Legacy: How to Build the Sustainable Economy

by Dieter Helm

What would a sustainable economy look like? What would it take to live within our environmental means? Legacy answers these and other questions, setting out the key features of the sustainable economy. It explains what it would take to properly maintain different types of capital, why polluters would have to pay, why the current generation would have to fund the necessary maintenance of our natural assets, and why we would have to save to invest. The message is a tough we are way off course in terms of meeting these conditions and we cannot escape the consequences. This book explains what we would have to do to mend our ways. In doing so, it highlights the feebleness of current approaches to net zero and biodiversity loss as well as our great neglect of the core infrastructures, and why we are not meeting our duties to the next generation. This title is Open Access.

Genres: Economics

266 pages, Hardcover

Published January 11, 2024

About the author

Dieter Helm is Fellow in Economics, New College, Oxford. He is also Professor of Energy Policy and Professorial Research Fellow, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.

Reviews

[Piet-Hein Daverveldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful appeal for transition to a sustainable economy advocating that the natural, physical, human and social capitals the next generation inherits, are maintained, that polluters rather than polluted pay and precautionary principles are adhered to.
Helm explains how a sustainable economy could be governed and embedded in a new constitution. He remains doubtful whether politicians will dare to make this radical shift as it requires admitting that we live above our means and hide this by financing current consumption through debt. Helm argues that debt should only finance enhancement of capital and instead of capital maintenance or consumption.
Interestingly he does not agree with no-growthers. The sustainable economy will grow because ideas, knowledge and technology keep marching on at great pace. In summary, not necessarily an easy read but rewarding and thought provoking.

[Josh Peacock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a textbook/economics heavy but smart guy and very interesting concepts (DNF)

[Alfred Holmes · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a disappointing read. I was put off early on in the book by the section on entrepreneurs where Helm writes 'All [new technology businesses] are flawed, all take big risks and most fail. Many are lead by highly egoistic, dyslexic and irrationally optimistic individuals.'

I found the book is very difficult to read. This is partly due to the structure of the book where Helm's idea for a sustainable economy is left to the last chapter, and the preceding chapters justify the decisions he's made when coming up with the ideas for a sustainable economy. Without actually knowing what he's talking about these chapters are difficult to follow. I'd recommend reading the last chapter first if you are to read this book. There are also quite a lot of unsubstantiated claims in this book which are distracting.

One of Helm's key ideas is an argument against longtermism. He makes an argument against longtermism by saying that it is ridiculous to value, say, a remote person living 100 years from now as much as your own children which entirely misses the point: I don't think any longtermists would argue this. The point is that from a moral perspective the interests of people living in the future should be taken into account. Helm says that it is much more natural to just consider the interests of the next generation. This is exactly the same as the longtermists view. If we do get a sustainable economy then this would span multiple generations. If each generation is concerned for the next one, then it follows that the first generation will be concerned for all future generations because they are concerned about the interests of the next generation.

Overall, I felt that this book was small minded. When considering how the economy will look over the next 50-100 years or so, it is impossible not to consider technological progress, but this isn't really discussed in the book apart from a section noting that new tech companies like netflix operate with quite low marginal costs. There are two things relating to technological progress that I would have liked to seen discussed. The first is that implementing sustainable policies has the potential to slow down research and development of technologies. This is a difficult trade off and it is not at all obvious what the correct approach to these questions would be. The second is that technological progress has the potential to completely change the structure of the economy (e.g. different energy resources and potentially removing jobs). It would have been nice for Helm to include a discussion on how these would impact his plan for his sustainable economy.

[Max Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring and a glimmer of hope, the only radical concept in the book is that it relies on the few people with power to enact change, to do so for the benefit of people, planet and the future.

-1 star for readability, a lot of repetition

[Miguel Gonzalez]

Recomendado por Jaume Martí

[Ioannis Ioannou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly fresh view on how to look at economics against a background of fast deteriorating environmental challenges