The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause: capitalism. Our economic system is based on perpetual expansion, which is devastating the living world. There is only one solution that will lead to meaningful and immediate change: degrowth. If we want to have a shot at surviving the Anthropocene, we need to restore the balance. We need to change how we see the world and our place within it, shifting from a philosophy of domination and extraction to one that’s rooted in reciprocity with our planet’s ecology. We need to evolve beyond the dusty dogmas of capitalism to a new system that’s fit for the twenty-first century. But what about jobs? What about health? What about progress? This book tackles these questions and offers an inspiring vision for what a post-capitalist economy could look like. An economy that’s more just, more caring, and more fun. An economy that enables human flourishing while reversing ecological breakdown. By taking less, we can become more.
Author
Dr. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020, the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe, and on the Harvard-Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice. Jason's research focuses on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics, which are the subjects of his two most recent books: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (Penguin, 2017), and Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Penguin, 2020). Jason's ethnographic work focuses on migrant labour and politics in South Africa, which is the subject of his first book, Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa (University of California Press, 2015). He is co-editor of two additional ethnographic volumes: Ekhaya: The Politics of Home in KwaZulu-Natal (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014) and Hierarchy and Value: Comparative Perspectives on Moral Order (Berghahn, 2018). In addition to his academic work, Jason writes regularly for The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and contributes to a number of other online outlets including Al Jazeera, Fast Company, Prospect, Jacobin, Le Monde Diplomatique, New Internationalist, Red Pepper, Truthout, and Monthly Review. His media appearances include Viewsnight, the Financial Times, the BBC World Service, Sky News All Out Politics, BBC Business Matters, Thinking Allowed, Renegade TV, NPR, Doha Debates, TRT World, the LA Times, Citations Needed, and Russell Brand's podcast Under the Skin. Jason has received a number of teaching awards, including the ASA/HEA National Award for Excellence in Teaching Anthropology. His research has been funded by Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust. He is originally from Swaziland. https://www.jasonhickel.org/about
