The Sufficiency Economy

Planned economic contraction? Indeed, brace yourself for the challenging but perhaps necessary future of degrowth. This work is a wonderful addition to the After Capitalism collection. Samuel Alexander wrote The Sufficiency Economy: Envisioning a Prosperous Way Down back in 2012. While I had degrowth as one of the After Capitalism concepts, I found Alexander’s version in the form of “Sufficiency” to be quite compelling. It was a happy accident that I came to indirectly through my work with Richard Slaughter on the Knowledge Base 2020 work.

In short, growth as we know it cannot continue, and there are two ways down: the smart way via strategic choice, and the hard way via overshoot and collapse (to borrow the Limits to Growth lingo). Here’s the crux of why: most people, including many environmentalists, seem to believe that our current lifestyles and consumption habits can be sustained — and even globalized – by improving the efficiency of the current system, e.g., transitioning to renewable energy, recycling, etc. Nope! As Alexander bluntly puts it: “the full implications of our predicament are typically grossly under-estimated.” For instance, the ecological footprint of the global economy now exceeded the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet by 50% back in 2012, according to the Global Footprint Network. We are already well into overshoot. The magnitude of the changes required to bring that into balance go well beyond what technological advances within the current systems could provide.

The sufficiency economy is typically associated with developing economies that have either not industrialized or are early in the journey. They are focused on meeting mostly local needs with mostly local resources. The “radical” idea here is that developed economies must also adopt this approach. The aim is for a world in which everyone’s basic needs are modestly but sufficiently met, in an ecologically sustainable, highly localized, and socially equitable manner. Of course, determining what is sufficient is tricky. But, get ready for this: “Using the Amish as a rough touchstone or benchmark may not be so far from the truth.”

While his model is highly localized, it will require a significant degree of social control of the economy. How do we get there?

1. Mainstream liberals suggests a cultural shift.
2. Marxism suggests a violent revolution.
3. “Environmental anarchists,” suggest building the new society at the local, grassroots level, where communities create self-­‐governing, localized, participatory democracies.

It’s a provocative message. But just for a second consider the “confused” position of consumer capitalism today, with its fetish for economic growth providing no answer to the question of what that growth is for. Indeed my own research into the future of values finds that more money and possessions does not make us happier. Instead of using our increased productivity for more leisure time, we’ve used it to keep buying more stuff. And it ain’t workin’! Perhaps the simple life is a quite sensible notion. – Andy Hines