A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
www.brucenixon.com
His thinking is captured in the New Scientist Special Issue, dated 18 th October, 2008, entitled “The folly of
growth – how to stop the economy killing the planet”. What politician would dare to advocate steady –state
economics at this time of deepening global recession? To those of us conditioned by the doctrine of
continuous economic growth, the notion of steady –state economics is alarming. It immediately brings up
the question: How can we provide jobs and redress growing unemployment without continuous economic
growth?
The answer partly lies in recognising that GDP is not the most appropriate measure of development. In 1965
Kenneth Boulding in Earth as a Spaceship pointed out that GDP is largely Gross National Cost. What is
needed is Qualitative Development for which there are other more appropriate measures than GDP, some
of which have already been mentioned. Two important new books, Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth
and Lester Brown’s Plan B 4.0 - Mobilizing to Save Civilisation, explore how we can achieve a different kind
of prosperity in the twenty first century. There are enormous opportunities for enterprise and new,
rewarding jobs including training in the required skills. The UK government could make bail-outs to
industries conditional upon a rapid shift to what is needed.
There are massive opportunities in transforming our transport system, green vehicles, green manufacturing,
retrofitting housing and offices, developing green heating and power generation, services to householders
and businesses and most of all in building a better, fairer and more sustainable UK and global society. Many
specific examples of the copious business opportunities were given in the previous chapter. It is the
Government’s job to help business and citizens to manage this transition as rapidly as possible. Sweden and
Denmark are getting on with it and prospering.
So in more depth, what would a steady –state economy look like and what needs to be done?
Here I draw on several sources of important ideas, including articles the New Scientist special issue, already
mentioned and other writings by Herman Daly and the late John Attarian. Here are proposals based on these
sources:
Set Limits Scientists set sustainable consumption and emissions limits; allow growth only so long as it
does not breach these limits.
Taxation Change taxation – gradually abolish income tax, which is a tax on enterprise and work, and
instead tax precious resources like oil and fish at source – that will raise the cost and encourage more
careful use. This will encourage increases in efficiency and developments in technology that will enable
us to get more out of precious resources. Introduce a carbon tax on oil fuelled travel that will trigger
huge investment in transport infrastructure, green vehicles and renewable energy.
Help to poorer people. Provide a citizens income – more about this and how to fund it in the next
chapter. End tax havens through which half of all world trade passes. Set upper and lower limits to
income inequality, currently a factor of 10 to 20in universities, civil service and military and over 500 in
US corporate sector - bring this down to 30. Above all, we need to tax fossil fuels at source to reduce
their use and redistribute the dividend to citizens and investment in green energy – see Fee and
Dividend below.
Banks Insist that banks, in exchange for bail-outs, must devote a percentage of their loans to
environmental projects at below-market rates and make up the difference by charging polluters higher
rates. The enormous superstructure of finance cannot be supported in steady-state economy and the
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