GCPH Seminar Series 6: Professor Tim Jackson - Prosperity without Growth

This lecture took place at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Economic growth is supposed to deliver rising prosperity: higher incomes increasing wellbeing and leading to prosperity for all. But this conventional formula is failing. Growth has delivered its benefits, at best unequally. Moreover, the ecological and social consequences of unfettered growth are devastating. Climate change threatens long-term wellbeing. Resource scarcities undermine the basis for future prosperity. Persistent inequalities still divide the world and a growing ‘social recession’ haunts the market economies. Development remains essential for poorer countries. But are ever-increasing incomes for the ‘already rich’ still a legitimate goal for advanced nations? Or should we be aiming for prosperity without growth? In this seminar, Tim Jackson, an advisor to the UK Government and author of Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan, 2009), will argue that society faces a profound dilemma: economic growth is unsustainable; but ‘de-growth’ – or economic contraction – is unstable. He will show that the prevailing ‘escape route’ from this dilemma – to try and ‘decouple’ economic activity from its impact – is not working. How can we proceed in a world where global resource consumption is still rising yet meeting climate change targets will require reductions in carbon intensity two orders of magnitude higher than anything achieved historically? In the light of these challenges, Professor Jackson engages in a critical re-examination of the economic structure and social logic of consumerism. He will set out a new vision of a shared prosperity: the capability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological limits of a finite planet.