Growth Fetish

by Clive Hamilton

At last a coherent new set of ideas for critics of economic rationalism and globalisation. Hamilton argues that an obsession with economic growth lies at the heart of our current political, social and environmental ills – and offers a thought-provoking alternative.

‘Right on target, and badly needed’ Noam Chomsky

‘Every now and then a book that is perfect in timing and tone hits my desk. Growth Fetish is that book. It is powerful and potentially transformative.’ Rev. Tim Costello

‘This book reveals the undelivered reality of economic growth and the hollow mantras of the Third Way. Growth Fetish provides a much needed road map to a new politics in a post-growth world.’ Senator Natasha Stott Despoja

For decades our political leaders and opinion makers have touted higher incomes as the way to a better future. Economic growth means better lives for us all.

But after many years of sustained economic growth and increased personal incomes we must confront an awful fact: we aren’t any happier. This is the great contradiction of modern politics.

In this provocative new book, Clive Hamilton argues that, far from being the answer to our problems, growth fetishism and the marketing society lie at the heart of our social ills. They have corrupted our social priorities and political structures, and have created a profound sense of alienation among young and old.

Growth Fetish is the first serious attempt at a politics of change for rich countries dominated by the sicknesses of affluence, where the real yearning is not for more money but for authentic identity, and where the future lies in a new relationship with the natural environment.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Philosophy, Environment, Australia, Ecology

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Clive Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government, and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates. Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for "service to public debate and policy development, particularly in the fields of climate change, sustainability and societal trends".


(From Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book satisfying for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was lucidly written and clearly explained, with the structure but not the jargon of academia. An excellent combination. Secondly, it brought together a great many thoughts I’d seen articulated elsewhere and/or thought myself in a cohesive whole. Thirdly, I agreed with basically everything in it. The discussions of feminism could have been more nuanced, otherwise I think Hamilton got it right. It is incredibly unusual for a book about economics and politics to induce so little criticism on my part. How refreshing! I can’t believe that I hadn’t read this book before, as clearly I should have. It was first published in 2004, after all.

Although the ideas within ‘Growth Fetish’ weren’t new to me, the book synthesised them particularly well. The critique of neoliberal capitalism is a strong, evidence-based one grounded in measures of wellbeing and detriments to the environment and social fabric. As a synthesis, it fits neatly between books that have come before and after it, such as No LOGO, Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life, Combined and Uneven Apocalypse, and Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. The element that shows its age is the detailed dissection of Third Way politics, all mention of which seemed to vanish during the financial crisis. Austerity politics has dispensed with the platitudes of the Third Way, instead dismissing all considerations except The Markets and the great idol Growth. As such, the main thesis of the book has become more critical in the past six years.

As well as macroeconomic critique of economic growth as a government’s main policy aim, ‘Growth Fetish’ has much to say on the micro level. In particular, that neoclassical economics has no concept of ‘enough’. In order for firms to continue to grow, new wants must continually be created by marketing and consumers must never be satiated. As well as being ecologically destructive, this imperative is incredibly depressing for individuals. The world is so steeped in advertising for new things that it is very difficult to say, “I have enough”. It is nonetheless essential.

The last few chapters of the book try to set out the pathway to a new post-growth politics and steady state economy, based on individuals freeing their minds from the tyranny of compulsory consumption. This pathway is no detailed blueprint and wouldn’t be sufficient for a political party manifesto, but still provides a more useful outline than almost any other book I’ve read on the topic. There remain many difficult questions, of course. In particular, how to dislodge the massive companies enforcing this cycle of overconsumption. From a climate change perspective, the elephants in the room are energy companies. To avoid catastrophic climate change, such that human civilisation would be fundamentally undermined, these companies will have to abandon billions of pounds worth of coal and oil. Obviously, this goes against their legal duty to maximise stockholder value, as well as their business plans, management ethos, and basic reason to exist. So does climate change require a revision of the basic legal structure of private companies? I wonder. This book doesn’t discuss this specific point, although it does suggest very strict regulation of advertising.

In short, I highly recommend ‘Growth Fetish’ as a thorough, reasoned critique of neoliberal economic ideology and its political manifestations. Not only does the book challenge the tedious rhetoric of political parties, it also inspires self-reflection on our own habits of consumption and whether they actually make us happy. I spend quite a bit of time contemplating my own consumption habits anyway, so reading this encouraged a more detailed analysis. I also like the concept of eudemonism, although I am uncertain how to pronounce it correctly. I wish I could sent this book back in time to my undergraduate self of ten years ago, she would have found it so useful.

[Sir Readalot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree almost entirely with the thesis of this robin. The pursuit of economic growth by governments and the public's blind pursuit of happiness via consumption is a grave problem that will need to be reformed if our species is to carry on a meaningful existence.

Only gave it three stars because it is at times repetitive and often very dry.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very convincing in his argument for the personal and social benefits of simplifying life, but does not address the larger question of how we are to achieve a scaled-down society without creating a lot of problems in the meantime. It is, perhaps, significant that the author is Australian and thus does not have to deal with the US problem of health care being tied to a 40-hour/week job with a large corporation. Personal fulfillment in the USA is a luxury open only to those with the financial ability to escape the corporate health-care treadmill.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A seminal work in building the movement toward a truly sustainable world of post-growth, steady-state economy, and the rejection of rampant-consumer capitalism and instrumentalist vision of the natural world.

[Paul Skorupskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book and found it to be very good at giving an overall critique of the consumerist, growth oriented society that virtual the entire globe is building. However, I agree with some of the other readers that the evidence presented in the book does not do a particularly good job at supporting the arguments made within.

I already agreed with much of the overall thesis of the book and found many of the insights thought provoking and worth further investigation, but I am afraid that the hard data and arguments presented would do little to persuade the most ardent supporters of the status quo. Hamilton presents the beginning of the book in a way as though he intends to propose a concrete alternative to the Third Way, but the last chapter is one of the weakest parts of the book. Unfortunately, the author punts on numerous occasions by writing that this is not the place to get into the details of alternatives. That is fair enough, but then there should never have been a claim to later present a plausible alternative.

Even with all of the above, I would very much recommend this book, because even without concrete alternatives, Hamilton makes one of the best arguments against the universal prioritization of growth. If nothing else it helps one understand why our societies are setup the way that they are and that it does not need to be this way.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clive Hamilton is one of my favourite intellectuals - he is cogent, forward thinking and writes incredibly well. Although this book was written almost 20 years ago, long before social media really took hold and the world descended into the shit storm it is currently, it is just as relevant now as it was back then.

Hamilton's thesis is that the myth of perpetual growth is an illusion. All it is doing is very rapidly destroying everything and, even according to the theory of entropy, it will necessarily have to come to an end. His outline of the damage that occurs because of our obsession with it is pretty chilling - perhaps even more so when it is read so long after he first wrote it. But the final chapter, with his possibilities for a post-growth or stable economy was so positive and so utterly achievable, it does seem amazing we haven't already started down that path. Although, I have to admit, there are probably far more people nowadays than there were in 2003 who not just believe in an alternative, but are actively trying to live it.

[Zoe Cassar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for those of us wondering if the world is getting crazier or if we are becoming curmudgeons as we enter our middle age...

[Greg Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

an important contribution to the debate of the era; readable for anyone, even without an Economics degree

[S'hi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found reading this book a disturbing experience. Not because it revealed things I was unaware of, but because it limits the things I am aware of within a frame of language and persisting divisions which are unhelpful to bring about the required insight to lead to effective change.
What disturbs me is that the intelligence and energy required to bring about such change, or at least play a large part within it, seems to be wasted in so many inappropriate or inadequate studies and analyses.

There is a self-perpetuation methodology within academia, just as there is in the media and political and economic structures, which fails to recognize what it leaves out. Just as the environmental movement managed to highlight the practice in business accounting of “externalities”, so Clive Hamilton now has to bring to awareness those areas just beyond the borders of the social research he has so thoroughly gathered in this volume.

Rather than feeling empowered by access to knowledge, almost every step of the way through this volume I felt the barbs of criticism applied so my attitude was altered into similar criticism, rather than the openness and anticipation with which I opened the volume. It became a battle to continue reading and find my alternative views from lived experience which nobody seems aware of, nor concerned by, because it does not seem to serve their own agenda to leverage themselves into a position of recognition and importance.

I have held myself back over the years because of my own awareness of my limitations. But more and more I feel that, even if I am the only person who sees things in the way I do, it is nevertheless important for others to hear and see and feel such differences if for no other reason than to get out of the bind of historical fallacies created through layers of progressive generalization.

It seems to me there is a tendency to disempower ourselves by grouping things together as a means of supposedly creating ‘critical mass’ as if size alone is enough to create momentum. Yet all change occurs in the specifics, in the application to circumstances in appropriate ways. Then when success is achieved, and when it is believed to be the same circumstances elsewhere, it is brought across and copied in other situations so the mass is affected, or perhaps even infected, gradually and over time.

The continual reference to the Left, as if there is such a single force in the world, is one of the over uses of generalization to which I refer. Most of my life people have assumed that I have been ‘on the left’ with my ideas and actions. Yet I was the home-owner under whose roof many people had their conversations about the bourgeois from which they wanted to escape. I housed the homeless, cared for the ill of heart and mind and body while questioning the failure of the church to understand or hear the people knocking at its door. I refused to join a union which would not have represented my view about working conditions, and so refused to strike with my fellow workers. I left a number of jobs where the organization seemed to have no direction of its own by which to guide the effective use of my skills and potential. I pushed the limits of my lecturers and tutors by getting paid projects off the ground as my self-supervised work placements, then failed to find paid employment in that sector upon ‘graduation’.

Am I an anarchist for failing to fit into the system which has not been big enough to contain me? Am I a revolutionary for looking for effective ways and means of bringing change from within? Am I a capitalist for seeing the growth potential in every human being I come across no matter what area of involvement or social strata I meet them on?

All around me I see failure – and mostly I hear people pointing it back at me. We fail each other. And mostly that failure goes back to the language we use and the assumptions embedded there.

Where are the venues within which we can be open and honest with each other in exploring the ways we live, and find how we would like it to be? Where are the brave souls who realize that self-restriction is what we impose on each other, rather than invitation to improve ourselves? Where is the cry: “Enough!” which stops feeding that which we don’t want or need as we expend so much energy on denying it, and thus build its existence instead of subduing or annihilating it?

From the point of view of a woman, a parent, a participant in paid and unpaid activities which include what some would call work and others would not, I have read through Clive Hamilton’s book with a deep sense of waste and devaluation of his work as well as my own energy. That he is referred to and admired by some of the people in my circle of acquaintances perhaps disturbs me more than reading his book has.
Perhaps I can make best use of such disturbance to get on with writing my own.

[F. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read Affluenza, I was already familiar with many of the arguments in this book, though this one is more of a overall survey rather than a detailed analysis, unlike the former. I agree with Hamilton's main points in that too much focus on growth can negatively impact on the environment and that consumerism does breed discontent. But what really let down this book was his reasoning for these points, as well as his solutions. I'll try and sum it up:

1. Employment - For a start, Hamilton's view that switching from paid to voluntary work is somehow better for lifestyles in general. I agree that doing a job you are passionate about rather than one you slave over is better for your mental health, but how is this sustainable long term? Of course one can live on government welfare but to get that, you need a paid workforce to pay those taxes for welfare to exist. Money really doesn't grown on trees.

2. Feminism - His view on Feminism is rather misinformed, and quoting an extremist like Germaine Greer really did not do his argument any favours. He basically states that women are tricked into thinking they are liberated by being able to work, yet become wage slaves of capitalism like men. He states that house work needs to be prioritised more over a career. So how then is being an incubator, chained to a stove more liberating? This completely undermines what I think he is trying to say, which was that both men and women need to focus on house work.

3. Solution (or lack thereof) - Hamilton raises the point that we can have a stationary economy and to do this we can turn inwards to our creativity by no longer being motivated by money to do so. He did not go into depth on this, so it is unclear as to how this might happen. Many sectors, such as the arts, does require a lot of funding to survive. Human creativity alone might not sustain museums or cultural institutions, although it is highly important.

I could go on, but this book was written in 2003 so I understand it is out of date. Overall, Hamilton's way of backing up his decent argument was too radical and in turn undermined it. It would be interesting to perhaps see an updated version of these ideas and whether they would hold the same resonance 20 years later.

[Radiantflux · Rating 2 out of 5]

27th book for 2016.

I was quite disappointed with this book. There are certainly some interesting ideas here, but most seem pretty woolly.

The book conflates 'growth' and 'consumption'. While a growth society may imply ever greater consumption; a set-state economy doesn't imply that consumer consumption should cease or for that matter that it is bad. Just from a practical point of view it would be far easier to convince people of the virtues of a post-growth economy if at the same time you don't unnecessarily criticise them for living inauthentic lives.

His belief that mass marketing brainwashes people into consumer drones seems at least questionable to me. Sure advertising works at some level, but are people really so stupid/passive? His statement that housework is imbued with "female qualities" made me almost want to throw the book across the room.

The discussion how consumption/wealth related to a happy contented life was more interesting, and how societies should be trying maximize life-satisfaction vs GDP was good, although it feels dated now. It would have been great to have a much larger discussion about Japan. There was no mention of the Scandinavian countries, which seems a shame as there seems to be a lot of relevance to issues raised in the book.

There should have been much more discussion of the potential difficulties in transitioning to a post-growth society. Reading the book you get the impression that his is already well under way (which seems seems strange from the perspective of a reader 12 years later - what happened?), and all people need to do is demand shorter working hours.

Interesting, if flawed, book.

[Paul Fleckney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely important book that I think everyone should read. The first 4 chapters provide a very effective demolition of the current capitalist-consumerist growth obsession that pervades every inch of our lives. The book as a whole is highly readable, insightful and engaging. There's very little here that I don't agree with or does not make sense to me apart from some of the feminism discussion which could have been more nuanced I feel.

I only gave it 4 stars because I feel at times Hamilton is really cherrypicking his evidence to fit his ideas and while I understand that this is perhaps necessary because so little research has been conducted 'outside the mainstream' on this issue, it is patently and awkwardly obvious at times. I also feel, like so much non-fiction, the book tapers off towards the end and the last few chapters did not match the intensity and power of the first ones.

As with all books on this topic, the challenge is how to convert such seemingly self-evident wisdom into real world action. Hamilton makes a reasonable attempt at this in the final chapter but it reads too much like an afterthought and is not particularly convincing.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Put the review up on hubpages here

http://hubpages.com/hub/Growth-Fetish...

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my view this is a must read for all those climate change deniers out there.
Check out my full review at
OurBookClub

[Mark Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant!

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is making a lot of sense so far.

[gekko100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering examination of the emptiness of our modern consumer culture.

[Sean Finn · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting analysis of the the ills in consumption with a sprinkling of neoliberalism shortcomings. Unfortunately, no real credence is paid to free market structures. What it misses is a proper discussion around the alternative economy which features no growth as is mentioned strangely sporadically throughout.
It finishes by offering an alternative that is based on a heavily regulated economy which strips choice and rights from the people it seeks to equalise. I am concerned for anyone who takes the paltry and damaging recommendations seriously.