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Enough Is Enough

Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources

Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill

Berrett-Koehler, 2013

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Sustainability experts Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill offer a refreshing but provocative analysis on the disconnection between growth and prosperity. They confront the traditional economic absolute that greater growth and consumption inevitably lead to happiness in a consumer-driven capitalist society. Dietz and O’Neill – advocates of a “steady-state economy” – offer a well-researched and well-presented argument about political economy and the environmentally unfriendly positions of world leaders. Their perspectives raise questions about the ultimate value of materialism and unfettered economic growth, which harm the environment, and undermine social justice and economic equality. getAbstract recommends this idealistic thesis to anyone interested in what a sustainable economy might eventually look like.

Summary

The Failure of Economic Orthodoxy

Every major national government accepts the mainstream economics notion that unfettered growth accompanied by greater consumption and productivity benefits society. That assumption is false. Growth costs more than its supposed benefits can cover. Nations adopting this orthodoxy fail to achieve widespread prosperity.

The Earth has seven billion inhabitants; 2.7 billion of them live on less than $2 a day. Two percent of adults own more than half of the world’s household wealth. These disparities emerge from an economic system that promotes excessive consumption. Economist Herman Daly proposes an alternative approach, a “steady-state economy” that aspires to resource sustainability and economic equality. Three main ideas underlie this approach:

Economic impact evaluations should consider the Earth’s limited resources.
People must understand the policies that would support a steady-state economy, that is, “a prosperous but nongrowing economy.”
Society should promote new economic strategies to replace the flawed consumer-driven mentality that perpetuates growth-oriented economics.

Gross domestic product...

About the Authors

Rob Dietz, editor of the Daly News blog, is the former executive director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). Dan O’Neill is a lecturer in ecological economics at the University of Leeds and the chief economist for CASSE.

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A. R. 3 years ago

"Enough Is Enough" - Kallpa Warmy: Concuerdo en que el crecimiento no es solo cuestión de ver números en alza, eso es algo referencial. El crecimiento que permanece, implica de una gestión de cambios y estrategias que buscan la mejor estabilidad y pulir todo el potencial. Considero que el crecimiento sigiloso, seguro, innovador es aquel que transforma y permanece.
J. M. 1 decade ago

Very well articulated and backed up by valid arguments.

The question however is, how to convince the higher ups in most of the governments and big companies to give up the still prevailing paradigm of the GDPs?

It would be difficult for these people to willingly give up their priviledged positions of wealth and power... Can you imagine the heirs of Walmart sharing their fortune to the to the bottom 30% of the American population?