What happens when investment firms take over UK care homes | Report and Briefing Paper
Through a series of in-depth interviews with care workers Christine Corlet Walker et al explore the impact of investment firms on working conditions and quality of care in UK care homes. Combined with an analysis of care company accounts generating insights into the impacts of financialisation on the UK care sector, the report shows how investment firms are using extreme strategies to reduce staffing levels and cut costs in the name of profit, with appalling consequences for care.
Book launch: Wie wollen wir leben?—Tim Jackson in conversation with Barbara Unmüßig
On 18 October 2021, Tim Jackson talks to Barbara Unmüßig, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, about the German edition of his latest book Post Growth—’Wie wollen wir leben?’ (Oekom, 2021). The book is not just a manifesto for system change, but an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition.
Worker wellbeing and productivity in advanced economies: Re-examining the link | Journal paper
Labour productivity is a key concept for understanding the way modern economies use resources and features prominently in ecological economics. Ecological economists have questioned the desirability of labour productivity growth on both environmental and social grounds. In this paper we aim to contribute to ongoing debates by focusing on the link between labour productivity and worker wellbeing.
Let’s be less productive—Restoring the value of care | Opinion piece for The New York Times
The challenges facing the world and the UK today are unprecedented. A global health emergency, a global climate crisis, and a catastrophic loss of biodiversity are undermining the basis for future prosperity in the UK and across the world. This article, written for The New York Times in 2012, speaks to the theme of restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society.
Wellbeing and Productivity: A Review of the Literature | Paper
This report reviews the relationships between the different aspects of wellbeing, productivity, and productivity growth. It is the culmination of a desk-based evidence review, survey, and a mapping workshop held with experts from backgrounds including psychology, sociology, economics, and design. The focus is on wellbeing and labour productivity.
The Future Of Work — Lessons from the History of Utopian Thought | Paper
This paper aims to contribute towards the development of a political economy of work fit for purpose in a world of social and environmental limits. In order to get beyond today’s dominant conceptions of work in a growth-based capitalism, Simon Mair, Angela Druckman and Tim Jackson explore the role of work in historical utopias.
Confronting inequality: basic income and the right to work
Ten years after the financial crisis, inequality in advanced economies is still rising. Tim Jackson presents the findings of a new CUSP working paper to explore potential solutions. "There are post-growth worlds in which social progress remains entirely possible."
Confronting inequality in a post-growth world – Basic income, factor substitution and the future of work | Paper
Piketty argued that slow growth rates inevitably lead to rising inequality. If true, this hypothesis would pose serious challenges for a ‘post-growth’ society. If true, this hypothesis would pose serious challenges for a ‘post-growth’ society. Fiscal responses to this dilemma include Piketty’s own suggestion to tax capital assets and more recent suggestions to provide a universal basic income that would allow even the poorest in society to meet basic needs.
The future of jobs: is decent work for all a pipe dream? | The Guardian
Rapid developments in technology and unpredictable economies are destabilising employment as we know it. What are the possible solutions? Rapid developments in technology and unpredictable economies are destabilising employment as we know it. What are the possible solutions? It’s not the demand for human labour that is disappearing, Tim Jackson argues, but the institutions and economics to deliver it.
An economy that works
Prosperity isn’t just about earning more and having more, it consists in our ability to participate meaningfully in the life of society. A vital element, Tim Jackson argues, that has gone missing for ordinary people over recent decades. We must question the fundamental structures behind our economies before they will work for everyone. (This blog is posted on the CUSP website).
Beyond Consumer Capitalism—Foundations for Sustainable Prosperity | Paper
This paper explores the ramifications of the combined crises now faced by the prevailing growth-based model of economics. In paying a particular attention to the nature of enterprise, the quality of work, the structure of investment and the role of money, the paper develops the conceptual basis for social innovation in each of these areas, and provides empirical examples of such innovations.
