100 inhabitants, 2005–2018
7.2 The global share of different energy sources, 1971–2014
7.3 Frequency and cost escalation of electricity infrastructure projects (based on analysis of 411 projects)
7.4 The Zambezi river basin
7.5 Global average annual net capacity additions by energy source
7.6 Wheat and barley crop yields in UK agriculture, 1948–2017 (tonnes/hectare)
7.7 Sources of productivity growth in UK agriculture, 1973–2017 (1973 = 100)
7.8 ‘Tom’ gathering data on soil and weeds
8.1 Levels of circularity: the 10 Rs
8.2 Total UK tax receipts, 2018–2019 (£bn)
Tables
2.1 Average annual economic growth rates: World, US and Europe (%)
3.1 Extent and character of migrant inflows in ten high-income economies
4.1 Range of approximate CO2 emissions per unit of electricity produced, different sources of energy (grammes CO2/kWh)
4.2 Projected impacts of global warming at increase of 1.5 °C and 2 °C
5.1 Post-tax wages in global economies, March 2009 ($)
Preface
I decided to write this book after returning from a wonderful family summer vacation in September 2018.
Looming over the warm afterglow of the holiday was the spectre of a damaged and increasingly unsustainable world. Donald Trump was two years into his malign disruptive Administration, threatening safety and livelihoods not just in the US, but across the world. It was increasingly clear that the UK was descending into a narrow tunnel in which delusions of past imperial grandeur, coupled with rising xenophobia, fuelled an insular and destructive nationalism. In my country of origin, South Africa, ‘state capture’ had led to the looting of state coffers by a predatory and opportunistic new elite. In Brazil, President Bolsonaro was following in the footsteps of his mentor, Donald Trump, and in the slums of the Philippines, police were encouraged to shoot on sight. If that wasn’t enough, climate change and global warming were accelerating at an alarming rate.
Out of my post-holiday depression was born a desire to contribute in some small way to finding a solution to these societal ills. This book is an attempt to identify a path which might help us to get out of the mess in which we find ourselves. Learning from history, it is not inevitable that our worlds collapse into increasing unsustainability. To the contrary, there are credible reasons for optimism, and this is the furrow which I plough in this book.
Out of crisis comes opportunity. It is possible to rebuild a more sustainable world by taking advantage of the potential offered by a new socio-economic paradigm. The lives of all of our grandchildren – to whom this book is dedicated – demand that we do so.
Acknowledgements
During the course of my professional life, I have been privileged to work with three truly inspirational colleagues. Their contributions play a central role in the ideas advanced in this book.
The late Chris Freeman mentored my early career development and alerted me to the centrality of innovation in the unfolding of history.1 Chris was resolute in his belief that technologies are socially created, and are hence malleable. Thus, he argued, we have a choice about the nature and trajectory of the society we live in. This choice, however, is frequently obscured by disciplinary silos and a belief in technological determinism. In the early 1980s, Chris pioneered the theory of ‘long waves’, which is the analytical structure I have drawn on and extended in order to analyse our contemporary crises in sustainability.
I worked with the late Robin Murray for more than two decades. Robin was an inspirational teacher and a visionary colleague.2 Amongst the imprints he left on me was the understanding that distributed power, robust communities and civic participation are the foundations of a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. Robin helped me to realize that more inclusive societies not only are normatively desirable, but can also be more ‘efficient’ and are, hence, feasible. He was a pioneer in the development of ideas about the Circular Economy and the urgent need to take action to avoid a looming environmental crisis.
More recently, I have had the pleasure and privilege of working closely with Carlota Perez.3 Carlota collaborated with Chris Freeman in extending long wave theory from its preoccupation with economic trajectories to an analysis of the co-evolution of technology, economy and society. Subsequently, she elaborated this framework to take account of the role which finance plays in the unfolding rise and atrophy of techno-economic paradigms. Drawing on insights gained from an understanding of the evolution of past techno-economic paradigms, Carlota provides us with a vision of what a more sustainable world might look like as the new Information and Communications techno-economic paradigm is deployed. But, she argues, this can only be achieved through purposeful action, particularly by visionary and effective governments. Carlota has stood by my side throughout the drafting and redrafting of this book. We have put on weight during our long lunches, and she has read (and sometimes reread) my draft chapters.
Although I have leant heavily on the contributions of these three colleagues, I take responsibility for the views expressed in this book.
My editor at Polity, Jonathan Skerrett, has been exceptional. He helped me to sharpen my focus and to make my material less inaccessible to a non-specialized audience. Shan Vahidy provided an invaluable and highly professional read of an earlier draft, Stevie Holland was my constant foil as an intelligent general reader, and Keith Bezanson provided insightful comments on the complete draft. Annie James (in Delhi) and Courtney Barnes and Chris Grant (both in Cape Town) assisted me with excellence in the processing of some of my data. Leigh Mueller assisted with a close copy-editing of the text. And, of course, the wonderful Wikipedia – how did we manage without it?
A number of colleagues and friends provided data and comments on individual chapters. The list is long. What surfaces as the work of an individual author is always a compilation of the views of others, sometimes absorbed explicitly and at other times seeping into the author’s unconscious through the ether. So here are the culprits (in alphabetical order):
Andreas Antoniades (Chapter 2), Mike Boulter (Chapter 4), Tim Foxon (Chapter 4), Stephany Griffiths Jones (Chapter 2), James Hampshire (Chapter 3), Tim Jackson (Chapter 4), Richard Jolly (Chapters 2 and 3), Giorgos Kallis (Chapter 4), David Kaplan (Chapter 2), Bill Lazonick (Chapter 2), Rasmus Lema (Chapter 7), Paul Lewis (Chapter 3), Mathew Lockwood (Chapter 4), Mariana Mazzucato (Chapter 2), Erik Millstone (Chapter 4), Mike Morris (Chapters 3, 7, 8 and 9), Dev Nathan (Chapter 4), Hubert Schmitz (Chapter 2), Benjamin Sovacool (extensive assistance with Chapters 4 and 7), Mark Stroud (Chapter 7), Nikos Vernardakis (Chapter 2), Sam Watson-Jones (Chapter 7), Richard Wilkinson (Chapter 3) and Martin Wolf (Chapter 2).
I apologize to my family, Hugh Fowler, Jenny Higgo, Jim Roby, Karen Fowler, Kate Springford, Leslye Orloff and Penny Leach for spoiling your meals during
