Jason Hickel

For those interested in learning more about the agrowth perspective, and how investment in public commons can be a convincing solution I highly recommend Jason Hickel's work, specifically his book "Less is More". If you want the deep dive treatment I've just finished Thomas Piketty's "Capital and Ideology" and was very impressed with the thorough historical treatment. https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822

I'm not sure where you get the idea that I'm vaguely moralizing -- elsewhere in this thread I recommend a 2020 book called Less is More (https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more) that contains analysis of these problems and very specific strategies for addressing them. It's well understood that wealthy countries, and especially the US, generate far more junk than poorer ones. We don't need to, and there's a big difference between sustainable strategies for getting people what they need and hoping (because, without planning, that's all we're doing) that capitalism will solve this problem through even greater amounts of consumption.

Here is a list of the author's work. This is very consistent with "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and numerous bodies of work that highlight the tactics used. This essay (if not an academic article) was interesting for providing more context and subtext around the drivers for the movement. It's honestly a political and economic masterclass regardless of your ethical position. https://www.jasonhickel.org/#/academic-work/

There is contention about what this supposed progress entails; if its as great as touted, if we could be doing much better, etc. This open letter is a good starting point: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty >There is nothing worth celebrating about a world where inequality is so extreme that 58% of people are in poverty, while a few dozen billionaires have more than all of their wealth combined I also think the point about changing goalposts to focusing on proportions (the absolute number of people in poverty is increasing) is interesting

> The alternative is the silly measures of "poverty" we use in the first world which are mathematically unachievable by design so they can always be used to justify measures politicians want to pass: "won't you think of the child poverty you heartless monster" etc. No, I disagree. The alternative, as the original comment said, is to measure access to calories, nutrition, or other metrics like prevalence of starvation, access to shelter, access to sanitation, prevalence of certain health issues, etc. Measuring poverty via the international poverty line has often been criticized [1][2][3]. [1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337335330_A_critique_of_the_I… [2]: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28/extreme-poverty-isnt-natura… [3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/21/exposing-the-great-povert…

Reports released by IPCC and other organizations [0] indicate that we have 15 years to take drastic action on the environment. This tracks with the extremely accurate prediction from The Limits to Growth [1] published in 1972. If we do not take action on climate _now_ then _nothing_ is going to matter. We will enter into an irreversible feedback loop that causes human extinction, yet it won't be apparent until it is literally on the doorstep for people to realize. If you are not quitting your job and working to advance the existential threat of climate change and the main driver of the catastrophe (capitalism and perpetual growth) then you are wasting your (and your children's) time. An excellent book on what needs to be done is Less is More by Jason Hickel [2]. This is the only problem that matters since literally existence depends on solving it. The time for deep concern is over. Action is needed and it is needed now. Education, degrowth, reuse, technology. So put everything else aside or you are laboring (and living) for nothing. [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth [2]: https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more

Actually I just didn't share data because I forgot the name of the author who has best spoken to this critique, but I dug him up and it's Jason Hickel. He responded directly to Steven Pinker's rosy optimism about the world, in particular pointing out that our bar for what is extreme poverty is a made up number that is too low. If you use a more reasonable measure for extreme poverty, the situation looks a little different. It has improved in some areas and expanded in others. Notably, people like Pinker use their argument to say basically that capitalism is good. But Hickel points out that most of the gains were in China, where the economic system that led to all this growth was a very mixed system of capitalism combined with heavy state control. So under no circumstances can we conclude that free market capitalism is the main driver of reductions in extreme poverty. https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty

Undoubtedly that personal award goes to Citations Needed Episode 73: Western Media’s Narrow, Colonial Definition of ‘Corruption’. You can read the transcript on Medium [1] or listen on Spotify [2]. It may seem a bit bromide for HN, but it really shattered my world view. Or at least was the impetus of a rather radical shift in how I viewed global power structures, old wealth, and the evil systems in place today that continue to perpetuate global inequality. In the episode, they dig into these popular "corruption" indices, why the Global South is always painted as the "most corrupt", true sources of institutionalized corruption, where the real tax havens and how they operate. It even highlights a (previously unknown to me at least!) stark and admittedly macabre distinction between London, the city in England and the ancient The City of London [3]. Yes there is a huge difference with the latter being a 1,000 British colonial-era holdover that's home to the largest tax haven hub in the world. As a bonus, it features Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist who wrote The Divide [4]. Which, for reasons outlined above, is also one of my favorite books ever. If you find my poor attempt of summary or the article/podcast interesting, I'd implore you to buy the book and learn something new. All the world is a stage and indeed we are merely players. [1] - https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-73-western-medias-narrow-co… [2] -…

> I would love renewable or fusion to cover all our needs, and keep my comfortable life as it is today I've been reading Jason Hickel's book "Less is More" [1], which talks a bit about energy use, in general, and how it must be reduced, regardless of what technologies we wind up with. And one of his points is examining how much energy is just flat-out wasted. ~50% of food is just wasted, for example—whether because it's ugly, or left in a refrigerator too long, and rots. Think about how most American cities are designed, and how it's just normal for most Americans to own and drive personal vehicles for hours each day. Those resources and the energy needed to extract those resources is largely just unnecessarily wasted. Consider countries like Costa Rica, Finland, Taiwan, etc., where quality of life is better than in the US. Life expectancy is higher. Infant mortality is lower. Education is better. And they need a tiny fraction of the energy the U.S. does. Clearly there's room for a lot of improvement with how we use energy. [1] https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more

Debunked by Jason Hickel: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty

There are scientists that reach quite different conclusions from you. https://www.jasonhickel.org/research

Also see; Imperialist Apologia: Salt on Colonial Wounds - https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/imperialist-apologia-salt-on-colonial-… The story peddled by imperial apologists is a poisonous fairytale - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/28/comment.britishi… Safe Spaces for Colonial Apologists - https://socialhistory.org.uk/shs_exchange/safe-spaces-for-colonial-apo… The case for reparations by Jason Hickel - https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/10/13/the-case-for-reparations

This book is very biased, see for instance the "one-hump world": https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/3/17/two-hump-world For a full review (in french): https://paulboosz.github.io/2020/analyse-nouveaux-optimistes-factfulne…

The Environmental Kuznets Curve is problematic though, see for instance: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2020/10/9/response-to-mcafee

> In defense of the first claim, I would simply refer to the standard arguments made by libertarians, free market conservatives, and liberals like Steven Pinker, which I regard as unanswerable. Um, try https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty ? I would like to think modernity is better globally in strict utilitarian sense, but Hickel raises some serious issues so I'd say it's unclear. This professor thinks he weighing in on culture war issues above the fray, but for this and many other reasons his analysis of worldly matters is quite pitifully weak. I'm in no position to critique his theology but I doubt it's much better.

Indeed. There is much controversy about this way of thinking, and about the methodology. See for instance [0] [0] https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/3/17/two-hump-world

That is the hard truth that we are reluctant to accept. Countries in the global north consume way too much energy, and countries in the global south consume way too little. This what Jason Hickel suggests in his book Less is More [0]. [0] https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more

Reading a lot about it, which is harrowing on the one hand. On the other, it feels like a necessary first step. Recent interesting book: Less is More by Jason Hickel https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more - all technological measures etc. will not help if we don‘t also find a way to get rid of the obsession with permanent economic growth.

https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide The author addresses this question, along with how the UN has continually shifted the goal posts to reinforce the narrative that poverty has been reduced.

Excluding China, the graph in [1] shows ~3pp decrease in poverty over 30 years, and a good portion of that time was above the starting point so it might just be random fluctuation. Also, > only 5% of new income from global growth goes to the poorest 60% of humanity – people living on less than $7.40/day. https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty

Here are some critiques of the famous poverty graphs: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty

Maybe people will start listening to degrowthers like Jason Hickel that advocate for a rethinking of our economical systems' reliance on infinite growth on a finite planet https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/10/27/degrowth-a-call-for-radica…

Whether things are moving in the right direction depends on how you measure things and who you believe. There are lots of signs in the positive direction, but Jason Hickel famously argued that things are moving in the wrong direction everywhere except China (https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty) and that even including China, at the current rate it could take 200-500 years to resolve global poverty (https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/4/27/200-years-to-end-poverty)

Those data on poverty are a joke! Read for example: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/4/27/200-years-to-end-poverty It's basically the World Bank covering its ass for its own spectacular failure.

I agree, such a positive tone encourages complacency. And the reality is that we could do so much better: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-egregiousness-of-… "We shouldn’t be looking at the cost of ending poverty as a percentage of total world income, but rather as a percentage of the income of all the people who are not poor; say, those who live on more than double the poverty line. In 1990, it would have cost 12.9% of their total income to end poverty. In 2013, it would have cost only 3.9%. According to this measure, our capacity to end poverty has improved by a factor of 3.31."

Piketty's extensive data on global wages raises serious questions about Pinker's narrative. And if there is still doubt Pinker's data sources [1] and interpretation are questionable to say the least. Here is Pinker himself admitting his selective use of data [2] Watch his answer at 4.30. This is extremely poor use of stats, and makes him look a side character apologist in Hunger Games. And here is an even more substantial criticism of Pinker's approach by Leon Wieseltier in the newrepublic [3]. [1] https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAQ0BfcftBA [3] https://newrepublic.com/article/114548/leon-wieseltier-responds-steven…

"About 60%" means 71.8% in 1990 and 58.1% in 2013. https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-egregiousness-of-…

Except a number of researchers and academics dispute that fact. Many say that it's a PR campaign for the World Bank and that it doesn't tell the whole story. If you raise the poverty line just a little higher to $5 then abject poverty has been increasing. https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/974966050625413122 https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-egregiousness-of-…

I understand that academics are just humans, and can lose their temper like the rest of us. However what I find very troubling is that the main point that Hickel raised in the blog post[1] – GDP data has the particular potentially crucial problems Allen has raised when used to assess historical poverty – Roser chooses to not actually address it, but instead throws blanket statements of there being continued discussion between academics of different datasets and their merits. However this particular graph of historical extreme poverty is used by the most powerful people in the world to advocate for continuing with the status quo. That is why it caught Hickel's attention. It is therefore very important that the heading of the graph is very well justified. As a layperson reading Allen's research, and knowing there is a discontinuation point in the graph 1981 when the dataset changes, I think the graph ought to be labelled very differently. Roser continuing to label it as "extreme poverty" knowing there is an ongoing debate about what data if any is a good proxy historical poverty, and not answering head on Allen's criticism, really makes me not trust Roser. 1: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28/extreme-poverty-isnt-natura…

this one https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide ?