Prosperity Without Growth

Book: Tim Jackson. Prosperity Without Growth. Earthscan, 2009

URL = http://www.earthscan-usa.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=215491

Description

Chris Carlsson:

"Tim Jackson is the author of Prosperity Without Growth, and he was joined by a Mexican Miguel Valencia, and Sophy Banks of Transition Towns Totnes in England.

Jackson's presentation was quite sharp, laying out the problems of pursuing the growth paradigm onwards, but also looking frankly at the destabilizing problems that accompany a process of "degrowth." He ran through a lot of the arguments and then paused to say that he wished, like many people (especially eco-activists in my home base in Northern California!) to find a bit of land above the rising waters where he could get off the grid, have a couple of goats and some chickens, and grow his own vegetables and fruit.

But he quickly dismissed this escapist fantasy to argue in favor of engagement, but to engage he admitted we had to overcome our sense of the intractability of the impossibilities we can easily identify. He argued for an "Economics for a Finite Planet," which involved ecological investment in poverty alleviation, low carbon transition, adn eco-system maintenance.

His program is centered on "ecological enterprise" that "treads lightly, supports and embeds itself in communities, and provides good livelihoods," since he does not shy away from the problem of work and self-sustainability that we currently look to wage-labor and the Economy to provide. Ultimately he seeks to redefine prosperity as our ability to flourish as humans within the ecological limits of a finite planet.

But his ringing endorsement of public goods and public spaces is most important, from a Shareable.net point of view. If people are to participate meaningfully in redirecting our lives, it depends on a sense of belonging, which in turn depends largely on the availability of public space and public goods." (http://shareable.net/blog/copenhagen-deluged)