by Rob Dietz
More Praise for Enough Is Enough
“If you think there must be a better way forward than more of the same, then Enough Is Enough is the book for you. It tackles our affluenza, our growth fetish, and our wildly unfair social order head-on and points the way to a better place. I highly recommend it.”
—James Gustave Speth, former Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; cofounder, Natural Resources Defense Council; and author of America the Possible
“Walking in the steps of E. F. Schumacher, Ivan Illich, Thich Nhat Hanh, and of course the great religions, perhaps best represented by the Taoists and Buddhists for their ethics of simplicity and not grasping always for more, Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill bring the modern dilemma of growth and the dogma of ‘more is better’ into the contemporary reality. Enough Is Enough offers important new thinking on how to address the planet’s most urgent crises and establish an economy that achieves true biological sustainability and shared wealth for all.”
—Doug Tompkins, founder, The North Face; cofounder, Esprit; and President, Conservation Land Trust
“In Enough Is Enough, Dietz and O’Neill have accomplished something special. They offer a hopeful and practical plan for righting the economic and environmental ship, and they do it in a very engaging way. I hope my colleagues in Parliament are paying close attention to the ideas in this book—I know I am.”
—Caroline Lucas, Member of the UK Parliament and former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
“Enough Is Enough is the most accessible and well-argued case for a sustainable economy I’ve ever read. With stories, examples, and plenty of data, but without the tedium of academic writing, Dietz and O’Neill dismantle the most persistent of all economic myths—that economies must grow without limit to provide full employment and improve the conditions of the poor. They explain how a different economic model can meet our needs without irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet. I can’t recommend a book more highly.”
—John de Graaf, coauthor of Affluenza and What’s the Economy for, Anyway?
“Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill have written the most readable description of the fundamental problems with the ‘growth at all costs’ economic paradigm and how focusing on ‘enough’ material consumption can make room for all the other things that contribute to human well-being. If you’ve had enough of the crazy economics of growth for the 1 percent at the expense of well-being for the 99 percent and the planet, then this is the book for you.”
—Robert Costanza, Professor of Sustainability, Portland State University, and Editor-in-Chief, Solutions magazine
“What scope is there for moving beyond today’s increasingly desperate pursuit of conventional economic growth? For politicians to carve out some real space in that territory, they need to immerse themselves in the ‘beyond growth’ debate, and there is no better way of doing that than familiarizing themselves with the ideas and insights in Enough Is Enough.”
—Jonathon Porritt, founder and Director, Forum for the Future, and author of Capitalism as If the World Matters
“This is the book we’ve all been waiting for as we watch the growth economy collide catastrophically with the constraints of a finite Earth. It’s a clear, informed, practical, honorable, and witty guide to where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there. If you are one of so many of us who are bewildered or despairing about the fate of the future, this is the book that will give you an energized sense of purpose and reason-based hope.”
—Kathleen Dean Moore, Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University; author of The Pine Island Paradox; and coeditor of Moral Ground
“Two qualities that allegedly distinguish humans from other species are high intelligence and the capacity for forward planning. At no time in history has there been a greater need for these qualities or less evidence of their existence—the global human enterprise is on a trajectory toward social and ecological collapse. But clear-thinking, forward-looking people can take heart. Enough Is Enough provides both the unassailable rationale and the visionary plan the world needs to live well, more equitably, and sustainably within the means of nature.”
—William Rees, Professor of Public Policy and Ecological Economics, University of British Columbia, and cocreator of the ecological footprint
“Enough Is Enough should be required reading for every economics student as an antidote to the wacky assumption that a finite planet can support infinite growth. Dietz and O’Neill show the importance of growing long-neglected human capacities for creativity and compassion rather than obsolete economic indicators like GDP. Whether or not you agree with all their proposals, this highly readable and provocative book will profoundly expand your thinking about what’s possible.”
—Michael Shuman, author of Local Dollars, Local Sense and The Small-Mart Revolution
“Saying ‘Enough!’ is heresy in our growth-based economy, in which more, bigger, and faster are the only permissible goals. The authors not only offer specific policy proposals for an economy of sufficiency but argue persuasively that we could all be happier by exiting the growth treadmill. This is a book that every American should read.”
—Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, and author of ten books, including The End of Growth
“In an age where economic orthodoxy remains all too fixated on growth, Enough Is Enough offers a thoughtful contribution to creating an ecologically sound economic system that meets human rather than financial needs.”
—Gar Alperovitz, Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland, and author of America Beyond Capitalism
“Enough Is Enough is a fine addition to the growing literature on how society might change its ways and actually avoid catastrophic collapse. Everyone should read it and become more aware of the scale of the human predicament, the economic insanity that is largely responsible for it, and the desperate need for dramatic change.”
—Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University; President, Center for Conservation Biology; and coauthor of The Dominant Animal
“In the sixth century BCE, Lao Tzu wisely wrote that the person who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. It has taken us twenty-six centuries of apparent progress to forget that, and it is high time to relearn it. Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill provide a compelling case for us to do just that. As well as an accessible guide to the growth-and-greed economy, they offer a series of simple and achievable steps to replacing it with something sustainable and infinitely more satisfying.”
—Molly Scott Cato, Professor of Strategy and Sustainability, Roehampton University, and author of Environment and Economy
“The notion that economic growth is the enemy and not our salvation still has about it more than a whiff of heresy. Not after this admirably lucid book, though. Dietz and O’Neill argue persuasively that adopting a governing axiom of ‘enough’ rather than ‘more’ will help make our politics more democratic, our economy more egalitarian, and our society more creative—and then they show how to bring it about. How bad is that?”
—Marq de Villiers, journalist and author of thirteen books, including Our Way Out
“Enough Is Enough is an extremely important and timely work. Herman Daly and his many colleagues have masterfully articulated the importance of creating a new economy that can enhance rather than destroy our natural resources and, at the same time, improve our quality of life. Now, in Enough Is Enough, Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill have laid out a pragmatic scenario that describes, in great detail, how we can all become involved in making that economy a reality in the communities and on the planet in which we live. This is a must-read for all those interested in their own welfare and that of their children and grandc
hildren.”
—Frederick Kirschenmann, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State University, and author of Cultivating an Ecological Conscience
“Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill are leaders in the new generation of thinkers and doers on the steady-state economy. In Enough Is Enough they present a compelling case for why ‘enough’ should replace ‘more’ as the goal of a successful economy, and they provide information, arguments, and examples to show how our lives would be much improved by such a fundamental change.”
—Peter Victor, Professor of Environmental Studies, York University, and author of Managing Without Growth
“This wonderful book focuses on the heart of the matter: our world is being destroyed because, as a society and an economy, we have become oblivious to limits of every kind—limits of resources on a finite earth, limits of planetary carrying capacity, and most of all limits to human material aspirations. This book is a great primer for systematically unpeeling the dominant insanity of our time and then waking up and doing something to change it. It should be required reading for every high school and college class devoted to the economics of sanity—and every government official as well.”
—Jerry Mander, author of In the Absence of the Sacred and The Capitalism Papers
“Enough Is Enough provides a preview of the new world we must inevitably enter. Although Dietz and O’Neill pay careful attention to real-world limits to growth, these two visionaries show us how we can lead happy lives by embracing an economy of enough.”
—Richard Lamm, former Governor, Colorado
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
IN A WORLD OF FINITE RESOURCES
Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill
Enough Is Enough
Copyright © 2013 by Robert Dietz and Daniel W. O’Neill
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2012-1
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Herman Daly
Preface
PART I: QUESTIONS OF ENOUGH
CHAPTER 1. Have You Had Enough?
CHAPTER 2. Why Should Enough Be the Goal?
CHAPTER 3. How Much Is Enough?
CHAPTER 4. What Sort of Economy Provides Enough?
PART II: STRATEGIES OF ENOUGH
CHAPTER 5. Enough Throughput
Limiting Resource Use and Waste Production
CHAPTER 6. Enough People
Stabilizing Population
CHAPTER 7. Enough Inequality
Distributing Income and Wealth
CHAPTER 8. Enough Debt
Reforming Monetary and Financial Systems
CHAPTER 9. Enough Miscalculation
Changing the Way We Measure Progress
CHAPTER 10. Enough Unemployment
Securing Meaningful Jobs
CHAPTER 11. Enough Business as Usual
Rethinking Commerce
PART III: ADVANCING THE ECONOMY OF ENOUGH
CHAPTER 12. Enough Materialism
Changing Consumer Behavior
CHAPTER 13. Enough Silence
Engaging Politicians and the Media
CHAPTER 14. Enough Unilateralism
Changing National Goals and Improving International Cooperation
CHAPTER 15. Enough Waiting
Taking Action to Start the Transition
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors
FOREWORD
I have long wanted to write a book on the subject of “enough” but never did. Now I don’t have to because Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill have done it in a clearer and more accessible way than I could have. Therefore it is a special pleasure for me to write a foreword calling attention to their important contribution.
Enough should be the central concept in economics. Enough means “sufficient for a good life.” This raises the perennial philosophical question, “What is a good life?” That is not easy to answer, but at a minimum we can say that the current answer of “having ever more” is wrong. It is worth working hard and sacrificing some things to have enough; but it is stupid to work even harder to have more than enough. And to get more than enough not by hard work, but by exploitation of others, is immoral. Living on enough is closely related to sharing, a virtue that today is often referred to as “class warfare.” Real class warfare, however, will result not from sharing, but from the greed of elites who promote growth because they capture nearly all of the benefits from it, while “sharing” only the costs.
Enough is the theme of the story of God’s gift of manna to the ancient Hebrews in the wilderness. Food in the form of manna arrived like dew on the grass every morning and was enough for the day. If people tried to gather more than enough and accumulate it, it would spoil and go to waste. So God’s gift was wrapped up in the condition of enough—sufficiency and sharing—an idea later amplified in the Lord’s Prayer, “give us this day our daily bread.” Not bread for the rest of our lives or excess bread with which to buy whatever luxuries we may covet, but enough bread to sustain and enjoy fully the gift of life itself.
This story from Exodus has parallels in the thoughts of the pioneer ecological economist and Nobel Prize–winning chemist Frederick Soddy. Soddy observed that humanity lives off the revenue of current sunshine that is gathered each day by plants with the aid of soil and water. Unlike manna, some of the sunshine was accumulated and stored by geologic processes, and we have consumed it lavishly with mixed results. Today we also try to accumulate surplus solar income and exchange it for a permanent lien on future solar income. We then expect this surplus, converted into debt in the bank, to grow at compound interest. But the future solar-based revenue, against which the debt is a lien, cannot keep up with the mathematics of exponential growth, giving rise to debt repudiation and economic depression.
For the Hebrews in the wildernes
s the manna economy was designed with “enough” as a built-in feature. Our economy does not have that automatic regulation. We have to recognize the value of enough and build it into our economic institutions and culture. Thanks to Dietz and O’Neill for helping us do that.
HERMAN DALY
Professor Emeritus
School of Public Policy
University of Maryland
PREFACE
The numbers are telling us something:
• 7 billion people on earth, with 2.7 billion scraping by on less than $2 per day.
• 394 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, threatening to destabilize the global climate.
• $15 trillion of public debt in the United States, an unfathomable sum of money to be paid back by the next generation.
• 2 percent of adults owning more than half of all household wealth in the world.
• 400 ocean zones devoid of life, with the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico estimated to cover almost as much area as the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Hidden in these numbers are stories of real people and real places in real trouble. And perhaps the most important number of all is one—one single blue-green planet with finite resources that we all must share.
But how do we share this one planet and provide a high quality of life for all? The economic orthodoxy in use around the world is not up to the challenge. The core of this orthodoxy is a strategy that has ensnared all nations, from China to Chile, from the United States to the United Arab Emirates, from Switzerland to Swaziland. That strategy, the pursuit of never-ending economic growth, has become dysfunctional. With each passing day, we are witnessing more and more uneconomic growth—growth that costs more than it is worth. An economy that chases perpetually increasing production and consumption, always in search of more, stands no chance of achieving a lasting prosperity.