Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet

Front Cover
Routledge, 2011 - Business & Economics - 276 pages

Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion? In this explosive book, Tim Jackson - a top sustainability adviser to the UK government - makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations.

No one denies that development is essential for poorer nations. But in the advanced economies there is mounting evidence that ever-increasing consumption adds little to human happiness and may even impede it. More urgently, it is now clear that the ecosystems that sustain our economies are collapsing under the impacts of rising consumption. Unless we can radically lower the environmental impact of economic activity - and there is no evidence to suggest that we can - we will have to devise a path to prosperity that does not rely on continued growth.

Economic heresy? Or an opportunity to improve the sources of well-being, creativity and lasting prosperity that lie outside the realm of the market? Tim Jackson provides a credible vision of how human society can flourish ¿ within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Fulfilling this vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

This book is a substantially revised and updated version of Jackson's controversial study for the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the UK Government. The study rapidly became the most downloaded report in the Commission's nine year history when it was launched earlier this year.

 

Contents

1 Prosperity Lost
1
2 The Age of Irresponsibility
17
3 Redefining Prosperity
34
4 The Dilemma of Growth
49
5 The Myth of Decoupling
66
6 The Iron Cage of Consumerism
87
7 Keynesianism and the Green New Deal
103
8 Ecological Macroeconomics
121
11 The Transition to a Sustainable Economy
170
12 A Lasting Prosperity
187
Appendices
205
List of Figures Tables and Boxes
217
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
219
Notes
221
References
241
Index
254

9 Flourishing Within Limits
143
10 Governance for Prosperity
157

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About the author (2011)

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of RESOLVE. He also directs the follow-on project: the Sustainable Lifestyles Research Group (SLRG).

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