Is Prosperity Without Growth Possible?

24th Feb 2010; 18:00

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RSA Debate

RSA Pepsico Debate

Living sustainably and well in a world of finite resources is fast becoming recognised as one of the defining challenges of our generation. It is a challenge that is calling into question long-held assumptions about the good life and the good society. Up until now GDP has been widely accepted as the primary indicator of national success, despite the fact that it does not take into account many elements that affect human welfare and wellbeing.

However in recent months, in the wake of a cataclysmic global economic shock, leading figures on the world stage have raised their voices in a challenge to the dominant economic model. Perhaps most significantly President Sarkozy recently commissioned a report from Nobel Laureate economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz which urged the international community to find new ways to measure prosperity, going beyond economics to take into account indicators of a nation's social well-being and environmental sustainability.

In the UK, the Sustainable Development Commission has added their voice to the debate, calling for a society, "whose primary goal should be the wellbeing of society itself and of the planetary resources and environment that sustains us all, with economic objectives shaped to support that central goal rather than the other way around."

But just how realistic is it to consider shifting from strongly growth-focused economic norms to a new and broader definition of prosperity and progress? And, despite the mounting evidence that economic growth may be causing more problems than it solves, it is still politically too risky to seriously question the goal of growth?

Speakers: Tim Jackson, professor, Sustainable Development and director, Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment, University of Surrey; Avner Offer, Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford and author of The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950; Paul Ormerod, economist, author and director of Volterra Consulting; Oliver Kamm, leader Writer & Columnist, The Times.

Chair: Halina Ward, Director, The Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsaprosperity

This event is kindly sponsored by PepsiCo

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