Jason Hickel’s Less is More provides a compelling blueprint for a post-growth economy.
In one of his essays – I think it must have been somewhere around 2016 – Jason Hickel wrote on his website about how, in the 14th or 15th century, England began to systematically restrict “the Commons” (in German, die Allmende), which had been in place until then. In other words, “artificial scarcities” were created in order to force the population – the “commoners” of that time, who had no possessions and no property, above all no land – through “labour”, through forced labour and wage labour, into generating surplus value for the upper class. And that was, if you like, the cornerstone and the beginning of capitalism.
That said, I believe steps toward “artificial scarcities” had already been taken long before that: ever since humans settled down and took up farming and animal husbandry, we established private ownership of parts of the planet. People basically said that land – certain parts of the usable land – is available only to certain private individuals. And that was a rupture. Because for 94 percent of our existence as Homo sapiens, we have always lived differently, and for many generations it was completely natural for us to share with one another what nature had given us.
Later, the ecologist Garrett Hardin – building on the British economist William Forster Lloyd – wrote the famous essay “The Tragedy of the Commons”. The essence of that essay was that we humans are supposedly incapable of truly sharing “the Commons” sustainably – that whenever something is freely available, we always take more of it than we actually need.
But Elinor Ostrom – the 2009 Nobel laureate in economics, honoured in Sweden – proved scientifically that the “Tragedy of the Commons” has a logical flaw: when rules are established together, and there are mechanisms that limit and prevent the excessive taking of parts of a shared resource, then “the Commons” work very well!
The American scientist and economist Jeremy Rifkin, too – who, among other things, advised Merkel’s first government back then as it set Germany’s Energiewende, the energy transition, in motion – said in one of his talks that we as a society have to move away from thinking in terms of personal ownership. He made the point with toys: in the Global North – only there, mind you, not in the Global South – we buy our children an unbelievable amount of toys. And our children use these toys, if at all, only for a very short time, and then they end up in the bin. That is a massive waste of resources. Instead of buying every single child their own drone, their own doll or whatever other toy, we could share these toys far better among several children – just as our children have done for thousands of years, and felt wonderfully good doing it.
Because when they share things with one another, a sense of belonging emerges, a real connection between these children, and they can learn from each other and complement one another. Whereas when they’re trapped in this possessive, entitled mindset, they shut themselves off from other children and aren’t willing to open up and exchange and share their resources – and then no real development can happen.
There’s that line in a U2 song that goes: “You can only truly own what you give away.” (from “Get Out of Your Own Way” by U2 feat. Kendrick Lamar, Songs of Experience, 2017) And there’s a lot packed into that. This idea of “ownership”, of possessions and property, is a neoliberal concept that doesn’t really work. There’s also that saying, “Sharing is Caring” – and I know there’s that funny add-on: “...but I don’t care.” But what if we expanded that saying and said: “Sharing is Vermehring” – from the German verb vermehren, to multiply? Because sharing something doesn’t necessarily mean there’s less of it. When I share knowledge with someone, for example, I learn something myself through the sharing, and I get more back from sharing than I put in. That means real added value is created: above all, I get gratitude, recognition, contentment and positive vibes back. And that is something we humans need – and it matters so much more than all material goods put together.
What do you take away from this thought?
Thank you. Every answer fits – take it with you into your day. Would you like to share something yourself?
