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Jason Hickel Profile picture
@jasonhickel
May 9, 2019 • 3 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
Some excellent words from the recent @IPBES report on how to reverse biodiversity collapse:

"A key constituent of sustainable pathways is steering away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth..." 1/3
"...That implies incorporating the reduction of inequalities into development pathways, reducing overconsumption and waste and addressing environmental impacts such as externalities of economic activities, from the local to the global scales..." 2/3
"...Such an evolution would also entail a shift beyond standard economic indicators such as gross domestic product to include those able to capture more holistic, long-term views of economics and quality of life." #postgrowth 3/3

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More from @jasonhickel

Jason Hickel Profile picture
Jan 21
China is overturning mainstream development theory in astonishing ways.

China's GDP per capita is only $12,000. That's 70% less than the average in high-income countries.

And yet they have the largest high-speed rail network in the world. They've developed their own commercial aircraft. They are the world leaders in renewable energy technology and electric vehicles. They have advanced medical technology, smartphone technology, microchip production, aerospace engineering...

China has a higher life expectancy than the USA, with 80% less income.

We were told that this kind of development required very high levels of GDP/cap. But over the past 10 years China has demonstrated that it can be achieved with much more modest levels of output.

How do they do it? By using public finance and industrial policy to steer investment and production toward social objectives and national development needs. This allows them to convert aggregate production into development outcomes much more efficiently than other countries, where productive capacity is often wasted on activities that may be highly profitable to capital, or beneficial to the rich, but may not actually advance development.

Of course, China still has development gaps that need to be addressed. And we know from some other countries that higher social indicators can be achieved with China's level of GDP/cap, by focusing more on social policy. But the achievements are undeniable and development economists are taking stock.
I saw some US neoliberal commentator argue that China's industrial policy and credit guidance is a constraint on development. This is just total denialism. Whatever your ideological priors, the reality is that China's industrial policy is *extremely* effective.
But I will also say this again, which I have said several times before... while China's efficiencies in converting aggregate output into development outcomes are impressive, they still suffer substantial ecological inefficiencies. There are several countries in the global South that achieve better social indicators than China not only with similar GDP/cap (as I mentioned above) but with substantially less material and energy use per capita.
Read 4 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
Jan 2
Here’s a quick roundup of highlights from research we published in 2024, on unequal exchange, ecosocialism, and post-capitalist transformation.

As always, free PDFs are available via the link at the end of the thread. 🧵
1) This is my top highlight. We found that the global North net-appropriates more than 800 billion hours of labour from the South per year. This occurs because Southern wages are 83–98% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill in the same sector. nature.com/articles/s4146…
2) Around 80% of humanity lives in conditions of deprivation. But this scarcity is artificial. If we directed production toward meeting human needs rather than mindlessly pursuing capitalist growth, we could ensure good lives for 8.5 billion people👇 sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Read 12 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
Nov 24, 2024
People often assume that capitalist globalization is closing the wage gap between workers in the global North and global South.

But it's not happening. In fact, the North-South wage gap is *increasing*. Image
And this is not due to sectoral differences. It is occurring across all sectors, even as the global South's share of industrial manufacturing and high-skilled labour in the world economy has increased dramatically over this very period. Image
Source: nature.com/articles/s4146…
Read 4 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
Oct 31, 2024
This Bloomberg report is a stark reminder: we cannot rely on capital to achieve green transition. Capital is not investing enough in green energy because it's not as profitable as fossil fuels. The solution? We need a public finance strategy and fast.

bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-…
Public finance, together with a credit guidance framework. Central banks have the power to force capital to stop making climate-destroying investments and direct investment instead in necessary activities: foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/16/cli…
People assumed that renewable energy development would increase once it became cheaper than fossil fuels. But capital doesn't care about cheapness. It cares about *profits*. Capital won't invest when the outlook is like this. You need to make the necessary investments directly. Image
Read 4 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
Jul 30, 2024
I strongly disagree with these remarks. They are empirically incorrect, but also illustrate a terrible reactionary tendency among some environmentalists that must be rejected. Image
The claim is that ecological collapse will undermine industrial production, so we should not pursue development to meet needs in the South.

For instance, we should not ensure refrigerators for people b/c this would inhibit their ability to migrate away from uninhabitable zones!Image
Image
Going further, the OP says instead of pursuing human development, we should be preparing for a world where we have no capacity to produce things like refrigerators and phones.

These are wildly problematic positions...Image
Read 19 tweets
Jason Hickel Profile picture
Jul 29, 2024
In this new paper we calculate the unequal exchange of labour between the global North and global South. The results are quite staggering. You'll want to look at this... 🧵

nature.com/articles/s4146…
Image
First, a crucial point. Workers in the global South contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, and 91% of labour for international trade.

The South provides the majority of the world's labour in all sectors (including 93% of global manufacturing labour).Image
And a lot of this is high-skill labour.

The South now contributes more high-skilled labour to the world economy than all the high-, medium- and low-skilled labour contributions of the global North combined.
Read 13 tweets

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