Jason Hickel - Recovery without Growth: Pathways toward a regenerative economy

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Even during the COVID-19 times, people are more scared of possible economic insecurity, than of a virus itself. Many are losing jobs and their financial wellbeing is at risk. Governments are talking only about how to ensure GDP growth again so we get 'back to normal'. The most advanced ones are discussing ‘green growth’ so we could harm the planet less.

But is it possible to reduce materials extraction and CO2 emissions while keeping GDP growth at all? Most likely, it’s not. What we could possibly do is to substantially transform our economic systems and step away from the GDP as main indicator of flourishing societies and people’s wellbeing. Dr. Hickel has introduced an alternative – the Sustainable Development Index (SDI), which updates HDI (Human Development Index) with ecological impact and seems to become the most adequate indicator to focus in times of Anthropocene.

Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, author, creator of SDI, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020 and the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe.

Jason's research focuses on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics, which are the subjects of his two most recent books: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (Penguin, 2017), and Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Penguin, 2020).

[johnmckeown]

Is not the greatest and most startling fact to emerge from this talk the number of views it has received, just under 3, 000 and six comments! It speaks volumes about where humanity is at today. Sad.

[efortune]

Such a great talk

***24:22 “This is what you do. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was very clear about this. You scale down aggregate material production and consumption in high consuming, rich nations. As we scale down material production and consumption this shrinks total energy demands making it easier for us to accomplish a rapid transition to renewables. I have to emphasize this is the only workable model the IPCC has ever developed that does not rely on speculative negative emissions schemes in the future. So they want us to take this very seriously.

It’s interesting to have an approach to reducing emissions that focuses on reducing resource throughput. Why? Because it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to extract, and produce, and transport all of the material stuff that the economy uses each year. The less of that you do, the energy you use, the easier it is to accomplish a rapid transition to renewables.

So this is known as ‘degrowth’. It’s a planned downscaling of resource and energy use that’s designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world and to achieve our climate objectives in a safe, just and equitable way.

(25:35) The good news is that degrowth can be accomplished while at the same time improving people’s lives and advancing human progress. This is where it gets exciting. And the reason is because we know for a fact, and the peer reviewed literature is very clear on this, that rich countries do not need more GDP growth. After a certain point, which rich countries have long since surpassed, the relationship between GDP and social indicators: poverty, well-being, happiness, wages, life expectancy, education etc, everything, completely breaks down. This should be liberating news for us.

So for example, you take the USA. USA has a real GDP per capita of $60, 000 dollars per person. Now compare that that to Portugal. Portugal has a real GDP per capita of about $20, 000 US dollars per person. So 60% less around about or more. And yet Portugal has longer life expectancy and out performs the US on virtually every social indicator despite having 60%+ less GDP per capita than the US does. How do they do that? They do it by sharing existing income more fairly. And by investing in robust, universal public services.

Over and over again, it’s clear that you can do this with relatively little GDP per capita. And when it comes to delivering strong social outcomes and flourishing lives for all that is what matters. And this is why so many countries are able to achieve extremely high levels of life expectancy and other social indicators, outperforming the US by a long shot with significantly less GDP per capita. That should be inspiring to us.

And the reason is it’s not just growth that matters, it’s the distribution of income.”


***1:01:30 “I lay out dozens of survey results in the book to show that majorities in the region of 70% Europe and other high income regions actively support post-growth principles. In experiments that we have from studies done by Yale and Harvard academics show that in conditions of direct democracy people are more likely to make decisions that prioritize human well-being and ecological stability and deprioritize growth. That to me is remarkable.

So the kind of economy I’m calling for has never been tried before but it’s something we have to develop creatively ourselves. And we should not be afraid of this process because we are a culture that prizes innovation and creativity. We would never look at a smart phone or a painting and say that is the best smart phone or painting that has ever been created and it will never be surpassed, and we should never even try. And yet for some reason we look at capitalism and our imagination just locks down, this is the only system we could ever have and we shouldn’t even try to invent another one.

What I’m calling for is for us to apply principles of reason, and creativity, and innovation to our economic system and build something fundamentally better.”

~Jason Hickel


I do think a UBI can coexist nicely with a jobs guarantee and a shorter workweek

[timtam]

Great episode 👏 thanks from New Zealand 🇳🇿

[nightoftheworld]

31:49 *guilting consumers is not the answer* It’s not about changing personal behavior—I do not see consumers as the problem. Consumers I see as effectively a victim of a machine that is organized around constantly increasing extraction, production and consumption.

[Achrononmaster]

@40:00 the Job Guarantee MMT style is not a job or make-work program Jason! it is a buffer policy, for transitioning workers back to private or public sector employment at above the floor wage. We should never use a JG as a public works scheme since that'd be highly regressive, if we _need_ public work done then the worker deserves a decent wage and permanent offer. The JG should thus be very small, around 3% of the workforce who are transitioning or need a break from full time employment, or who desire the unconditional offer as a claim on their government for purposes of tiding over while they maybe organize a worker cooperative or whathaveyou.

[markschuette]

great summery of the solutions! although these recommendation would jam up the court system for many many years! why not just use taxes to increase the costs of the damaging practices/products? or possibly one big tax on fossil fuels may do it all???

[Achrononmaster]

@36:00 nice wee point on combating planned obsolescence here. If manufacturers are required by law to repair or replace fee free within expected product lifetime (traceable consumer institute standards) then not only are they incentivised to make long-life products, it gives the science nerds in the metrology standards labs more useful things to do (I worked there, and they do a lot of boring shyte calibrating instruments with their eyes half closed).

[unidadeducativaarturoeichl]

It is not only that the rich consume the resources that are desperately needed by the poor to overcome poverty, but also that the rich often transfer their wastes to poor regions. Electronic waste, plastic waste, all kinds of solid wastes mainly produced by the rich end-up polluting the poorest areas of the world. I´ve always thought that if the rich could send their carbon emissions to poor countries, so that climate change affects only the poor, they would be happy to do so. But it´s even worse that this, there is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that the rich have better living standards, nor that their are happier, live longer, or any other beneffit derived from their extremely high levels of consumption and waste production. They in fact don´t get any measurable beneffit from the resources they often violently take from those whose fate depends on those resources. The global economy and the international trade are one of the most absurd things I have seen in my life. They are designed so that rich people can steal from the poor without consequences, while the environment suffers huge damage. An then, they become "philantropists". They give to the poor a tiný fraction of what they take from them, and they self-proclaime "saviors". I love the phrase by Thomas Piketty: "There is nothing wrong with philantropy, as far as it does not replace taxation." Our world is full of philantropists who don´t pay their taxes, who are happy to get involved in the corruption of tax haves, who are happy to manage huge monopolies that harm people and the economy. Any way, our economy is absurd, unfair, and is leading us to a global social and ecological catastrophy... But I´m sure Janson already knows this...

[brianwheeldon]

I live in New Zealand. Growth is a very important part of the economy here, wherever did that information come from? We have a Green party fixated on Growth, A Labour Govt fixated on growth and two right wing parties (whatever that means these days) similarly fixated. Important to know that when Jason uses the term Appropriation, he means killing, rape, mayhem, violent theft and the stealing of natural resources and mutilation of the said country's land, ecosystems, health system and other infrastructure, and its economy generally. This necessitates such country being forced to borrow on the international markets, capital and short term finance or an IMF austerity programme, all funds coming from the rich global north charged at high interest rates. QED How UK grew its huge empire and USA followed by Europe. China doesn't always smash a country it tends to tie it into economic financial dependency without endless wars, at least so far more or less by comparison to the UK, USA European model. There are exceptions

[jacobedward]

A lot of work left to do in America, where Fox is saying "Democrats will steal your hamburgers!!" I have a cousin who I bet is stocking up on frozen beef 😑

[AudioPervert]

Please check out Vaclav Smil's book Growth. I think, we need to understand how preposterous the myth of growth has been, for thousands of years. Before we can even begin
to imagine any anti-growth or degrowth. After reading Smil's book - i felt, that 90% of the things I learned in school, college, society, parents and dominant culture was ill - defected - heading for a disaster. And now, that disaster is here !!

[Achrononmaster]

@52:00 he's got UBI all wrong. No government should supply all demand for zero supply. Think about who makes the real goods you happily consume on your UBI? It's some poor worker in the global south most likely. UBI is highly regressive, unless your nation is self-sufficient and not importing anything from the global south. Norway and Alaska can have a UBI because someone else is buying their oil and putting some poor working class grunt under the hammer to produce the goods Norwegians and Alaskans consume. If the goal is to give the poor more purchasing power then offer them public service work at a decent living wage, not a UBI pittance.