Prosperity without Growth
Economics for a Finite Planet
By Tim Jackson with forewords by Herman Daly, Bill McKibben, Mary Robinson and Pavan Sukhdev
‘Bold and provocative’ The New York Times
‘One of the best books of 2009’ Financial Times
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Hardback £14.99 / $22.50
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| October 2009 / 280 pages / 9781844078943 |
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Is it time to re-think economic growth?
'The crisis doesn't only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.'
President Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris, September 2009
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.
The growth debate
The 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. Since the report was published in March 2009, President Sarkozy has asked world leaders to join a revolution in the measurement of economic progress, Sir Nicholas Stern has warned 'at some point we would have to think about whether we want future growth', and John Prescott has called the current economic growth model 'immoral'. Read some more news articles on the growth debate here>>
Praise for Prosperity Without Growth
'A new economic movement is emerging, and this superbly written book should be the first stop for anyone wanting a manifesto.'
The Guardian
'This might well become as important for sustainable development as the Brundtland Report.'
Paul-Marie Boulanger, Director of IDD
'Prosperity without Growth's hugely encouraging and thrilling theme is that humanity can prosper without growth. In fact there is no other way left to us. '
Dr Robert Goodland, former Adviser to the World Bank Group, winner of World Conservation Union's Coolidge Medal of Honor, 2008
'Tim Jackson's book simply resets the agenda for Western society.'
Bernie Bulkin, SDC commissioner for Climate Change, Energy and Transport
'A must-read for anyone concerned with issues of climate change and sustainability - bold, original and comprehensive. We have to define prosperity and welfare differently from the past and separate them from economic growth measured as GDP: this work shows how we should set about the task.'
Anthony Giddens, Emeritus Professor, LSE
'Jackson's cutting edge research has already begun to re-define the debate about how to achieve a future of human and planetary well-being. A must-read.'
Juliet Schor, author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, and Professor of Sociology, Boston College
'Jackson goes after the complacency and dishonesty at the heart of contemporary politics, and provides a brilliant and compelling account of the crucial importance of the growth debate.'
Jonathon Porritt, former chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission
'The best account of the financial crises and the state of society I have read in a long time. . . The beauty is that the change that is needed will make us happier.'
Clare Short, MP
'Zero growth is not only necessary, it is inevitable and will supercede Selfish Capitalism. In this brilliant analysis, Tim Jackson has laid bare a system in crisis and has lit the way forward.'
Oliver James, Author of Affluenza
'Tim Jackson provides a convincing case as to why conventional economic growth has not and cannot deliver prosperity. By showing why this is the case, we have the tools to start to build an economy based on sustainable development.'
Jan Bebbington, Professor of Accounting and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
'A vital, much-needed, and timely work that deserves to be widely read, this is more than a brilliant treatise on the difficulties of developing a truly sustainable economy. It is also an important contribution to the increasingly urgent debate over the nature of the good life and the good society.'
Professor Colin Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of York
'Economic growth is both unsustainable on a finite planet and undesirable in its failure to continue to improve real welfare. What we need is true prosperity without growth. Why we must have this and how it can be achieved are compellingly explained in this essential work. It is not sacrifice to adopt the measures advocated. It is a sacrifice of our current and future well-being not to.'
Dr. Robert Costanza, Gordon and Lulie Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont
'Provokes official thought on the unthinkable. No small accomplishment! I hope this gets the serious attention it deserves.'
Professor Herman Daly, author of Steady-State Economics and recipient of the Honorary Right Livelihood Award (Sweden's alternative to the Nobel Prize)
'What makes it unthinkable to stop growth even though it is killing us? Tim Jackson boldly confronts the structural Catch-22 that drives this madness and proposes in this lucid, persuasive, and blessedly readable book how we might begin to get off the fast track to self-destruction. Don't miss it!'
Dianne Dumanoski, author of The End of the Long Summer and co-author of Our Stolen Future
'Tim Jackson cuts through the official cant and wishful thinking to tell us what we have refused to admit – we cannot preserve a habitable planet and pursue endless economic growth at the same time. In an era when all ideologies have failed, this book lays out the basis for the only viable political philosophy for the 21st century.'
Clive Hamilton, Author of Growth Fetish and Professor of Public Ethics, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australia (Forthcoming Earthscan title: Requiem for a Species)
'If you want to understand why current growth centric economics is not fit for purpose then read this book. This is the clearest and most important contribution to proving it's time to rethink growth economics in order to live the low carbon, poverty free and one planet life we all need and want.'
Alan Knight, Founder of Singleplanetliving
'Endless growth on a finite planet, or endless misery-spreading recession, both represent impossible futures. Here are some very powerful steps towards a possible, indeed a very hopeful, alternate outcome!'
Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy
'We were delighted when Professor Jackson spoke at our July Meeting at Lloyds Banking HQ in London. He endorsed the feelings of many in the BCSD-UK that business as usual is not an option. His clear and concise challenge of what is considered convention is timely and highly appropriate.'
David Middleton, CEO, Business Council for Sustainable Development UK
'Prosperity without Growth says it all: informatively, clearly, inspiringly, critically and constructively, starting from the very troubled, unsustainable and unsatisfying economy we have today and providing a robust combination of suggestions for going toward a sustainable economy and fulfilling lives.'
Richard Norgaard, University of California, Berkeley
'Rising consumption may not be sustainable, due to climate change, energy shortfalls, and to social and psychological harms. In this compelling argument, Tim Jackson shows how urgent it is to think of what might replace it, and what to aim for.'
Avner Offer, Professor of Economic History at Oxford, author of Challenge of Affluence
'Stimulating and timely. This is the best attempt I've seen to build a trans-disciplinary critique of economic growth, with prescriptions based in economic theory.'
Ronan Palmer, Chief Economist, The Environment Agency
‘This book is THE must-read for any one interested in cutting edge thinking in sustainability and wellbeing.’
Jules Peck, Founding partner of Abundancy Partners, previous Director of Conservative Party Quality of Life, and co-author of Citizen Renaissance
'Tim Jackson's book is a powerful intellectual challenge to an economic orthodoxy out of touch with the real world of physical limits, global warming and peaking oil reserves. It is refreshingly rigorous, honest and hopeful.'
Ann Pettifor, Fellow of the new economics foundation and co-author of the Green New Deal
' One of the few good things about the current financial crisis is the extent of serious soul-searching about the right way to deliver economic success. Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth is the most elegant exposition of a route out of this maze...[his] attempt to develop a new ecological macro-economics sets out a framework for scaling up investments in resource efficiency, clean technologies and ecosystem enhancement.'
Nick Robins, head of HSBC’s Climate Change Centre of Excellence
'When it comes to resolving the tension between the environment and the economy the watchword should be 'less is more'. If you want to find out how we could all be healthier, wealthier and a lot wiser you should read this book.'
Molly Scott Cato, Reader in Green Economics, Cardiff School of Management and Economics Speaker for the Green Party
'We live in a finite world but with infinite demands. Human wants, political convenience and intellectual inertia trump planetary limits. Tim Jackson makes headway in setting signposts towards a more sustainable future.'
Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED)
‘Jackson's analysis is truly unique [in this genre] in meticulously disentangling the interdependencies between the economic logic of production, the social logic of consumption, and the conflicting position of the state that keeps the unsustainable machinery of growth moving. Jackson also provides an original perspective that identifies leverage points for change that hold the prospect of eventual effectiveness. I have not encountered such a bright and insightful analysis since the path-breaking work of the Donella and Dennis Meadows and Herman Daly.’
Arnold Tukker, Journal of Industrial Ecology
'Tim Jackson's book clearly demonstrates how our passion for consumption drives unsustainable results and it opens up the potential for a new model of consumerism that delivers a more sustainable world.'
Chris Tuppen, Chief Sustainability Officer, BT
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Links
Meet The Author
Tim Jackson's Blog
Table of Contents
Read Chapter 1
Awards
- Best Business & Politics - Treehugger
Audio
- ABC Radio
- ABC, 11 June 2010
- Degrowth at The Hub, London, 12 Jan 2010
- Glasgow Centre for Population Health Seminar
- Radio Ecoshock Interview
- RSA Debate 24 Feb 2010
- LSE Lecture 25 Feb 2010
Video
- TED Talk
- Deakin Lecture 2010
- BICUN
- Bertelsmann Stiftung (English)
- Future Challenges Interview
- Building a New Green Economy – Prince’s Foundation
- Book Launch with SDC
- Book Launch at LRB
- Earthcast: webinar & slides
- Guardian Videocast
- Church Action on Poverty
- Danish National TV - DR2
- New Green Economy Conf.
- Lecture at Queen's University
- Greens / EFA Conference
Reviews
- The Guardian
- Environment Times
- Financial Times
- Make Wealth History
- Axis Newsflash
- Treehugger
- Philobiblon
- CASSE blog
- International Futures Forum
- Kosmos
- Nick Robins, HSBC
- Arab News
Interviews
- Reuters Alert-Net
- Reuters
- Dagens Nyheter Sweden
- RSA Online Journal
- Radio Ecoshock Blog
- Transition Culture
- IPS (Tierramérica network)
- La Vanguardia
Author Articles
- Long Horizons – Art & Climate Change
- Ecologist Online
- Crikey
- The IET Magazine
- MakingIt Magazine
- 2020 Science
- RSA Journal
- New Statesman
Speeches
- Prince of Wales' Accounting for Sustainability Forum
- Church Action on Poverty
News Articles
- Le Monde, 26 August 2010
- Le Monde, 21 August 2010
- Mail & Guardian, South Africa
- United Nations
- Tvärdrag (Swedish)
- Effekt (Swedish)
- Sunday Times Supplement 18 April 2010
- New York Times
- BBC Green Room
- Sustainable Business
- Energy Bulletin
- Ecologist
- Financial Times
- The Telegraph Blog
- Carbon Commentary
- From Poverty to Power
- Journal of Industrial Ecology
- Jeanette Fitzsimons Speech
- Church Times
Debategraph
- Register here
- PWG launch debategraph
Discount Flyer
Circulate freely!
About Tim Jackson
- University of Surrey Profile
- SDC Profile
- FCRN Profile
Press releases
- SDC Event
- LRB Event
- COP15
Contact Tim Jackson
To contact Professor Tim Jackson for press or events relating to his book,
Prosperity Without Growth, please contact:
gudrun.freese
@earthscan.co.uk
Tel +44 (0)20 7841 1930
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