The Transition to a Sustainable Prosperity | Journal Paper by Tim Jackson and Peter Victor
This paper presents a stock-flow consistent (SFC) macroeconomic simulation model for Canada. Contrary to the widely accepted view, the results suggest that ‘green growth’ (in the Carbon Reduction Scenario) may be slower than ‘brown growth’. More importantly, we show (in the Sustainable Prosperity Scenario) that improved environmental and social outcomes are possible even as the growth rate declines to zero.
Using critical slowing down indicators to understand economic growth rate variability and secular stagnation | NATURE paper
Global economic stability could be difficult to recover in the wake of the Covid-19, this Nature article finds. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, many of the world’s leading economies were experiencing larger slower growth cycles (recession cycles), suggesting precisely such a period of critical slowing down in the economic system. This analysis suggests that the added weight of the Covid-19 crisis may result in one of the weakest and most unstable recoveries in recorded history for many economies.
How the light gets in—The science behind growth scepticism
The Entropy Law still matters. CUSP director Tim Jackson responds to Michael Liebreich’s essay on the ‘The secret of eternal growth’.—"Because we are intelligent does not mean that there is no such thing as limits. We cannot usefully ‘imagine’ the available carbon budget to be bigger than it actually is. Our ‘wonder’ will not in itself preserve the species lost precipitously in recent decades in the relentless pursuit of eternal growth."
Materiality and spiritually in Marx, Darwin and Malthus
I am not quite sure why discussions about Marx elicit such eloquence, but they invariably do. Perhaps it is because, at its best, Marx’s own writing had the same quality. At any rate, John Bellamy Foster’s excellent essay, along with the ensuing discussion, has been no exception. I have been struck throughout by the quality of the writing and the intensity of the arguments: careful thought, lucid prose, and occasional outbursts of pure emotion. Marx clearly still has the power to elicit strong feelings—on both sides of the debate. The sheer level of engagement is a credit both to Foster and to the influence Marx still has.
