Currently, about 80% of the world's population lacks access to essential goods and services and lives below the "decent living" threshold. Some believe solving this issue requires significant global economic growth, which could worsen climate change and ecological collapse.
However, the study's authors challenge this notion, suggesting that human development does not need such risky measures. Their review of recent research indicates that providing decent living standards for 8.5 billion people would only consume 30% of current global resources and energy, leaving ample surplus for other uses.
This would ensure global access to nutritious food, modern housing, quality healthcare, education, electricity, induction stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigerators, heating/cooling systems, computers, mobile phones, internet, transport, and even recreational facilities and public goods.
To achieve this future, the authors propose strategies that focus on enhancing capabilities and meeting human needs through specific production forms, ensuring universal access to key goods and services via public provisioning and decommodification, rather than pursuing capitalist growth.
In the Global South, this involves using industrial policy to boost economic sovereignty and industrial capacity, focusing production on human well-being. Meanwhile, high-income countries need to reduce less-essential production (e.g., mansions, SUVs, private jets, fast fashion) to decarbonize faster and align resource use with planetary boundaries.
The study argues that the traditional development strategy of increasing economic growth is inefficient for human development. Capital often invests in profitable ventures rather than necessary ones, leading to persistent or worsening poverty despite economic growth. Additionally, essential goods like food and housing often become more expensive faster than other goods, particularly during privatization and market deregulation periods. This reduces access to essential goods even as incomes rise, which can be addressed through decommodification, public provisioning, and price controls.
"If human well-being is the objective, it is not GDP (aggregate production in market prices) that matters, but whether people have access to the specific goods and services they need to live good lives. We need to distinguish between what is important for human well-being and what is not," says Jason Hickel, a researcher from ICTA-UAB and the UAB Department of Anthropology.
"Poverty is not an intractable problem that requires long timeframes and large increases in production that conflict with ecological objectives. The solution is straightforward. We can do it right now, by shifting production away from capital accumulation and elite consumption in order to focus instead on providing socially beneficial goods and services for all," Hickel added.
Co-author Dylan Sullivan, from ICTA-UAB and Macquarie University, notes, "This research shows a post-growth economy could ensure universal access to the benefits of industrialization, all while leaving a substantial surplus of energy and resources for recreation, public luxury, and technological advancement. It's really exciting to think about what we could do with this surplus, what kind of modernity we want to build."
Research Report:How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis
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