As the global economy crashes yet again, wars and genocides rage, and fascism appears to be on the rise, the exchange of ideas taking place at the Festival of Debate in Sheffield in April and May takes on new urgency.

On the programme this year is economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, with a talk titled Degrowth – A 21st Century Revolution. Jason’s work crucially links colonialism and capitalism as two manifestations of a single phenomenon, and argues for a way forward which leaves both behind.

He told us more ahead of the talk on Tuesday 29th April at Pennine Lecture Theatre, hosted in association with Global Justice Now.

Jason Hickel

When thinking about the emergence of capitalism and colonialism along with the destruction each has wrought, do you think the story could have gone a different way, or was their dawning inevitable? Are there any lessons there for our present time of uncertainty and upheaval?

It absolutely could have gone a different way.

The struggle against colonialism in the 20th century was also largely a struggle against capitalism. And most of the new post-colonial states implemented progressive systems with socialist elements that dramatically improved people’s lives. But this movement posed a severe threat to Western capital, because it cut off their access to cheap labour and resources that sustained their profits.

They faced a choice: they could either accept decolonisation and transition to a post-capitalist economy, or they could somehow intervene to crush these progressive movements. They opted hard for the latter, including with invasions and coups, and by using the World Bank and IMF to impose neoliberal economic policies. This shaped the world we live in today.

But now, nearly 50 years later, capitalism faces new crises. It is fundamentally failing to address the ecological crisis, it is failing to resolve social problems in the global north – in Europe, 90 million people cannot access decent housing and food – and it is failing to deliver real development in the global south. This system is not working for the majority of humanity and it must be overcome.

To do this, we can learn from the movements of the 20th century, the anti-colonial movements and the labour movements, whereby the poorest and most exploited people on the planet succeeded in changing the world.

If their time is up soon, how do we ensure something worse doesn’t fill the vacuum?

Something worse is already filling the void, in the form of the reactionary right. And the only way to confront this force is to match it with a greater force. This requires real organising to build real power.

Our existing liberal political parties are not up to this task. They have been defeated and it’s clear we need a real progressive alternative, a democratic ecosocialist movement that can advance the interests of working-class communities, environmentalists and other progressive forces with a shared vision for a better world.

In your 2020 book Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World you outline the ways in which universal public services lead to outcomes far better and cheaper than their privatised counterparts, even in countries with far lower GDP per capita than the UK. At a time when we are told there is ‘no money’ for vital NHS services and local councils are going bankrupt, where do you feel we have gone wrong?

Capitalism is highly inefficient from an ecological perspective, and we know from empirical studies that it is possible to have a much more efficient economy that delivers high levels of wellbeing with much lower levels of total production. In fact, it is possible to provide good lives for 8.5 billion people on this planet with much less energy and resources than we presently use, if that was the objective of production.

Universal public services are key to such a future. I mean not only healthcare and education, but also affordable housing, childcare, recreation facilities, clean energy, internet and nutritious food. This approach ensures that the most important goods and services are always produced in sufficient quantities, and available to everyone.

The claim that there is ‘no money’ for universal services is totally wrong. Money simply represents productive capacity in the economy – real resources and labour that can be used to produce things. And we know that in the UK there is massive productive capacity. The problem is that it is misdirected.

The key is to reallocate it. This can be done by using credit policy to reduce investment in damaging and unnecessary sectors, thus liberating resources to be redirected elsewhere. Then you use public finance to directly mobilise necessary production – for example, renewable energy and public services.

With this approach we can rapidly solve our social and ecological problems, and maintain price stability at the same time.

In Less is More, you state that capitalism is marked not by the presence of markets, but instead by being structured around perpetual growth. Where do you see that most clearly exemplified today?

Right, markets can take many forms. But the main thing that distinguishes capitalism is that it is highly undemocratic.

Production is controlled by a very few – the main financial firms, large corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets and who select the directors of firms. They get to decide how to use our labour, what to produce and who benefits from it. And for them – for capital – the purpose of production is not to meet human needs or achieve social progress, but to maximise and accumulate profit.

This leads to perverse forms of production. We get massive overproduction of things like SUVs, fossil fuels, fast fashion, mansions, private jets and weapons, because these things are highly profitable to capital. But we get chronic underproduction of obviously necessary things like renewable energy, affordable housing and public transit, because these things are less profitable or not profitable at all. This is why, in countries like the UK, we have extremely high levels of total production but still millions of people cannot meet basic needs. It is because capital misallocates our productive capacities.

Capitalism pursues perpetual growth, but it does not care what is being produced, as long as it is profitable.

How do you foresee a shift away from perpetual growth? Given that growth and capital accumulation has been going on for so long, the people and institutions with the most vested interest in continuing along this path also have unimaginably deep pockets and influence, maybe most obviously exemplified by Elon Musk’s position on the world stage. If all that power and access is at the disposal of those who wish to defend perpetual growth, what chance do the rest of us have? Do you see a peaceful road to change ahead?

The reality is that the necessary transformations run directly against the interests of those who benefit so much from the current system.

I think the only feasible approach is to establish a mass-based political party – which is totally different from today’s bourgeois political parties – with roots in communities and with alliances between environmentalists and working-class formations. Then you build sufficient momentum to successfully contest elections and take power. This is the only way and we have to start now.

You state in Less is More that the model of ‘homo economicus’ that economists employ reflects principles that were instituted during enclosure [land privatisation], rather than being inherent human drivers. If you personally had to replace that model of shared human incentives with one free from those instilled principles, what would that look like?

We don’t need to imagine it – it’s already there.

There was an interesting study conducted by scientists in the US. They found that when people are given democratic control over decisions about production and resource use, the majority of them (around 70%) make decisions to share benefits and protect ecology, rather than maximising individual gains. This is not surprising.

My late colleague and friend David Graeber used to say that we are all socialists in our everyday lives. We help each other, we share, we produce things for mutual benefit. It is the structures of capitalism that force us to behave differently.

If capitalism is defined by a lack of democracy in the economic sphere, then the antidote to capitalism is economic democracy.

We need to achieve democratic control over production – our labour and our planet’s shared resources – so that we can organise production in ways to improve social and ecological outcomes. It’s that simple. But to get there will take a world-historic struggle.

Where, if anywhere, do you draw hope from at the moment?

Last year the Progressive International hosted an international summit in Havana on the 50th anniversary of the New International Economic Order (NIEO), which was a set of principles that global south governments and progressive movements advanced for a fair and equitable world economy.

That effort was crushed, but today there is widespread consensus that it must be revived. The Havana summit brought together political leaders and scholars from across the global south to lay out a programme of action in this direction.

People know what needs to change and are beginning to mobilise, but there is still a lot of work to do.

Jason Hickel will be in conversation with Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, at Festival of Debate on Tuesday 29th April 2025 at Pennine Lecture Theatre. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start.

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