Sufficiency Economy

Samuel Alexander
SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY: ENOUGH, FOR EVERYONE,
FOREVER
Published by the Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, 2015
www.simplicityinstitute.org

No part of this work may be reproduced, recorded, or transmitted in any form, whether in
print or electronically, without the express written permission of the copyright owner.

Permission to distribute on a non-for-profit basis may be granted upon request.

Copyright © 2015 Samuel Alexander

Cover design by Andrew Doodson
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9941606-1-4
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY:
‘With the vision of a prophet, the eloquence of a poet, the
forensic detail of the scholar, and the engaged passion of an
activist, Samuel Alexander offers critique, analysis and strategy
for a post-growth society beyond carbon-fuelled, consumer
capitalism. It is a truism that ‘where there is no vision the people
perish’. This book in its comprehensive scope presents a
challenging, provocative and absolutely necessary vision,
synthesising theoretical and practical considerations related to
the current crisis of ‘the human condition’, and offering informed
suggestions as to what comes after the unsustainable growth
economy. They say knowledge is power, if so, arm yourself by
reading and (re)acting to and on this book, notes from the ‘front
line’ of our crisis-ridden but self-transforming present.’
– John Barry, author of The Politics of Actually
Existing Unsustainability

‘Impressively researched, eloquently argued, and deeply

engaging, Samuel Alexander’s work sits at the forefront of the
degrowth movement. More than just a powerful critique of the
capitalist growth economy, this book highlights the promise –
and the necessity – of localised, ecological economies as the only
means of adequately confronting the crises that are converging
upon us. At times his vision of the future may be challenging, but
it is never despairing, and ultimately the reader comes away
uplifted and inspired. Alexander convinces us that less can
indeed be more.’
– Helena Norberg-Hodge, author of Ancient Futures
and producer of The Economics of Happiness

‘Sufficiency Economy is a fascinating and encompassing work

that envisions an affirmative response to the descent of growth-
driven societies. It prospects a way forward that is neither overly
optimistic, nor bleak. The result is a strategy for transitioning to
a steady-state yet vibrant existence that focuses as much on
ensuring human dignity as on ending our planetary over-
consumption.
– Raymond De Young, co-author of The Localization
Reader: Adapting to the Coming Downshift
 CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
INTRODUCTION ix

1. Frugal Abundance in an Age of Limits

A simpler way for an energy descent future 1

2. The Optimal Material Threshold

Toward an economics of sufficiency 7

3. The Voluntary Simplicity Movement

A multi-national survey analysis in theoretical context 37

4. Sufficiency Economy
Envisioning a prosperous descent 65

5. Low-Tech Living as a Demand-Side Strategy

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication 103

6. Disruptive Social Innovation for a Low-Carbon World

Evaluating prospects for a Great Transition 129

7. Degrowth and the Carbon Budget

Powerdown strategies for climate stability 169

8. Voluntary Simplicity and the Social Reconstruction of Law

Degrowth from the grassroots up 201

9. Wild Law from Below

Examining the anarchist challenge to Earth Jurisprudence 227

10. The Deep Green Alternative

Debating strategies of transition 243

11. The Transition Movement

Questions of diversity, power, and affluence 279

12. Looking Backward from the Year 2099

Ecozoic reflections on the future 315

Appendix: Overview of PROSPEROUS DESCENT 347

About the author 353
 Acknowledgements
These collected essays are an outgrowth of work initiated in 2006,
when I began working on my doctoral thesis, ‘Property Beyond Growth:
Toward a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity’. Since then the ideas and
perspectives they express have developed in the process of establishing
and teaching a course called ‘Consumerism and the Growth Economy:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives’, which forms part of the Masters of
Environment at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Over this time,
most of the essays have been published in peer-reviewed journals, book
chapters, or other academic publications, as detailed below, with
Chapter 1 being the only journalistic piece:
A version of Ch. 1 was published in The Conversation (2 October 2014);
a version of Ch. 2 was published in Real-World Economics Review
(2012) 61: 2-21; a version of Ch. 3, co-authored with Simon Ussher, was
published in Journal for Consumer Culture (2012) 12(1): 66-86; a
version of Ch. 4 was published as a Simplicity Institute Report (2012)
12s: 1-31; a version of Ch. 5, co-authored with Paul Yacoumis, was
published as a Simplicity Institute Report (2015) 15d: 1-19; a version of
Ch. 6 was published in David Humphreys and Spencer Stober, eds,
Transitions to Sustainability: Theoretical Debates for a Changing
Planet (2014) Ch. 19: 296-315; a version of Ch. 7 was published as a
Simplicity Institute Report (2014) 14h: 1-24; a version of Ch. 8 was
published in Environmental Values (2013) 22(2): 287-308; a version
of Ch. 9 was published in Michelle Maloney and Peter Burdon, eds,
Wild Law – In Practice (2014) Ch. 3: 31-44; a version of Ch. 10, co-
authored with Johnny Rutherford, was published as a Simplicity
Institute Report (2014) 14a: 1-24; a version of Ch. 11, co-authored with
Esther Alloun, was published as a Simplicity Institute Report (2014)
14g: 1-24; a version of Ch. 12 was published in Earth Jurisprudence
and Environmental Justice Journal (2011) 1: 26-59. I am grateful for
the opportunity to reprint.
In writing these essays I was encouraged, challenged, and inspired by
my colleagues and fellow authors at the Simplicity Institute. I would
also like to thank Professor John Wiseman and the Melbourne
Sustainable Society Institute for the support offered as I prepared this
manuscript for publication. I owe special thanks to Antoinette Wilson
and Johnny Rutherford for helping proof and prepare the manuscript.
Debts of gratitude and Guinness are also owed to my very good friend,
Andrew Doodson, for designing the cover for this book. Your time and
creativity are always greatly appreciated.

Finally, to Helen and Laurie – whose love, support, and tolerance make
all my efforts possible. Thank you, as always, for everything.

vii
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

– Buckminster Fuller
!

INTRODUCTION
What is to be done? This is surely one of the central questions for
those of us who are animated by what Charles Eisenstein calls ‘the
more beautiful world our hearts know is possible’; a central question
for those of us with the fire of ecological democracy burning in our
eyes. Yet, it is a question that demands engagement with three
preliminary questions, the answers to which provide the necessary
guidance for effective practical action. First, we must adequately
understand the nature and extent of the overlapping crises that
confront us today. Secondly, we must envision the alternative world,
or matrix of alternative worlds, that would adequately dissolve the
current crises and provide the foundations for a flourishing human
civilisation into the deep future. And thirdly, having provided an
accurate critique and having envisioned an appropriate and effective
alternative, we must meditate deeply on the question of strategy –
the question of how best to direct our energies and resources if we
are to maximise our chances of building the new world we have
imagined. Then, and only then, are we in a position to ask ourselves
the ultimate question: what is to be done? If that question is asked
prematurely, or if it is asked having answered any one of the
preliminary questions inadequately, then there is a great risk that
one’s action, motivated by the best of intentions, is directed in ways
that fail to effectively produce any positive effect and, indeed, may
even be counter-productive to the cause.
The publication of my two volumes of collected essays –
PROSPEROUS DESCENT and SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY – represents an
attempt to engage these questions as directly and as clearly as
possible. The primary motivation for doing so arises from my
concern that much of the literature on ‘sustainable development’
fails to understand the magnitude of our overlapping crises, and for
that reason, the envisioned alternatives or solutions widely
proposed tend to be fundamentally misconceived. Furthermore,
when the critique of the existing world is off target and when the
envisioned alternatives are misconceived, it should come as no
surprise that the strategies proposed for achieving the stated goals
are similarly flawed. If our map is poorly drawn and our compass is
broken, we are unlikely to arrive at where we need to go. Is it any
wonder humanity seems so lost and directionless?
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 SAMUEL ALEXANDER

Over the years of writing these essays my ideas and

perspectives have naturally evolved in a dialectical relationship with
other people’s ideas, and are constantly being refined further as my
experience of the ever-changing world is digested and reflected
upon. The human condition is such that the sands of thought
forever shift beneath our feet. Nevertheless, having now spent the
best part of a decade engaging the questions posed above, I notice
that the evidential ground upon which I stand is firming up,
providing me with confidence that the position I defend – radical
though it may seem – is accurate, even if there may be matters of
detail that will always be open to revision or refinement.
In this introduction I would like to state some of the
fundamental tenets which shape the following essays, in the hope
that this will guide the interpretation of those essays, especially at
those times when these central ideas lie beneath the surface of a
more focused discussion. As I am writing this introduction after
having written the essays, there is also the luxury of having the full
benefit of what I have learned throughout the writing process.
Here are twelve defining theses that shape my work:

1. Pursuing limitless growth on a finite planet is a recipe

for ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. Despite
the controversy that still surrounds the ‘limits to growth’
perspective, there is something strikingly obvious about the
idea that if human population keeps growing, if our resource
and energy demands on the natural environment continue
expanding, and if our streams of waste and pollution keep
growing, then eventually we will undermine the ecological
foundations of our civilisation so violently that nature will fight
back and bring things into balance. Let us face the fact, too, that
‘bringing things into balance’ is a euphemism for mass pop-
ulation die-off, signifying a prospective tragedy of unspeakable
proportions. So the question is not so much whether there are
limits to growth – of course there are limits to growth! – but
rather when those limits will begin to impose themselves on
our current ways of living and force us to live differently. It
would be far better for people and planet that we anticipate
these limits and begin working toward a post-growth economy
now. Needless to say, this will not be easy. We have developed
two centuries of industrial, growth-orientated momentum that
will make it incredibly difficult to consciously redirect the
economic trajectory so fundamentally. But transitioning
‘beyond growth’ is a transformation that is coming, one way or
another. Better it be by design than disaster.

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 SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY

2. ‘Green growth’ is a dangerous myth that entrenches

the status quo. When the limits to growth are raised in
objection to the growth model of progress, many people seem
comforted by the fantasy that science and technology will save
the day. Current forms of growth may have ecological limits,
these people acknowledge, but they then insist that the global
economy can and should keep growing forever, if only we learn
how to produce and consume more efficiently. This is nice in
theory, perhaps, but it is biophysically naïve. It is of the utmost
importance, of course, that we use the best of our technological
knowledge to help us achieve a sustainable way of life through
efficiency improvements. It would be foolish to argue other-
wise. But efficiency alone cannot ‘decouple’ economic growth
from ecological impact sufficiently to produce a sustainable way
of life. The extent of decoupling required is simply too great. To
be effective, the drive for efficiency must be shaped and limited
by an ethics of sufficiency. That is to say, our aim should not be
to do ‘more with less’ (which is the flawed paradigm of green
growth), but to do ‘enough with less’ (which is the paradigm of
sufficiency).

3. ‘Degrowth’ (i.e., planned contraction of resource and

energy demands) is necessary in the developed
nations in order to move toward a just and sustainable
economy that operates within the sustainable carrying
capacity of the planet. When the extent of ecological
overshoot is understood, and bearing in mind the fact that
ecological room must be left for poorest nations to attain a
dignified existence, there is no escaping the fact that degrowth
is required in the developed – or rather overdeveloped –
regions of the world. This is not a popular thesis, but it does
reflect a biophysical reality.

4. Addressing poverty within a degrowth framework

implies a redistribution of wealth and power on a
much more egalitarian basis. Within the growth model it is
assumed that poverty will be eliminated through continued
growth of the global economy via some ‘trickle down’ effect.
This is an ecologically unsupportable pathway to poverty
elimination, because it relies on continued growth on an
already overburdened planet. Once it is recognised that growth
cannot solve the problem of poverty and in fact threatens to
exacerbate it through climate change, continued ecological
degradation, or economic collapse, it becomes clear that the
only coherent pathway beyond poverty lies in a more
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 SAMUEL ALEXANDER

egalitarian distribution of wealth and power within a degrowth

model of progress. This is not the place to argue how that could
be achieved – there are many options. The present point is
simply to acknowledge that it is a necessary feature of any
transition to a just and sustainable world.

5. Degrowth implies radically reduced energy and

resource requirements compared to overdeveloped
nations. Among other things, degrowth means giving up
affluent, consumer lifestyles and embracing ‘simpler ways’ of
living that provide for mostly local needs using mostly local
resources. This is an implication of the environmental pre-
dicament that few dare to acknowledge, since most people seem
resistant to giving up the comforts and conveniences of
consumer affluence. But given the extent of ecological
overshoot, there is no way that the consumer way of life could
be universalised. Consumerism was an experiment that failed.
It led civilisation down a dead end. We are now being called to
reimagine the good life beyond consumer culture and explore
new conceptions of progress and prosperity. This does not
necessarily mean hardship. It means focusing on what is
sufficient to live well – and pursuing that goal with all the
wisdom, creativity, and compassion we can muster.

6. It is not enough merely to live more simply within

existing structures and systems. While challenging
ourselves to live more simply is necessary, the even greater
challenge is to begin building new systems and structures that
support and encourage ‘simpler ways’ of life. We cannot wait
for governments to do this for us. First and foremost, we must
organise and network at the grassroots level and begin building
the new world within the shell of the world.

7. At some point, when the social movement becomes

powerful enough, there will need to be some
democratic social planning of the economy to ensure
that the necessary degrowth transition does not
collapse the economy. Accordingly, to advocate for
degrowth is ultimately to embrace a reconceived form of eco-
socialism. This means that the most fundamental questions
about what is produced and how it is distributed cannot be left
primarily to market forces. While there will inevitably be a
place for forms of private property and market exchange, any
successful transition to a degrowth economy is going to require
democratic planning of the economy, preferably in highly
xii
 SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY

decentralised and localised ways. Many wasteful or damaging

sectors of the existing economy – such as advertising, fossil fuel
production, private motor vehicle production, and the finance
industries – will need to be greatly reduced or repurposed.
Other sectors – such as organic farming, renewable energy
production, and public transport – will need to be ramped up.

8. Degrowth is thus incompatible with capitalism.

Admittedly, this is a realisation that I resisted for some time,
hoping that the social, economic, and environmental crises that
human beings face would not require such terrifyingly
fundamental change. Couldn’t we just reform capitalism?
Eventually, however, I realised that there was no honour in
deceiving myself and potentially others just because the
challenge of replacing capitalism seemed, and still seems, like
an impossible pipe dream. The first question to grapple with is
whether capitalism needs to be replaced, not whether we will
ever succeed in doing so, and the nature of capitalism is such
that it is unable to deal with the crises we face. Capitalism has a
‘grow or die’ imperative built into its very structure. At every
turn participants in the market economy are more or less
compelled to pursue profit or else risk being destroyed by
competitors running them out of business. The technologies
and products that are developed under capitalism are the one’s
that promise the best return, not the one’s that are most
needed. Similarly, the distribution of resources is determined
by who has the most money, not who needs the resources the
most. The structures and incentives of capitalism also create
constant pressure for individuals and businesses to externalise
environmental and social costs, making it impossible to price
commodities in a way that ensures ‘optimal’ consumption and
production. The consequence is that the justifications of
capitalism based on wealth-maximisation and efficiency are
rarely if ever reflected in reality. Furthermore, the vast amounts
of private and public debt that have been taken on in recent
decades depend on continued growth for those debts to be
repaid. For all these reasons, the idea of reforming capitalism in
a way that deals with the crises of civilisation entails
irresolvable contractions. Perhaps the most compelling reason
for why capitalism cannot produce a just and sustainable world,
however, is because capitalist economies would collapse if
existing structures tried to deal with the necessary degrowth of
resource and energy consumption. This is especially so in a
globalised economy where it is becoming increasingly difficult
for one capitalist economy to defy the neoliberal world order.
xiii
 SAMUEL ALEXANDER

Localisation and contraction of national economies in such a

context will require democratic planning of the economy.1

9. A swift transition to renewable energy is necessary to

respond to climate change and peak oil. Be that as it
may, renewable energy will be unable to sustain a growth-
orientated, consumerist society. A society based on renewable
energy is a moderate energy society, which means energy-
intensive societies must prepare for energy descent. Given the
close connection between energy and economic activity, the
required energy descent necessarily means economic
contraction.

10. Climate change and peak oil are not the fundamental
problems. Rather, they are the symptoms of the cultures and
systems of consumer capitalism. While it is absolutely
necessary to work toward responding to climate change and
peak oil as effectively as possible, we should not lose sight of
the more fundamental challenge of replacing the cultures and
systems that produce those problems. Otherwise we will find
ourselves hacking at the branches of the problems, when we
should be aiming for the roots. After all, a post-carbon
capitalism would still be a growth economy that degraded the
natural environment, alienated workers, and distributed wealth
so unjustly.

11. Material sufficiency in a free society provides the

conditions for an infinite variety of meaningful,
happy, and fulfilling lives. Perhaps this thesis is the most
fundamental, because any political or economic system is
inevitably shaped by some conception of the good life.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
But as John Holloway warns: ‘Revolution is not about destroying capitalism,
but about refusing to create it. To pose revolution as the destruction of
capitalism is to reproduce the abstraction of time that is so central to the
reproduction of capitalism: it is self-defeating. To think of destroying
capitalism is to erect a great monster in front of us, so terrifying that we either
give up in despair or else conclude that the only way in which we can slay the
monster is by constructing a great party with heroic leaders who sacrifice
themselves (and everyone around them) for the sake of the revolution… To
pose revolution as the destruction of capitalism is to distance it from ourselves,
to put it off into the future. The question of revolution is not in the future. It is
here and now: how do we stop producing the system by which we are
destroying humanity?’ See John Holloway, Crack Capitalism (2010, London:
Pluto Press), p. 254.
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 SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY

Currently, global capitalism conceives of human beings as

consumers who can achieve happiness by purchasing goods and
services in the market economy. On that basis, global growth is
seen as the most direct pathway to human flourishing. By
contrast, degrowth arises out of an alternative conception of
what it means to be human. It poses the question, ‘What is it
that makes life worth living?’ and answers that question by
saying, ‘Something other than the limitless consumption of
material things.’ Consumerism just does not satisfy the
universal human craving for meaning, and the sooner the world
realises this the better it will be for everyone and the planet. In
short, I argue that the simple life can be a good life.

12. Chances of success do not look good. Despite the

increasingly robust case for the necessity of a post-capitalist
politics and economics – for the necessity of degrowth – we
should not pretend that this revolutionary project shows many
signs of achieving its ambitious goals. Although there are
nascent movements based on notions of degrowth –
permaculture, Transition Towns, intentional community, and
voluntary simplicity – in the greater scheme of things these
subcultures, promising though they are, remain small.
Furthermore, despite the increasing prominence environmental
issues are given in the mainstream media, there is a pervasive
techno-optimism that shapes the discussion of these issues,
meaning that the reality of the crises are understated and the
proposed solutions (typically market-based) are misconceived.
Under these conditions, a mass movement for degrowth seems
highly unlikely. But does this mean that we should throw our
hands up in the air and distract ourselves with television and
consumer trinkets while the curtain closes on our civilisation?
Surely not. As Wendell Berry says, we should not focus on the
question of whether we will succeed; we should focus on the
question of what is the right thing to do. And that means doing
everything in our power to resist the forces that are degrading
people and planet by prefiguring ways of living that respect
people and planet. We should do this irrespective of our
chances of realising the ideal of a degrowth society. We should
do this because it is the right thing to do. Fortunately, there are
two silver linings to this approach. First, even if we fail to stop
the growth economy from growing itself to death, we should
still be trying to prefigure a ‘simpler way’ to live here and now,
because if we are to face economic collapse, then the more
systems and practices of sufficiency we can get in place today,
the better prepared and more resilient we will be should the
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 SAMUEL ALEXANDER

status quo be disrupted for one reason or another. Secondly,

and most promising of all, working on building the new world
promises, if not a life free from strife and hard work, at least a
life full of meaning, passion, and love. And that is something we
can cling to even if it transpires that the story of civilisation
does not have a happy ending.2

♦ ♦ ♦

Before outlining the content of the chapters to come, a few more

words are required on the vocabularies of degrowth, steady state
economy, and sufficiency economy, which I use throughout these
chapters, sometimes interchangeably. To avoid confusion, let me
offer some clarification here, although context should also generally
assist with interpretation. Degrowth, as I use the term, refers
primarily to a macroeconomic model that is defined by planned
contraction of the resource and energy requirements of over-
developed economies. Obviously, degrowth is a transitional phase,
not an end-sate, because an economy could not and should not
‘degrow’ indefinitely. Accordingly, the basic vision of sustainability
that I subscribe to and defend is one in which overgrown economies
initiate a degrowth process of planned economic contraction, a
process that would eventually stabilise in a steady state economy
operating within the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet. I do
not argue that this is likely, only that it is necessary. The poorest
nations may need to increase their energy and resource demands to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2
To again draw on the words of John Holloway (2010: 253):

How I wish I could write a book with a happy ending. That I could
offer all the answers. That the good would triumph over evil. That we
could close the dialectic, end with a synthesis, arrive Home. That we
could say with certainty that history is on our side. That, sure as eggs
is eggs, communism will take the place of capitalism. That the darkest
hour is just before dawn. That our cracks, for sure and certain, are the
harbingers of a new society.
But no, it is not like that. There is no certainty. The dialectic is
open, negative, full of danger. The hour is dark, but it may be followed
by a darker one, and dawn may never come. And we, the fools who
live in the cracks, may be just that: fools.
And yet, fools that we are, we think we can see something new
emerging. We are standing in the dark shade of a threshold and trying
to see and understand that which is opening in front of us. We do not
understand it very well, but we can hear, especially in the previous
theses, fragments of new melodies of struggle emerging, see glimpses
of a new direction in the flow of revolt.

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 SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY

attain a dignified standard of living, but eventually they too would

need to stop growing and also transition to a steady state economy.
Within this broad framework, a ‘sufficiency economy’, as I use the
term, is essentially a form of steady state economy, but I choose to
employ the vocabulary of sufficiency to emphasise some issues that I
find misleading or problematic in the work of most ecological
economists, whom I otherwise admire greatly.
First of all, ecological economists rarely discuss the radical
lifestyle implications of ‘one planet’ living. By employing the notion
of a ‘sufficiency economy’, therefore, I hope to emphasise the fact
that one planet living involves abandoning affluence in favour of a
radically simpler way to live based on material sufficiency. Secondly,
ecological economists have not always discussed the limits of
renewable energy or the economic implications of energy descent in
much detail, and in this regard I consider the ‘biophysical
economists’ to have made an important contribution to the debate.
A sufficiency economy is an economy based primarily or entirely on
renewable energy, but due to the inability of renewable energy
systems to replace fossil fuels entirely, this means significantly
reducing energy consumption compared to the richest nations
today. As noted above, given the close connection between energy
and economy, significant energy descent has huge economic
implications that have been insufficiently discussed by most
ecological economists. Thirdly, most ecological economists, to my
mind, tend to have too much faith in market mechanisms. As
discussed above, if degrowth is truly what is required, then
significant social control over the economy will be needed if
economic contraction is to avoid an unstable descent into economic
and social chaos. Primarily for these three reasons I use the term
‘sufficiency economy’ to refer to a degrowth economy that
culminates in a steady state economy – but a steady state economy
that is shaped by the three points of difference just outlined.

♦ ♦ ♦

As with the first volume of collected essays, I will provide a brief

outline of the chapters to come. These chapters have been ordered
roughly to reflect steps in an argument, however they all stand alone
well enough, so there is no need, necessarily, to read them in order.
To provide context, certain lines of argument, in places, are
repeated or summarised, as are certain turns of phrase, but I hope
this serves primarily to emphasise key points and weave the essays
together into a coherent whole. Readers are encouraged to skim
over summary paragraphs if the point being made is sufficiently well
understood.
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 SAMUEL ALEXANDER

Chapter 1 provides a short, accessible summary of the central

themes of this book. A slightly abridged version of this chapter was
originally published in the The Conversation, under the title ‘Life in
a “degrowth” economy, and why you might actually enjoy it’. The
article received a significant amount of attention – it was viewed
more than 50,000 times – making it one of the most widely read
pieces on degrowth. I include this journalistic piece as a means of
introducing questions that are explored in more depth throughout
the book. Readers familiar with growth skepticism, degrowth, and
voluntary simplicity, may wish to begin at Chapter 2.
Chapter 2 begins by reviewing the empirical studies that have
examined the correlation between income and self-reported
happiness. While the scholarly debate is not conclusively settled, the
weight of evidence suggests that once people have their basic
material needs adequately met, the correlation between income and
happiness begins to fade. Put otherwise, there comes a point where
rises in income become less important as means of increasing
wellbeing, and other features of life, such as more meaningful
employment, more leisure time, and more social engagement,
become increasingly important. This has been called the ‘income-
happiness paradox’, because it contradicts the widely held
assumption that more income and more economic growth will
always contribute positively to human wellbeing. After reviewing the
empirical literature, the analysis proceeds to consider the various
explanations for this apparent ‘paradox’, and I also consider what
implications this paradox might have for people and nations that are
overconsuming. The chapter concludes by outlining what I call an
‘economics of sufficiency’, drawing on the perspectives of degrowth
and steady state economics.
Chapter 3 analyses the results of the most extensive multi-
national survey of the Voluntary Simplicity Movement, conducted
by the Simplicity Institute. The Voluntary Simplicity Movement can
be understood broadly as a diverse social movement made up of
people who are resisting high consumption lifestyles and who are
seeking, in various ways, a lower consumption but higher quality of
life alternative. If it is true that post-consumerist lifestyles of
reduced and restrained consumption are a necessary part of any
transition to a just, sustainable, and flourishing human civilisation,
then gaining extensive empirical insight into this movement is a
matter of some importance. The results of the survey are preceded
by a summary of the ‘limits to growth’ perspective, which serves to
contextualise the analysis.
Chapter 4 is probably the key chapter of the book, for it
attempts to envision in some detail the contours of a ‘sufficiency
economy’. The fundamental aim of a sufficiency economy, as I
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 SUFFICIENCY ECONOMY

define it, is to create an economy that provides ‘enough, for

everyone, forever’. In other words, economies should seek to
universalise a material standard of living that is sufficient for a good
life but which is ecologically sustainable into the deep future. Once
that is achieved, further growth in material wealth would not be an
economic priority and, indeed, would need to be deliberately
restrained. For individuals and economies that are already
overconsuming, the attainment of sufficiency implies not merely
resisting further growth, but first entering a phase of planned
economic contraction. Once sustainable sufficiency has been
attained, prosperity should be sought in various low-impact, non-
materialistic forms of wellbeing, such as enjoying social relation-
ships, experiencing connection with nature, engaging in meaningful
work or spiritual practice, or exploring various forms of peaceful,
creative activity. There are no limits to the scale or diversity of
qualitative improvement of life in a sufficiency economy, but to
achieve sustainability in a world of seven billion people (and
counting), material standards of living must not aim for consumer
affluence but only for what is minimally sufficient for a good life.
How would we feed ourselves? What clothes would we wear? What
forms of transport and technology would we use? How much and
what types of energy would we require? And what material standard
of living would we have if we were to successfully decarbonise the
economy? Most importantly, perhaps, what would the quality of
daily life be like? These are some of the concrete questions to which
this chapter offers some tentative answers.
Chapter 5 presents an energy analysis and review of various
alternative technologies. Energy is often called the ‘lifeblood’ of
civilisation, and yet the overconsumption of fossil energy lies at the
heart of two of the greatest challenges facing humanity today:
climate change and peak oil. While transitioning to renewable
energy systems is an essential ‘supply side’ strategy in response to
climate change and peak oil, the extent of the problems and the
speed at which decarbonisation must occur means that there must
also be a ‘demand side’ response. This means consuming much less
energy not just ‘greening’ supply, at least in the most developed
regions of the world. In that context, this chapter provides an energy
analysis of various ‘low tech’ options – such as solar shower bags,
solar ovens, washing lines, and cycling – and considers the extent
to which these types of ‘simple living’ practices could reduce energy
consumption if widely embraced. It is demonstrated that low-tech
options provide a very promising means of significantly reducing
energy (and water) consumption. While the focus of this chapter is
on the direct energy and water savings of low-tech living, the subtext
of the analysis is that prefiguring a simpler way to live has deeper
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significance too, in that it helps create the cultural conditions

needed for a post-capitalist politics and economics to emerge, which
I maintain is a necessary part of the decarbonisation project.
Lifestyle change is far from enough.
Chapter 6 reviews some of the most promising social
movements that have the potential to change the current trajectory
of industrial civilisation acutely in the direction of a low-carbon
world. If there is any hope for rapid decarbonisation today, it surely
lies, at this late stage, in movements, innovations, or technologies
that do not seek to produce change through a smooth series of
increments, but through an ability to somehow ‘disrupt’ the status
quo and fundamentally redirect the world’s trajectory toward a low-
carbon, post-growth future. This chapter considers movements
based on such things as fossil fuel divestment, Transition Towns,
collaborative consumption, the sharing economy, voluntary
simplicity, and direct democracy.
Chapter 7 considers the economic implications of carbon
budget analysis. Building on the work of climate scientists Kevin
Anderson and Alice Bows, it is argued that the logic of the carbon
budget numbers leads to conclusions that most people, including
most climate policy makers, refuse to accept, acknowledge, or
understand. Most significantly, the carbon budget arithmetic
indicates that rapid decarbonisation may well be incompatible with
continuation of current global economic growth trends and
paradigms. Even more challengingly, carbon budget analysis seems
to imply that in the most highly developed regions of the world,
keeping within the carbon budget will require ‘degrowth’ strategies
of significantly reduced energy and resource consumption. In the
final sections of this chapter an attempt is made to outline the main
elements of an integrated socio-economic and political strategy
consistent with keeping emissions within the confines of the carbon
budget. The aim is not to present something that is politically or
culturally palatable, but to explore what needs to be done to
adequately respond to the challenge of climate change.
Chapter 8 explores what role social or cultural evolution may
need to play in providing the necessary preconditions for
fundamental structural change of society. The central argument of
this chapter is that the Voluntary Simplicity Movement (or
something like it) will almost certainly need to expand, organise,
radicalise, and politicise, if anything resembling a degrowth or
steady state economy is to emerge through democratic processes. In
a sentence, that is the ‘grassroots’ or ‘bottom-up’ theory of structural
transformation that will be expounded and defended in this chapter.
The essential reasoning here is that legal, political, and economic
structures will never reflect a post-growth ethics of macroeconomic
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sufficiency until a post-consumerist ethics of sufficiency is embraced

and mainstreamed at the cultural level. Conversely, a micro-
economics of ‘more’ will always generate, or try to generate, a
macroeconomics of ‘growth’. Only by changing consumerist cultures
of consumption, I conclude, is there any hope of transcending and
socially reconstructing the structures of growth.
Chapter 9 examines what I call the ‘anarchist challenge’ to the
promising new legal movement, Earth Jurisprudence. This new
movement seeks to reconceive law in a way that treats ecological
sustainability as a fundamental legal principle of governance,
focusing attention on what the legislature and judiciary could do to
achieve that noble end. The central issue this chapter seeks to raise
for Earth jurists, and for oppositional thinkers and activists more
generally, is the question of ‘strategy’. That is, the chapter raises the
question of how best to direct our limited energies and resources,
for if transformative change is truly what we desire, our energies
and resources must be used to their fullest practical effect. To do
justice to the ‘ends’ for which we struggle, surely we must take care
that the ‘means’ we employ are the best we have available. It is not
enough to have good intentions. We must also be as effective as
possible. This chapter considers whether ‘top-down’ change is where
we should be directing our energies or whether we should be
directing most of our energies toward building the new society at a
grassroots level; building it beneath the legal structures of the
existing society with the aim that one day new societal structures
will emerge ‘from below’ to replace the outdated forms we know
today.
Chapter 10 analyses the most prominent strategies that have
been put forth to bring the sufficiency economy into existence. In
other words, the vision of a deep green alternative society is taken
for granted, focusing instead on how such an alternative may be
realised. The chapter begins by outlining the alternative society – a
sufficiency economy – with a very broad brush, in order to give the
more critical and substantive sections some context. It seems that
there is some interesting and heartening overlap with respect to the
envisioned ‘end state’ of the deep green school, and yet there is
fierce debate over how to get there. The primary purpose of this
chapter, therefore, is to examine these various theories of transition
or transformation – ranging from parliamentarianism to socialism
to anarchism – in order to highlight the most important factors at
play, and hopefully shed some further light on the question of
‘strategy’.
Chapter 11 presents a sympathetic critique of the Transition
Towns Movement. The fundamental aims of this movement are to
respond to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change by
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decarbonising and relocalising the economy through a community-

led model of change based on permaculture principles. As
promising as the movement may be, there are crucial questions it
needs to confront and reflect on if it wants to fully realise its
potential for deep societal transformation. The Transition Towns
Movement is ostensibly ‘inclusive’; this chapter examines this self-
image in order to assess whether it is as inclusive and as diverse as it
claims to be, and what this might mean for the movement’s
prospects. The chapter also considers the issue of whether a
grassroots, community-led movement can change the macro-
economic and political structures of global capitalism ‘from below’
through (re)localisation, or whether the movement may need to
engage more directly in political activity if it is to have any chance of
achieving its ambitious goals. Finally, we raise the question of
whether the movement is sufficiently radical in its vision. Does it
need to engage more critically with the broader paradigm of
consumer capitalism, its growth imperative, and social norms and
values? Is building local resilience within this paradigm an adequate
strategy? And does the movement recognise that decarbonisation
almost certainly means giving up many aspects of affluent,
consumer lifestyles? The chapter does not expect to be able to offer
complete answers to these probing questions, but by engaging
critically with these issues one hopes to advance the debate around a
movement that may indeed hold some of the keys to transitioning to
a just and sustainable world.
Chapter 12, the final chapter, tells a story of the future, a
possible future that was conceived of in between the poles of
pessimism and optimism but which is ultimately based upon a faith
in the human spirit to meet the challenges of creating an Ecozoic
era. The chapter looks back on the 21st century from the vantage
point of the year 2099. It takes the form of an essay, entitled ‘The
Path to Entropia’, written for the journal Possibility by Lennox
Kingston, a 90-year-old retired Professor of Legal and Political
History. The essay reviews how attitudes toward consumption and
economic growth underwent a radical shift over the course of the
21st century and how this affected, through legal transformation,
the social, political, and economic order of late capitalism.
Particular attention is given to the evolution of property rights and
the cultural movements that made this evolution possible.

I close this introduction, as I closed the introduction to PROSPEROUS

DESCENT, by acknowledging that the essays in this book do not
answer all questions and, in fact, may raise as many questions as
they answer. The first volume of essays, I hope, fills some of the
gaps (as summarised in the Appendix to this volume).
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