In our latest Radical Old Idea, Royal London’s Kaisie Rayner was joined by Professor Tim Jackson to discuss his latest book, ‘Post-Growth: Life after Capitalism’. In a discussion that ranged from Adam Smith to the teachings of Buddhism, to maintaining hope in the face of despair. Professor Jackson called for a complete rethink on how we define prosperity. Watch the full session now on EFx.

While Professor Jackson’s previous book, ‘Prosperity without Growth’, was close to a policy manual for governments, ‘Post Growth: Life After Capitalism’ is a philosophical examination on the failings of our current economic model. Although written during the Covid pandemic and certainly partly influenced by the fallout of the last 18 months, it is more a culmination of years of reflection from one of the world’s leading ecological economists.  

The session started with Adam Smith, the so-called ‘father of capitalism’. Professor Jackson described how the legacy of Adam Smith has been “used and abused” by free-market capitalism. Proponents of lassez-faire capitalism seized on the ‘invisible hand of the market’, as evidence that Smith would be an advocate of today’s economy.

Professor Jackson disagrees, arguing that Smith would have been appalled by the modern markets, and their domination by monopoly power. Smith believed markets relied upon trust and community, and that the state had a fundamental role in countering unrestrained self-interest. The power wielded by conglomerates over governments today was something Smith warned against, not something he would have lauded.

In his book, Professor Jackson also mentions another great thinker who has had one of their ideas take on a life of its own, psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ has been used as evidence that a linear relationship exists between fundamental human needs such as food or shelter, and social or psychological needs.

Without the former, humans do not engage with the latter. Maslow later upturned this hierarchy – something which has been lost in history. Social and psychological needs are not ‘nice to haves’ but fundamental to human wellbeing. Our physical needs can be secondary to our social needs – a lesson reinforced by our experiences over the last 18 months.   

Professor Jackson also spoke of how Buddhism and capitalism start in the same place – the recognition of suffering. The message of capitalism is to escape from this suffering, to struggle to ensure we escape poverty and ensure that we are not the worst off in society, turning life into a competitive endeavour. The recent trend of billionaires to conquer space is perhaps a manifestation of our existential anxiety to get as far away from suffering as possible.

By contrast, Buddhism teaches to face suffering head on and with compassion, not to escape it. We can learn from Buddhism in many ways, finding joy in being human and not from the material consumption essential for a society dependent on growth. If we can change our definition of prosperity to mean health and balance rather than having more, we will see a powerful transformation at every level.  

To finish, Kaisie asked Professor Jackson if he still has hope for humanity. To answer, he drew on the poetry of Emily Dickinson: 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops – at all 

 Something in the human soul means that hope will not abandon us. Hope must however turn to action, and action is the antidote to despair.