Best of #BeyondGrowth 2023 - Jason Hickel

Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist and author. His research focuses on global political economy, inequality, 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), which was listed by the Financial Times and New Scientist as a book of the year.

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The Beyond Growth 2023 Conference is a multi-stakeholder event aiming to discuss and co-create policies for sustainable prosperity in Europe, based on a systemic and transformative approach to economic, social and environmental sustainability and its encompassing governance framework.

We aimed to challenge conventional policy-making in the European Union and to redefine societal goals across the board, in order to move away from the harmful focus on the sole economic growth – that is, the growth of GDP – as the basis of our development model. The conference put into practice the idea of a post-growth future-fit EU that combines social well-being and viable economic development with the respect of planetary boundaries.

This three days major event is a cross-party initiative of 20 Members of the European Parliament, supported by a wide-range of partner organisations, which follows the success of the Post-Growth 2018 conference. The conference offered an opportunity for discussion across institutional boundaries and with European citizens. It involved stakeholders from EU and national policymaking, academia, social partners, businesses and civil society organisations.

As it aimed to discuss the future of European citizens, it took place in their house, in the European Parliament (Brussels’ site) from the 15th to the 17th May 2023.

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[marksmit]

You nailed it Jason Hickel. Wrapped it all up with a bow.

[hex]

We owe a system change to all opressed peoples, all future human generations and all species on earth. Ecosocialism needs to be implemented, by all means necessary.

[thehiveinitiative]

Incredible and inspiring. Let’s all rally our skills, set aside competitive impulses and make the better future we all want happen. We each have a hand to use towards making post-growth happen. Our hand could click share on this video. Our hand could wave “no” to overconsumption. Our hand could reach out to help others understand what we could have if we all came together.

[siljahenderson]

Brilliant speech, literally life-saving agenda 👏👏

[jana.droppers]

I recommend to all his book "Less is More". Provocative in many ways. Should we be hopeful that at least some of these concepts will be applied in reality? I do hope so, but I am not optimistic. Humankind thus far has not shown to be very perceptive, and willing to changing its self-destruction ways. After all, that is what got us into the mess we are in. We never paid serious attention to the Club of Rome´s study from 50 years ago. What is going to make us pay attention this time around?

[gensdemonpays]

Just fantastic to be able to describe problems and solutions of the whole world in ess than 15'. Thank you Jason !

[misterfunnybones]

The global elite wouldn't even turn down the AC on the yacht by 1°C after this speech. We're heading for the cliff edge, but it will be a slow roll over the precipice as the environment places limits on fresh water & food, as it already has in many geographies. Prep the helicopter on the forward bow as I'm going ashore for a few hours, then get the toys from the tender garage ready for when I return.

[PEdulis]

A good speech. One more thing that comes to mind to cut the influence of the rich is to finally introduce the Tobin tax on trading with shares. If not even one percent would be paid for each transaction, we could finance everything we wish for from these incomes and it would slow down the insanely fast buying and selling of shares of which nobody really profits except for those who are already rich anyway.

[AKrn]

I'm tired of people telling us what we need to do because it ain't gonna happen. Now they can all go home happy thinking they've helped save the world while continuing to consume their 11 kw of power. That's called a hypocrite.

[hex]

11:10 "some may say this sounds utopian, but these policies have popular support" when has that ever changed anything? The implementation of policies that are truly anti/post-capitalist is not feasible in bourgeois democracies. I hope I'm proven wrong tho.

[edithcrowther]

Many great men saw this moment coming long ago - the moment when all of humanity finally hit the undeniable, concrete, limits to growth after non-renewable commodities, from coal to vanadium to groundwater, had petered out one by one. The contemporary Degrowth movement can trace its roots back to the anti-industrialist trends of the 19th century, developed in Great Britain by John Ruskin, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement (1819–1900), in the United States by Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), and in Russia by Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Many great works of literature are warnings against industrial over-growth - Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, The Ancient Mariner, to name but a few. No-one paid any attention - and now the worst culprits are in the former Third World. No doubt great men are emerging in the Third World too, nowadays, warning against Overdevelopment - but again, no-one will pay any attention. None of these pioneers were either "left" or "right". They were anti progress if the progress was doing more harm than good.
The actual term "degrowth" properly appeared during the 1970s, proposed by André Gorz (1972) and intellectuals such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Jean Baudrillard, Edward Goldsmith, E.F. Schumacher, Erich Fromm, Paul Goodman and Ivan Illich, whose ideas reflect those of earlier thinkers, such as the economist E. J. Mishan and the industrial historian Tom Rolt [LTC Rolt, the engineer who resurrected England's canals after World War II]. None of these pioneers were "left" or "right" either. They were more pessimistic than the first bunch about the ability of human nature to constrain its liking for progress - modern medicine, enough to eat, water on tap, are just a few of the now indispensable adjuncts to human life in all Nations on Earth, never mind more luxurious items such as youtube (xx).
The current bunch of Degrowthers are even more pessimistic still, and so they should be. But they do not include the people in this video, who seem to think that the rest of the world will stop growing if the Occident leads the way. First of all, the Occident is not leading the way at all. And second of all, the rest of the world is even more rabidly pro-Growth than the Global North ever was - plus it contains about 6 billion people as opposed to 2 billion - so it is doing at least 3 times as much damage, probably more. This means that there is no realistic way out other than an almighty collapse - and thus it also means that the only activity worth pursuing, is preparing for this collapse as best we can, in the certain knowledge that it cannot be averted now - if it ever could have been, which I personally doubt as the fruits of Progress are too tempting for all but the most ascetic of hermits. The EU needs to shut up shop now and go and live in the woods (if there are any left). Also these conferences must stop now. They are a waste of time - and of resources. The Occident must stop blaming itself whilst exonerating the rest of the world. And so on.

[frankblangeard]

Sounds like he is proposing a workers revolution followed by a one world communist government in which each contributes according to his ability and each receives according to his needs. Wasn't that already tried in the Soviet Union?

[ThePtoleme]

What he calls "constant plunder of goods, ressources and labour from the global South" enables millions to live in those countries. There's no more plunder than when natural resources are extracted in Australia or Canada. The more nonsense he spouts, the more applause he gets.

[TheBacoTrein]

I like the challenge on mainstream capitalism, but jeez this man is full crap.

First, his DeGrowth movement is just anotther attempt to propose the Communist framing of K. Marx. For example: the rich get rich only at the expense of the poor. The world is a struggle between 2 classes: the "rich" and "commons" (or the "bourgeoisie" and "proletariats" by Marx). Capitalism is only about brainsless profit extraction. Private ventures make the production of goods and services more costly (due to the profit component), less energie/material efficient, and not aligned with societal needs. Capitalism is the source of societal decline. Inequality is a pure problem of distribution and cannot be solved under Capitalism.

Second, the climate change component seems to be used as camouflage to slide in his Communist ideas. Probably because he knows it is the ideal platform to gain attenion, and one that is more likely to take in these, by now proven to be, controversial ideas.

Third, the uses words as "we now for a fact that", "is absolutely true that", "there is no doubt about that" for statements that are anything but that black and white and agreed upon. For example: he states that there is no empirical evidence at all to link GDP growth per capita to individual wellbeing. The thousands of research papers, books, empircal studies, historical evidence etc making such assertion must all be blatently stupid and wrong, or Hickines inflates his arguments. It is up to you to decide.

Fourth, he selectively and manipulatively uses isolated examples to prove his points. For example: in his book he shows that at some point an increase in GDP per capita does not increase life expectancy. Furthermore, a small selection of countries with a much lower GDP per capita than the US have similar or slightly better life expectancies. This is such a dum argument because (a) as off 70-80 years, life expectancy stops being relivant as a measure of happiness, since it is currently our absolute physical limit. (b) there actually is an obvious trend showing that GDP growth increases life expectancy. (c) the data is manipulated as he uses GDP per capita instead of GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity; which skews the analysis in his favour. In other interviews he refers to GDP PPP; so he knows the concept and the effects of taking GDP rather than GDP PPP.

Another example in his book is that he argues that public transport is more cost effective than private transportation based on average kost per passenger-km. Yes - this may be true for high demand routes between high population dense areas, but falls apart with routes from-to places with low population density. For those routes, the car is much more cost effective. Furthermore, the max travel radius in a given timeframe is much larger by car than by public transport. To understand the relevance of this fact: many analyses have shown that the max travel radius per hour has more impact on your income than the level of education for lower income ocupations, as a larger search area increases the job opportunities

Fith, he implicitely argues for a full centrally planned economy as all "life essential goods / services" should be "decommodified". Everything not classified as "life essential" should be eliminated; thus all remaining productive sectors have to fall into planning control. History has already shown the horrors of centrally planned economies. When confronted with historical evidence, his simple defense is: well those economies were focused on growth, their govts were totalitarian and the people actually favor policies such as equal distribution, shorter working weeks and guarentee of income.

Every economy is focussed on growth since the dawn of time (another error btw to link this purely to capitalism). Complete socialist / communist countries will always become totalitarian, because it places power into the hands of few, and centralised power does not bring the best into us human beings. And finally: ofcourse everyone wants short workweeks and income guarentees. What nobody knows answering that question is the actual reality that comes with it.

Finally: the one argument that kills this entire movement: who is going to decide what the world should look like, and what society should be forced to align with? To think that you can correctly design society with all its needs, complexities, developments, etc. is just arrrogant, and worrying at least

[Rossell-tb]

UNLESS RICH COUNTRIES ADOPT A PLANNED ECONOMY, DEGROWTH IS NOT POSSIBLE. THE PLUTOCRACY WILL NOT ALLOW A PLANNED ECONOMY THAT LIMITS GREED. PLUTOCRACY RULES, FOLKS. SO DREAM ON