Samuel Alexander
Simplicity Institute
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How much is enough?
Enough for what?
In what does the ‘good life’ consist?
How can we flourish within safe planetary limits without
impoverishing others?
 Wellbeing
 Sustainability
 Social justice
 What is to be done?
 How is one to be?
 ‘The inner crisis of our civilisation must be resolved if the outer
civilisation is to be effectively met’. – Lewis Mumford
 ‘This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to
do with it’ R.W. Emerson
 CRITIQUE OF EXISTING SYSTEM
 The growth model of progress and consumer culture
 Limits to growth
 Can technology save us?
 ENVISIONING ALTERNATIVES WAY TO LIVE
 Degrowth to a steady state economy
 What would life be like in a degrowth economy?
 A simpler way
 TRANSITION STRATEGIES
 How to get from where we are to where we’d like to be?
 Wurruk’an
 Ecological overshoot, climate, and biodiversity loss
 Poverty amidst plenty
 Overpopulation
 Almost every individual seems to want more
 Every nation seems to want growth
 But the health of the planet is in decline
 Is ‘more’ a legitimate goal for the richest nations?
 What would happen if we globalised affluence?
 On our one and only planet – how much is ‘enough’?
 How much is too much?
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I = Ecological impact
P = Population
A = Affluence (or per capita income)
T = Technology (or efficiency)
 We could add B = behaviour (I = BPAT)
 Modern environmentalism seems to put all its faith it
technology (T). Why?
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Reducing population is taboo
Reducing affluence is unpopular
Behaviour change is inconvenient and challenging
But don’t worry, technology will save us!
 What happens if we actually get what we are aiming
for in terms of growth?
 ‘The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our
inability to understand the exponential function’
 Al Bartlett
 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of the
total monetary value of all goods and services
produced within a nation over a given period.
 But it doesn’t distinguish between production and
consumption that contributes to social or
environmental wellbeing and that which does not.
 “GDP measures everything except that which makes
life worthwhile” – Robert Kennedy
 We are living in an age of ‘uneconomic growth’.
 Prehistory – the original affluent society?
 Buddha
 Diogenes
 The Stoics
 John Ruskin
 William Morris
 Henry Thoreau
 Gandhi
 Counter-cultures
 Voluntary simplicity, ecovillages, permaculture, etc.
 Growth scepticism (steady state economics, degrowth, etc)
 Degrowth means ‘planned economic contraction’ of the energy and
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resource demands of developed or overdeveloped nations.
Degrowth, being planned contraction, is to be distinguished from
recession, which is unplanned contraction.
The poorest nations may need to develop their economic capacities in
some form to attain a dignified material standard of living, but
eventually they too will need to move to a steady state.
Degrowth needs to be driven primarily ‘from below’ at the grassroots
and community levels
We need to embrace degrowth for:
 Environmental and energy reasons
 We should embrace degrowth for:
 Social justice reasons
 We should want to embrace degrowth for:
 Personal and social wellbeing
 Decarbonisation means localisation of economy, more cycling,
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walking, public transport
Renewable energy means energy descent
Energy descent means less production and consumption
Reduced work in formal economy
Increased self-sufficiency (food, water, DIY, etc.)
Increased sharing, barter, gift economy
Home becomes place of sustainable production, not unsustainable
consumption
Reskill (sewing, preserving, construction, etc.)
Appropriate technology
Retrofit the suburbs on permaculture principles
Frugality and moderation in material living standards
A more humble aesthetic of sustainability
Participatory democracy
 Degrowth will need to be driven ‘from below’ at the grassroots
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and community level (at least at first)
Personal lifestyles of voluntary simplicity
Community action based on transition towns, permaculture, etc.
But we must also acknowledge the social and structural
constrains that make it very hard to live lives of sustainable
consumption
We can’t just focus on personal and household action – we also
need to restructure society and monetary system
When/if the social movement is strong enough, top down
revolutionary reform could assist greatly… but culture is not yet
ready for what is required
Also, perhaps the change will arrive through crisis rather than
design. The challenge will be to make the best of our crises.
 No, limitless growth on a finite planet is utopian!
 But we do need a vision of what an appropriate
response to global challenges would look like
 There is not degrowth economy yet, but fragments of a
degrowth economy are bubbling under the surface
 Degrowth is in our interests, so no need to rely on
altruistic saints