Enough is Enough - Book Review

Yesterday I posted a piece with excerpts from a new book titled,  Enough is Enough.  The book makes the case that the economy we have must change. It requires constant growth to thrive, and that is no longer possible.

Anyway, I got a copy of this book Enough is Enough, and I just finished reading it. The facts seem irrefutable.

Humanity's ecological footprint is 50 percent larger than global ecosystems can accommodate. We can only continue consuming at our current rate by liquidating the planet's natural resources and overwhelming its waste absorption capacity.

Economists Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill, the book's authors,  say that humanity must learn to live within its means, and that requires a transition to what they call a 'steady-state' economy. What is a steady-state economy?
 
A steady state economy is an economy with ENOUGH as its goal. It prioritizes well-being over consumption. 

The four main features of a steady-state economy are:  sustainable scale; fair distribution of income and wealth; efficient allocation of limited resources; and a high quality of life for all citizens.

Dietz and O'Neill offer a well-considered set of ideas and policy steps that can lead to a world that provides Enough for all without breaking the biosphere.

Here's the rub.  We currently have a seriously dysfunctional economic system that exploits the many in favor of a very small number of rich and powerful plutocrats.  Right now, in the U.S., the richest one half of one percent have more wealth than the bottom forty percent of Americans combined. We have a political system that feeds on money.  He who has the money makes the rules and controls the institutions that shape society.  That's how it is. The current economy works very well for rich folks and the sycophants that serve them. The wealthy control industry, finance, the media, the military, and our system of governance, including the congress and the judiciary.  They have manipulated these institutions to serve their narrow, self-aggrandizing worldview.  These  'powers-that-be' are not interested in changing. The systems they have shaped suit them just fine.  They are in total denial about the consequences of the constant-growth economic paradigm that they aggressively pursue.

Enough is Enough is an important book.  The authors acknowledge that supplanting the current, constant growth order will be extremely difficult.  They say it will likely take a serious crisis to facilitate change. They say that educating the masses about the virtues of steady-state economics is critical. Until the grass roots understands that there is a socially and environmentally responsible alternative to business as usual, the only thing that is assured is continued human suffering and continued erosion of the biosphere.   The entrenched sociopaths that champion the current system know they are under assault, They employ every malodorous tool at their disposal to resist  any kind of meaningful change.  

Humans depend on the natural world for survival. An economy built on steady state principles is an economy that resonates with that dependence.  

Enough is Enough contributes mightily to the dialogue needed to create the powerful, broad based grass roots movement that must come in order to force rich and mighty self-interests to yield to a new, steady state economic order.

Rob Dietz is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy.  The link to their website is  http://steadystate.org/