Human Flourishing as Reflected

in Progress and Development

GE-STS
 Learning Outcomes
• Critique human flourishing vis-à-vis the
progress of science and technology;
• Explain Hickel’s paradigm of “de-
development”; and
• Differentiate it from the traditional notions of
growth and consumption.
 Go-Go-Mo
• You’ll be given 5 minutes to read the text.
• After reading the text you’ll be given another 5 minutes
to:
• Walk around the room and find a partner.
• Give one idea to your partner.
• Get one idea from the partner and write it
down.
• Move one to another partner!
• Move fast!
 Debriefing
• What are the ideas that you
got from the text?
• What is the problem?
• What is the solution?
• UN’s new sustainable development goals
(SDGs)
– Main objective is to eradicate poverty by
2030
– Main strategy for eradicating poverty is the
same: growth
– Growth
• Main object of development for the past 70
years
• Global economy has grown by 380%
• People living in poverty on less than $5/day has
increased by more than 1.1 billion
• Orthodox economists
– All we need is yet more growth
– Shift some of the yields of growth from the richer to
the poorer, evening things out a bit
• Neither approach is adequate
– We’re overshooting our planet’s bio-capacity by more
than 50% each year
• Growth is not an option any more – we’ve
already grown too much
• Global crisis due almost entirely to
overconsumption in rich countries
• Enough resources for each of us to consume 1.8
“global hectares” annually – a standardized unit
that measures resource use and waste
• Average person in Ghana or
Guatemala consumes
• US and Canada consume about 8
hectares/person
• Europeans 4.7 hectares/person
• Peter Edward
–Instead of pushing poorer countries to
“catch up” with rich ones, rich
countries should “catch down” to more
appropriate levels of development
• Look at societies where people live long and happy
lives at relatively low levels of income and
consumption
• exemplars of efficient living
• US
– Life expectancy – 79 years
– GDP per capita - $53 000
• Cuba
– Life expectancy – comparable to the US and one of the
highest literacy rates in the world
– GDP per capita - $6 000
– Consumption – 1.9 hectares
– Similar to Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Tunisia
• Philippines
– Life expectancy – 69.3
– GDP per capita - $2 891
• Costa Rica
– One of the highest happiness indicators and life
expectancies in the world with a per capita
income one-fouth that of the US
– Underdeveloped to appropriately developed
• Rich countries to justify their excesses
• De-developing rich countries
– Tricky but not impossible
– 70% of people in middle and high-income
countries believe overconsumption is putting out
planet and society at risk
• Problem
– Pundits promoting this kind of transition are using the
wrong language
– De-growth, zero-growth, de-development
• Like asking people to stop moving positively thorough life, to
stop learning, improving, growing
• “Steady-state” economics
– Quality instead of quantity
• Latin Americans
• Buen vivir or good living
• Robert and Edward Skidelsky
– Banning advertising, shorter working week and a basic
income
– Improve life while reducing consumption
• It’s not about giving up
• Not about living a life of voluntary
misery
• Not about imposing harsh limits on
human potential
• But. . . . . .
• It’s about reaching a higher level of
understanding and consciousness
about what we’re doing here and why.