Glasgow Centre For Population Health Podcast

This lecture took place at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Economic growth is supposed to deliver rising prosperity: higher incomes increasing wellbeing and leading to prosperity for all. But this conventional formula is failing. Growth has delivered its benefits, at best unequally. Moreover, the ecological and social consequences of unfettered growth are devastating. Climate change threatens long-term wellbeing. Resource scarcities undermine the basis for future prosperity. Persistent inequalities still divide the world and a growing ‘social recession’ haunts the market economies. Development remains essential for poorer countries. But are ever-increasing incomes for the ‘already rich’ still a legitimate goal for advanced nations? Or should we be aiming for prosperity without growth? In this seminar, Tim Jackson, an advisor to the UK Government and author of Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan, 2009), will argue that society faces a