Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

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It makes a well argued challenge to the claimed impact of technical approaches to climate change such as green new deals and alternative green generation of energy. Question - Have you ever wondered why we work longer and longer hours despite all the technological advancement we've made over the last half century?

Or perhaps the lesson is that we should try to reduce human population, a subject which he doesn’t directly address? And had Jason Hickel put down his metaphorical pen and finished the book here, this would’ve been a 5/5 review.Indeed, as the magic of capitalism is driven by the abstract force of debt (see the "Great Reversal" in Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails, where capitalism's finance-production-distribution starts with the debt of capital investments, whereas prior economies were production-distribution-finance), needlessly forcing workers and industrial capitalists to exhaust the planet just to pay off parasitic debts to the various layers of creditors (the worst being institutional absentee speculators/rentiers. We must remember that it’s not that corporations are evil, but that we’re in a system that needs perpetual growth to avoid social collapse. It's not just the kind of abstract and sometimes metaphysical philosophising that you often read in degrowth books, especially French ones. ways of thinking that are assumed to be truisms but are at the heart of most of the crises and injustices we see today. Despite clearly understanding class politics, Hickel goes on to suggest *policy solutions* to capitalism’s internal contradictions which he so amazingly describes in the first part of this book.

By extracting less we leave more for other species, other people and future generations, thus creating well-being for all. Cea mai interesantă parte este punerea în context, ce s-a întâmplat pe acest drum de la feudalism la capitalism, în ultimii 500 de ani, de-am reușit să ne separăm cu totul de natură și să îi privim chiar și pe cei mai mulți dintre semenii noștri ca pe niște suboameni. Hudson portrays "Industrial capitalism" being cannibalized by "Finance capitalism", which might sound like less raw materials use!I think it’s important to foster our social imaginations, yes, but his solutions felt reformist and idealistic. Horrifyingly, this connected to a screenshot I saw from our favorite non-news, entertainment program, FOX News. Daar wringt het schoentje toch wat: directe democratie is allemaal goed en wel, maar in deze gepolariseerde maatschappij waar macht vaak corrupt is kan ik me niet voorstellen dat deze noodzakelijke snelle en wereldwijde overgang zonder slag of stoot zou kunnen gebeuren, of zonder dat totalitaire leiders zich hier en daar in het machtsvacuüm wringen. Our fears of needing more to achieve a “good life” is contrasted with the actual measures of wellness. In fact, once GDP outstrips the peak of quality of human life, it actually starts to hurt that quality.

Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, Fulbright Scholar and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. The baseline is reset and we start off anew, with the goal of squeezing in even more output into the same amount of time. This book ripped the door right off my temple and has brought into full view the grinding paradox that I have been blithely skipping around on my way through the rat race. In Eastern philosophy, the Axial Age produced the Buddha whose “Son’s Flesh Sutra” Hickel quotes with approval in his Acknowledgments.Part two is the most brilliantly pulled off piece of capitalist propaganda I’ve ever seen in my life. Thus, by managing the amount that countries and industries are allowed to grow, we can ensure a more equitable state of things and prevent ecological collapse.

As their size grows, so does their influence - politicians scramble to reduce taxes and minimize regulation, under the direct influence of money (lobbying) or indirect support in the form of the ability to create jobs in their constituencies. Should we hope that some new plague will wipe out half of humanity so that we will improve the lot of the working class? He lays out how we can transition to a post-capitalist economy, but also reminds us that there are other ways of knowing and being that hold the secret to a better world. Overall, I would have given it 3/5 if not for the fact that the main theme of the book is the most important public conversation of today. Our society has bought into the myth that the economy of human society must constantly grow to be successful.This book lives in the same space as “Donut Economics” by Kate Raworth, but is executed much much better.