Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration―and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives

An erudite book, covering many topics with a lot of detail, like population, GDP, climate, and so on. The main thesis seems to be that the age of unending growth in coming to an end, as we approach a steady state or even shrinking economy in much of the world. The author discusses the types of accommodation that will be required, but reassures us that the non-expanding world will be better for everyone, with less inequality, less environmental damage, and so on. To illustrate these trends, he uses a different type of diagram to present the time series, which he calls the phase diagram. This has absolute change on the horizontal axis, and absolute levels on the vertical axis. Time is not on the axis, so selected data points are labeled show more with the year. It is debatable whether this sort of presentation aids the understanding, in fact it may interfere with it for the average reader. However, it is obvious that his heart is in the right place (he is the rare economist who actually calls out the creative destruction theory), and there is much to learn. I would have been happier if he had developed in more detail the consequences of the slowing economy, and how the world is exactly going to manage the de-escalation of the growth curve and the de-carbonisation of the world economy. A glaring blind spot is the lack of any reference to the growing religious intolerance and fanaticism in many parts of the world. Love Kirsten's birds in the graphs! show less