Jason Hickel: Economics in an Age of Climate Breakdown

Talk given by Jason Hickel at the Advaya event Economics of Happiness: Post-Growth, Localisation & Wellbeing, 20 June 2017.

About the Talk: Economics in an Age of Climate Breakdown
Virtually every government on Earth has economic growth as its primary objective. Politicians rise and fall on their ability to deliver growth at all costs. But in a world of ecological breakdown, this approach is becoming dangerous and untenable. Scientists tell us our only option for surviving the Anthropocene is for high-consuming rich nations to scale down their economic activity. What does this look like? How do we get there? Can we maintain and even improve human well-being in a post-growth economy?


About the Speaker:

Jason Hickel, The Guardian & LSE
Dr. Jason Hickel is an anthropologist, author, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has taught at the London School of Economics, the University of Virginia, and Goldsmiths, University of London, where he convenes the MA in Anthropology and Cultural Politics. He serves on the Labour Party task force on international development, works as Policy Director for /The Rulescollective, sits on the Executive Board of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) and recently joined the International Editorial Advisory Board of Third World Quarterly.

Jason's research focuses on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics. His most recent book, The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. Jason's ethnographic work focuses on migrant labour and politics in South Africa, which is the subject of his first book, Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa (University of California Press, 2015), as well as the co-edited volume Ekhaya: The Politics of Home in KwaZulu-Natal (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014).

In addition to his academic work, Jason writes a column for The Guardian and contributes to a number of other online outlets, with bylines in Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Fast Company, Jacobin, Prospect, Le Monde Diplomatique, Red Pepper, Truthout, and Monthly Review. His media appearances include Viewsnight, the Financial Times, the BBC World Service, Business Matters, Thinking Allowed, Renegade TV, NPR, TRT World, the LA Times, and Russell Brand's podcast Under the Skin.

Jason has received a number of teaching awards, including the ASA/HEA National Award for Excellence in Teaching Anthropology, and his ethnographic research has been funded by Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust.


About the event:
We all know that our current economic system isn't working. It is an economy based on ravaging the Earth's finite resources and on immense social injustice. To ensure a more democratic, sustainable and prosperous future we need to look to radical, ethical solutions that go beyond the debt-growth trap. We need to find an economic system where ecological sustainability, social justice, and financial stability go hand in hand: an economy that meets the needs of all, not just the privileged few, and allows us to thrive.

At this event we were joined by HELENA NORBERG HODGE, the groundbreaking activist and pioneer of the local economy movement, and JASON HICKEL, anthropologist, author and spokesperson on global inequality, post-development, and ecological economics.
We explored the growing worldwide movement for de-growth and economic localisation and came to understand the situation our economic system has put us in in order to mobilise ourselves to take a stand against current economic thinking.