Prosperity Within Limits

Take these lies and make them true.

Another week, another post-growth paper to ponder. The paper titled: Prosperity Within Limits? Planetary Habitability, Global Convergence and Structural Transformation, 2026 - 2100 came out recently and is worth a read. The authors are; Lucas Chancel, Cornelia Mohren, Moritz Odersky, Thomas Piketty and Anmol Somanchi and are part of the World Inequality Lab. The paper is 195 pages in total, but only 72 of those need to be read before you get to references and appendices, so there are no excuses. There will be a test!

The authors set out to analyze under what conditions global income convergence by 2100 is compatible with limiting temperature rise to below 2°C. They imagine a future that is compatible with human habitability, which is of course, not the path we are on currently. The authors argue that to reaching this goal will necessitate a drastic change in how we live, including a drastic reduction in work hours (yes please), a shift from material intensive to non-material intensive sectors, a massive investment in low-carbon infrastructure as well as large investments in reforestation / rewilding and human capital. Not surprisingly, the authors conclude the just “greening energy” will not be enough and that material degrowth is needed.

The paper suggests average GDP per capita should converge, and that all countries reach 60k euros (2025 PPP) in per capita GDP in 2100, close to today’s richest-country levels.

According to the authors, this “Sustainable Convergence” scenario delivers higher comprehensive well-being (including valuations of time and planetary habitability) across all regions than the “Productivist Convergence” or “Persistent Inequality” scenarios that they also explore. These two other scenarios both yield a much larger global GDP, but temperatures rise beyond 4°C by 2100. That is hell on Earth, if not “game over” for our civilization. Their main conclusion is that global between-country convergence within planetary boundaries requires major structural transformation and a decisive move toward what they see as sobriety. They conclude that rapid energy transition alone will not suffice. In essence they say that degrowth is a big part of the answer.

The paper’s authors are quick to point out the limits of their analysis, noting that they had to make assumptions that may not hold over the 70+ period they are imagining. The broad strokes of what they are saying point us toward a desperate need for quick action, which includes a heavy dose of a degrowth path moving toward a post-growth economy. I hope that this kind of paper gets more academics, policymakers and businesses to engage in these conversations.

The paper is an interesting read. I recommend it if the topic interests you. This kind of analysis can be a little dry and academic, but the authors here do a good job of walking you through the potential scenarios ahead of us, and the choices we need to make to get to the most desirable one.

The limits to academic analysis

I’ve started highlighting research and real-world developments every Thursday here because I think it is important for people to see examples of “how this can happen”.

However, these ideas and concepts are just pleasant future fiction without the action to make them happen.

That is where you come in.

This paper is just one of the many I’ve highlighted in the past few months:

Moving Beyond Capitalism - by Matt Orsagh

Bioregionalism As Our Economic System - by Matt Orsagh

What a Post-Growth Future Could Be - by Matt Orsagh

Scotland Blazes a Post-Growth Trail - by Matt Orsagh

People Love Degrowth Policies - by Matt Orsagh

But each of these plans, save maybe the Scotland legislation, are largely theoretical.

What we all need to be doing is talking to people in our communities to begin setting up support systems, governance systems, agriculture systems, local power (both kinds) systems, and other new ways of organizing ourselves to build resilience into the system.

The current system wants us to be dependent, with brands standing in for human connection and deference to authority standing in for community. We’ve tried that model for the last few hundred years, and we are reaching the end game of our current economic system.

What was promised was a representative democracy and the pursuit of happiness. What we got was 250 years of muddling back towards the very thing we were trying to escape. Go back and read the Declaration of Independence. History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

Those promises of freedom, self-rule and self-determination may look like lies now, but the people who wrote them at the time believed in them. They are still worth pursuing. In the words of the great George Michael, “All we have to do now, is take these lies, and make them true … somehow.”

We are starting to see that somehow take place. The guidebook is being written. It now takes us to build what was promised for real. We will have to do it in a collapsing world, but prosperity within limits isn’t a bad thing to build, no matter the timing.