What would a sufficiency economy look like?

Abstract

After briefly summarising the ‘limits to growth’ position, this chapter highlights the radical implications of that critique by describing a ‘sufficiency economy’. This alternative ‘post-growth’ economic model aims for a world in which everyone’s basic material needs are modestly but sufficiently met, in an ecologically sustainable, highly localised and socially equitable manner. Once basic needs are met, a sufficiency economy would focus on promoting non-materialistic sources of well-being rather than endlessly pursuing material affluence. In other words, a sufficiency economy is an economy that is structured to promote and support what is often called ‘simple living’, ‘voluntary simplicity’ or ‘the simpler way’. In a world of seven billion people and counting, it is argued that a sufficiency economy is the only way humanity can flourish sustainably within the carrying capacity of Earth.