Late capitalism’s dangerous endgame has a body count. The mantra of growth is failing us. Not because we haven’t tried hard enough. But because it’s built on broken promises. In his blog for the Institute of Arts and Ideas, CUSP co-director Prof Tim Jackson points to another economics that views prosperity as health and economy as care.
By TIM JACKSON
In the opening weeks of 2026, the relentless pursuit of economic growth reached new and ignominious heights. In doing so, it showed its true colours: an unseemly willingness to cross borders, redraw sovereignties and legitimise force in the name of prosperity.
Donald Trump’s “decapitation” of the Venezuelan government was accompanied by blunt demands for access to Venezuelan oil. Emboldened by success, the US President began to renew his territorial ambitions over Greenland—and its mineral wealth. Days later, he set up a spurious “Board of Peace” to reconstruct Gaza for the benefit of America and its allies.
All of this was presented as legitimate positioning in a new multipolar world. Eight decades of the so-called rules-based international order now counted for little. Wealth was paramount. Might was right. History would be written by the victors. This new political realism owed more to Machiavelli’s Prince than to any modern conception of global governance.
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