Post-Growth Living:For an Alternative Hedonism

This is an excellent book. It addresses what, in both conceptual and political terms, is arguably the most important source of tension and confusion in current arguments about the environment, namely the concept of nature; and it does so in a way that is both sensitive to, and critical of, the two antithetical ways of understanding this that dominate existing discussions.

There’s a piece of the ecological crisis that most consider too hot to handle: consumption. With her signature rigour, Kate Soper picks it up and inspects it and finds that we can do without much of it – indeed, less of it would make us richer human beings. Calmly dismantling the illusion that consumption is pleasure, she shows how drives and needs will be set free when we throw away the commodity form. Some on left bow to the cult of technology and dream of accelerating out into sci-fi space. Others attend to the limits and joys of life and read Kate Soper.

No task could be more urgent than the one that this book accomplishes so brilliantly. For life on Earth to survive, we have to change not just what we consume, but how we feel about consuming. Guilt and deprivation won’t save us. A different kind of hedonism, an aesthetic and sensibility not enslaved by addictive consumerism, are indispensable components of any culture that hopes to survive this century. Alternative Prosperity offers a lucid, profound and pragmatic exploration of these issues, elaborating both on what such a radical recalibration of our sensibilities might entail, and what concrete political measures might achieve it.