Rather than submitting to plans handed down by central governments in distant capitals, people are using to make decisions about their resources and … - Jason Hickel

To get a sense of how extreme is: if we all were to live like the average citizen of the average high-income country, we would require the ecological capacity equivalent of 3.4 earths.

While global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, the number of people living in poverty, below $5 per day, has increased by more than 1.1 billion. Why is this? Because past a certain point, GDP growth begins to produce more negative outcomes than positive ones – more '' than wealth.

The Reagan and Thatcher administrations eventually came to power on platforms that promised to enhance individual freedoms by liberating capitalism from the 'shackles' of the state – reducing taxes on the rich, cutting state spending, privatizing utilities, deregulating financial markets, and curbing the power of unions. After Reagan and Thatcher, these policies were carried forward by putatively progressive administrations such as Clinton's in the USA and Blair's in Britain, thus sealing the new economic consensus across party lines.