Post Growth: Life after Capitalism

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That such ideas are being openly discussed is very reassuring. But sadly, with the recent/current eras of Trump in the US and Boris and co in the UK, TJ’s wisdom of balance within limits still looks and feels like a utopian idealism struggling against myths that, for whatever twisted tragic reason, like weeds, take root and multiply so much more readily than do the flowers of wisdom.

Capitalism’s disfigurement of work is covered in Chapter 7. He rightly castigates today’s denigration of physical labour, caring professions, bad-faith zero-hours contracts and the de-skilled assembly line propelled by capitalism’s constant chiselling away of the dignity of work in the name of greater efficiency. But aside from appealing to a William Morris style call for arts and crafts, it’s unclear what people can do to stop the ongoing theft of good jobs by robots or the new wave of Deep Mind AI.The gross domestic product became, at that point, really the primary indicator of success for economies almost entirely around the world.”

Green growth is a lovely term, it's something that should appeal to everyone. And it sounds like we don't have to change the status quo very much, we don't have to think too deeply about what our economy is doing, we don't have to change our priority to chase growth in GDP. Even a casual observer of the curret U.S. 'Economic' Condition finds the Capitalist system not sharing the surplus profit generated broadly - (since perhaps the late 1970's) - with attendant income and wealth inequality. In addition to this observation; 'n' studies has defined the problem - any proposed solution that could reasonably be implemented in a reasonable timeframe at a reasonable cost (with any sort of public support)remains undocumented and unevaluated. It is perplexing, of course it is, in that it is a world that is not an obvious conclusion. It is highly desirable, of course it is. A noble creature will approach nothing else but this. A human creature? Maybe not so obviously.Maybe his other books are better, I don't know. This is a quite contemplative book, not so structured. Its title and subtitle are slightly misleading I feel, the author does describe what he thinks is important in life but does not touch on his view on post growth or post capitalism nor a way towards it. The book is also not so fair on capitalism/our current system. It points out all whats wrong and surely its not great but it is well known that in many ways the lives of people are now better off then ever before. Capitalism especially how it is practiced in the Anglo-Saxon world focuses principally on Growth/Rate of Growth. Other items/areas community health, environment....etc. are not considered. Hence the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals by the U.N. and etc. This isn’t perfect, by any means. Occasionally dazzled by his own prose, and prone to that impressive but somewhat cloying tradition of drowning in quotations, TJ may also be in danger of only reaching the converted, aka preaching to the ‘amen corner’. Several key concepts emerge, such as virtue (in the older Aristotlean sense of that concept), working wisely within limits (as opposed to simply ignoring them), balance and flow. For more, watch Tim speak with Earth.Org founder Constant Tedder in a fascinating 60-minute conversation here.

But that growth has proved harder and harder to come by. In the developed economies, the so called advanced economies, the growth rate has been declining over the last few decades. He quotes the historian Theodore Roszak: "Far from reading the ethos of the jungle into civilized society, Darwin read the ethos of industrial capitalism into the jungle, concluding that all life had to be what it had become in the early mill towns: a vicious 'struggle for existence'." This said, even as someone who considers them self very in tune with TJ’s thinking and desires, regarding a better future for humanity, this book has helped shine a light on how inescapably insidious so much of contemporary capitalist life is. From my own seeking of solace in over-consumption - both in literal dietary terms and the more metaphorical but equally material terms of ‘I shop therefore I am’ - to the devastation of the mental and ‘spiritual’ life Capitalism wreaks, as it devalues labour and marginalises dissenters.

And yet, there comes a point at which more becomes too much. The World Health Organization has said that nowadays we have more people dying from diseases of over-consumption than dying from malnutrition, under-nutrition. It's 50 years since the book Limits to Growthcame out, but we seem to be treading the same ground, he says.

We are offered a fascinating cast of characters that include the 1960s US science power-couple Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis, Hannah Arendt, Wangari Maathi, John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet and, as they say, many, many more.This is a thought-provoking analysis of why capitalism has failed, why it is incompatible with social justice, and why the drive for continued growth threatens our collective wellbeing. The result – a controversial 2009 report to the UK government – was published as the book Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. (A substantially revised and rewritten edition was published in 2017). This book, now translated into 17 languages, examines the problems of growth and consumerism and the prospects for a new “ecological macro-economics” and a redefinition of prosperity. More is not always better; we need to focus on what helps us flourish as human beings and helps us lead a satisfying “good life.” Their voices were clarion clear, they had a kind of an understanding of the challenge that was amazing for 15 and 16-year olds. Where Darwin led, economists followed, and Darwin himself admitted being guided to his insights into evolution by that most dismal of all economists, Thomas Malthus. It is essential to build understanding that the economy is designed to be destructive and that we must seek solutions to the climate and ecological crises there but we also need to invest in understanding the complex nuts and bolts that will be required to do the necessary re-plumbing.