Less is More How Degrowth Will Save the World

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel identifies capitalism as the cause of our problems—the sort of criticism that makes many people really uncomfortable. Fortunately, he is an eloquent and charismatic spokesman who patiently but firmly walks you through the history of capitalism, exposes flaws of proposed fixes, and then lays out a litany of sensible solutions. It quickly confirms that sinking feeling most of us will have: that the economy is not working for us. What is perhaps eye-opening is that this is not by accident, but by design.

It helps, as Hickel quickly does, to clarify two things. First, he does not object to economic growth per se. Indeed, many of the world's poorest countries need to grow further to meet basic human needs. The problem is growth for growth's sake. Second, people often confuse capitalism with markets and trade, but they pre-date capitalism by millennia. This is all textbook Marx, but, Hickel explains, markets and trade are organised around use-value: we trade for what is useful to us. Capitalism is organised around exchange-value: goods are sold to make a profit. Growth is a structural imperative and the results are plain for all to see: environmental destruction and human immiseration benefitting a small minority.

In the first half of the book, Hickel prepares the reader by providing a history of capitalism which rose through the enclosure of the commons at home and colonialism and slavery overseas. It was enabled as much by a changing worldview for which Hickel blames thinkers such as Bacon and Descartes. Especially the latter's dualism, which cast humans as apart from nature rather than a part of nature, removed any remaining sense of restraint. His other task is to patiently pick over some prominent technological and economic "solutions" and expose their flaws, including BECCS, "green growth", and geo-engineering proposals. The fundamental flaw uniting them is that they refuse to question whether more growth is necessary. He exposes the claim of decoupling as an accounting trick and points out why the Jevons paradox is no paradox at all when hitched to the growth imperative: "technology is used not to do the same amount of stuff in less time, but rather to do *more stuff in the same amount of time*" (p. 153). What does this growth achieve? Up to a certain point, economic growth is good, necessary even, but research shows it has rapidly diminishing returns after that. Numerous poor countries score higher on measures of human well-being than wealthy ones. Why? Turns out that investing in public goods and services matters more.

The second half of the book presents solutions. To stave off ecological collapse we need to limit growth by reorganising the economy. This is degrowth: "a planned downscaling of energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a safe, just and equitable way" (p. 29). Is that not a recession? No, responds Hickel, those happen in a growth-dependent economy. Degrowth calls for "a different kind of economy altogether – an economy that doesn't *need* growth in the first place" (p. 205). What I feel is insufficiently emphasized here is that degrowth is not forever either. It is a necessary course correction to a system in overshoot, a transitional phase towards a post-capitalist world.

For Hickel, degrowth has two important components. The first one is obvious: reduce material and energy use to bring us back to within planetary boundaries. How? We could end planned obsolescence, curb advertising, shift from ownership to "usership" (i.e. share things such as cars or power tools), address food waste, and scale down or eliminate ecologically destructive industries. The second component, vital to the success of the first, is to address economic inequality. How? We could tax the ultra-wealthy more or cap income and wealth and redistribute the excess, eliminate tax havens, and renationalise public services. According to Hickel, there is enough money sloshing around the system to finance public services globally. What about jobs? Hickel admits that decreasing production will eliminate jobs. He suggests retraining programmes, job guarantees, and especially a shorter working week. That last one already has a proven track record. Keep in mind, Hickel adds, that when the aim is not to maximize profit, we could get by with less money. What ultimately matters is what your money can buy you. In short, his proposals rely on both changing the incentives inherent in the system and active government intervention and regulation.

Less is More resonated with me to an exceptional degree but did leave me with some questions and concerns. First is the how. The rich will be extremely hostile to the suggestion that governments play Robin Hood and redistribute their wealth to the poor. Furthermore, I think even many "regular" people will have a hard time voluntarily abandoning certain ecologically destructive habits and activities. Hickel admits that he is no political strategist, adding only "that [it] will require a movement, as with every struggle for social and ecological justice in history" (p. 242). I worry that this might well involve bloody violence. Simultaneously, past civil movements managed to enter the political arena, so what can we learn from their struggles?

My second concern is material (literally). Hickel urges that addressing climate change means transitioning towards renewable energy. Though he acknowledges that constructing the needed infrastructure has an immense material footprint and will require large amounts of mining, he omits that, once built, we have to maintain and replace machines as they wear out, requiring continuous material input. He briefly mentions the problem of declining ore grades but omits any mention of the hard limit of energy return on energy invested: at some point, we will face an endgame where it will take more energy to extract certain materials than they will generate. Even if we curb the worst excesses of capitalism and consumerism, we are still grinding our way through vast reserves of materials, including metals and minerals, that are not renewable on a human time scale, or not at all.

Hickel makes an incredibly compelling case for degrowth. Of all the proposals I have come across, it strikes me as the only sensible one, calling out the roots of the problem instead of meekly tinkering around the edges. This will not be the last book I will read on this intriguing topic. Less is More was published in 2020 so will since have been extensively analysed and criticized. The degrowth movement likely has responded to the points I raised above, and many others besides. And with all due respect to Hickel, this movement is bigger than him.