transformed in ways that protect employment, promote and facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and support both ecological and financial stability.
Reviews
The first edition was described by ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' as "one of the most outstanding pieces of
environmental economics
Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or ...
literature in recent years". The sociologist
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
referred to it as "a must-read for anyone concerned with issues of climate change and sustainabilitybold, original and comprehensive." The second edition received endorsements from
Yanis Varoufakis
Ioannis "Yanis" Varoufakis ( el, Ιωάννης Γεωργίου "Γιάνης" Βαρουφάκης, Ioánnis Georgíou "Giánis" Varoufákis, ; born 24 March 1961) is a Greek economist and politician. A former academic, he served as the Gree ...
, who referred to it as "essential reading for those refusing to succumb to a dystopic future".
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
called it a "thoughtful and penetrating critique".
Herman Daly praised it with: "It is hard to improve a classic, but Jackson has done it... a clearly written yet scholarly union of moral vision, with solid economics."
Rowan Williams
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, (born 14 June 1950) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bish ...
called it "one of the most important essays of our generation: both visionary and realistic, rooted in careful research and setting out difficult but achievable goals, it gives what we so badly needan alternative to passivity, short-term selfishness and cynicism".
Structure
The second edition of ''Prosperity without growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow'' is organised in eleven chapters:
# The limits to
growth
Growth may refer to:
Biology
* Auxology, the study of all aspects of human physical growth
* Bacterial growth
* Cell growth
* Growth hormone, a peptide hormone that stimulates growth
* Human development (biology)
* Plant growth
* Secondary growth ...
#
Prosperity
Prosperity is the flourishing, thriving, good fortune and successful social status. Prosperity often produces profuse wealth including other factors which can be profusely wealthy in all degrees, such as happiness and health.
Competing notion ...
lost
# Redefining
prosperity
Prosperity is the flourishing, thriving, good fortune and successful social status. Prosperity often produces profuse wealth including other factors which can be profusely wealthy in all degrees, such as happiness and health.
Competing notion ...
# The dilemma of growth
# The myth of
decoupling
# The 'iron cage' of
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
# Flourishingwithin limits
# Foundations for the
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
of tomorrow
# Towards a '
post-growth
Post-growth is stance on economic growth concerning the limits-to-growth dilemma — recognition that, on a planet of finite material resources, extractive economies and populations cannot grow infinitely. The term "post-growth" acknowledges t ...
'
macroeconomics
Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.
For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
# The progressive State
# A lasting
prosperity
Prosperity is the flourishing, thriving, good fortune and successful social status. Prosperity often produces profuse wealth including other factors which can be profusely wealthy in all degrees, such as happiness and health.
Competing notion ...
Translations
''Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet'' (2009) has been translated into eighteen languages including Swedish (''Välfärd utan tillväxt: så skapar vi ett hållbart samhälle'', 2011), German (''Wohlstand ohne Wachstum'', 2011), French (''Prospérité sans croissance'', 2010), Greek (''Ευημερία χωρίς ανάπτυξη'', 2012), Spanish (''Prosperidad sin crecimiento'', 2011), Italian (''Prosperità senza crescita'', 2011), Dutch (''Welvaart zonder groei'', 2010) and Chinese (''无增长的繁荣'',2011).
The second edition, ''Prosperity without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow'' (2017), has been translated into German, French, Italian, and Danish.
See also
*
Degrowth
*
Post-growth
Post-growth is stance on economic growth concerning the limits-to-growth dilemma — recognition that, on a planet of finite material resources, extractive economies and populations cannot grow infinitely. The term "post-growth" acknowledges t ...
*
Steady-state economy
A steady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time. The term usually refers to the national economy o ...
*
Stern Review
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released for the Government of the United Kingdom on 30 October 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environm ...
* ''
Material Concerns
''Material Concerns'' is a book by author and economist Tim Jackson. Published in 1996, it pioneered the concept of ''preventive environmental management'', a core principle of the circular economy framework.
Description
Twenty years before t ...
'', a 1996 book by Jackson
References
External links
Review in ''The Guardian'' (January 2010)Routledge website for ''Prosperity Without Growth''Biography of Tim Jackson (official website)Tim Jackson's Media Archive (official website)
{{Authority control
2009 in the environment
2009 non-fiction books
Books about energy issues
British non-fiction books
Books critical of economic growth
Economics of sustainability
Environmental non-fiction books
Sustainability books