Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World - Jason Hickel

Come join Triangle Common Good in discussing Jason Hickel's Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.

Hickel is an anthropologist whose focus is economic anthropology and has served as a senior fellow at the London School of Economics, editor of World Development, and member of the US National Academy of Sciences Climate and Macroeconomics Roundtable.

Less is More is an argument for "degrowth", which Hickel personally defines as "a planned reduction in energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being". This will be a chance to talk about the relationship of our economy to questions not just of the environment, but of critiques of looking at the size of an economy or GDP alone as a measure of the well-being of a society and how this relates to a society ordered around some conception of limits or intentional design.

Those of you who were present for our Abundance discussion will know that Hickel and this book is referenced and Abundance is explicitly framed as an option in opposition to "degrowth". This will also then be a chance to compare and contrast these two approaches.

What Does Degrowth Mean: A Few Points of Clarification? - Hickel Article
https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/files/2022/11/What-does-degrowth-mean-A-few-points-of-clarification.pdf

Turns Out GDP Doesn't Buy Happiness - NYT
https://archive.ph/NrFi7

Oren Cass Interview - Example of Conservative Critique of How We Talk About Economic Growth
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-right-wing-economist-makes-his-case/id1081584611?i=1000712061927

The Case for Degrowth
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2020/08/the-case-for-degrowth

Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity - Degrowth Think Tank
https://cusp.ac.uk/