Abstract
A transformation in human values in a ‘post-materialist’ direction by middle-class youth around the world may be setting the stage for a new reality of near-zero economic growth and a sustainable and healthy global biosphere. Evidence from the World Values Survey suggests that a global expansion of post-material values and experiences leads to (1) a reduction in consumption-oriented activities, (2) a shift to more environmentally friendly forms of life that include living at higher, more energy efficient urban densities, and (3) active political support for environmental improvement. Such behavioral shifts provide a foundation for a turn to a slow-growth or even no-growth economy in comparatively affluent countries to the benefit of a healthier global biosphere. To set the stage for a ‘post-growth green economy’ that features climate stability and a substantially reduced ecological footprint, the timing is right for a ‘Green New Deal’ that focuses on de-carbonizing the global economy and has the side-benefit of fostering an economic recovery from the Covid-19 global recession currently underway. The financing of global decarbonization by the world’s wealthiest countries is affordable and could stimulate much needed economic improvements in developing countries by creating within them modern, efficient clean energy systems that can serve as a basis for increased economic prosperity. Such prosperity will in turn accelerate declines in population fertility and result ultimately in reduced global population growth.
Highlights
In this day and age of existential threats to global social and economic tranquility from the likes of climate change, rising economic inequality, emerging authoritarian populism, and, a Covid-19 pandemic, to think about prospects for the future may seem naïve
To set the stage for a ‘post-growth green economy’ that features climate stability and a substantially reduced ecological footprint, the timing is right for a ‘Green New Deal’ that focuses on de-carbonizing the global economy and has the side-benefit of fostering an economic recovery from the Covid-19 global recession currently underway
The essential hypothesis here is this: The ‘post-material silent revolution’, enabled by the attainment of a critical level of material and physical security that permits lives less-focused on further economic achievements, sets the stage for a ‘postgrowth economy’ that can bring the global economic system into a sustainable balance with the global biosphere
Summary
In this day and age of existential threats to global social and economic tranquility from the likes of climate change, rising economic inequality, emerging authoritarian populism, and, a Covid-19 pandemic, to think about prospects for the future may seem naïve. The long-term trend to post-materialism around the world fueled by generational replacement is a good thing for the global biosphere by fostering more energy efficient, less entropic forms of living, taking the pressure off of growing demand for material possessions that threatens the global biosphere, and increasing active political support for protecting the global biosphere This trend lends support to the emergence of a ‘post-growth green economy’ as a foundation for stabilizing the global climate in particular and increasing the health of the biosphere in general. In a world where many countries need human development and expansion of their economies to achieve a minimum threshold income necessary for the good life, is there a path to forestalling excessive climate change by mid-century and attaining sufficient economic security for all the world’s citizens that would enable a global post-growth green economy?. The point is a simple one; achieving a decent and satisfying life is contingent on a minimum threshold of material wealth but ‘not’ on continuous economic growth once that minimum is achieved
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