Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

by Jason Hickel

Individuals in the richest 1% emit one hundred times more than individuals in the poorest half of the human population.23 Why? It’s not only because they consume more stuff than everybody else, but also because the stuff they consume is more energy-intensive: huge houses, big cars, private jets, frequent flights, long-distance holidays, luxury imports, and so on.24 And if the rich have more money than they can spend, which is virtually always the case, then they invest their excess in expansionary industries that are quite often ecologically destructive. This leads us to a simple but radical conclusion: any policy that reduces the incomes of the very rich will have a positive ecological benefit. And because the excess incomes of the rich win them nothing when it comes to welfare, this can be accomplished without any cost to social outcomes. This position is widely shared among researchers who study this issue. The French economist Thomas Piketty, one of the world’s leading experts on inequality, doesn’t mince his words: ‘A drastic reduction in purchasing power of the richest would therefore in itself have a substantial impact on the reduction of emissions at global level.’