Awards

• Short-listed for Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award 2024 (United States)
• Short-listed for PROSE Award in Economics 2025 (United States)

Overview

One of Barack Obama's 10 Favorite Books of the Year One of the New Yorker's Best Books of the Year Finalist for the Financial Times Best Book of the Year A vivid account of the past, present, and future of economic growth, showing how and why we must continue to pursue it while responding to the challenges it creates. Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from the struggle for subsistence. Yet prosperity has come at a price: environmental destruction, desolation of local cultures, the emergence of vast inequalities. Many respond that now is the time to shrink our economic footprint. But Daniel Susskind argues that such ""degrowth"" would be folly. Instead, we must keep growth but redirect it, making it better reflect our values. Growth: A History and a Reckoning shows how policymaking in the second half of the twentieth century came to revolve around a single-minded quest for greater GDP. The growth obsession has been met with the assertion that ""we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet."" Susskind shows, though, that growth is a product not of resource exploitation but of new ideas. In that sense, growth really can be infinite. Still, he says, critics are right to insist that we can no longer focus on upsides alone. We must confront tradeoffs: societies will have to deliberately pursue less growth for the sake of other goals. These will be moral decisions, not simply economic ones, demanding the engagement not just of politicians and experts but of all citizens.

Full Product Details

9780674303577

Table of Contents

Reviews

A concise and informative study of the idea, its past, and its potential future...[Susskind] is a reliable guide to economists' often arcane arguments about growth and a clear commentator on their significance.--Robert Bellafiore Jr. ""City Journal"" (6/3/2024 12:00:00 AM) A readable and useful introduction to the green-growth perspective.--Rutger Hoekstra ""Nature"" (5/30/2024 12:00:00 AM) A useful addition to the public discussion of growth in a longer-term context.--Vivek Arora ""Finance & Development"" (6/1/2024 12:00:00 AM) Consults the balance sheet of a capitalist society dedicated to economic growth and concludes that in the 21st century, the singular ambition of growth may need to be modified but shouldn't be abandoned.--Benjamin Kunkel ""The Nation"" (8/26/2024 12:00:00 AM) Daniel Susskind is a compelling, insightful thinker on the largest and most fundamental economic topics. At a time when traditional notions of growth are increasingly being questioned, this book is profoundly important. Agree or disagree, anyone who wants to engage with the broad direction of economic policy needs to reckon with Susskind's views.--Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury Economic growth is a double-edged sword, according to this thought-provoking treatise...The high-level discussions evaluating the merits of economists Paul Romer's and Joel Mokyr's theories about the origins of human prosperity can be dense, but the discerning analysis is worth the effort. This brings clarity to a pressing and intractable quandary.-- ""Publishers Weekly"" (2/1/2024 12:00:00 AM) Fascinating...A remarkable survey of a complex subject that is both erudite and immensely readable. Susskind's thoughtful discussion of the issue is historical and practical, offering insights into how innovation and growth can be boosted, and it is a timely contribution to a vitally important debate.--PD Smith ""The Guardian"" (4/2/2025 12:00:00 AM) Growth--the lack of it, the search for it, the barriers to it--is the challenge at the core of most political debates and with which all politicians struggle. Susskind's study is a tour de force.--Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the UK Pushes back against the contention that the scope for economic growth is now greatly diminished and that humankind, in order to save the planet, must transition to no growth.--Barry Eichengreen ""Foreign Affairs"" (1/7/2025 12:00:00 AM) This is a wonderfully elegant and authoritative explanation-cum-manifesto for what is perhaps the most important economic issue facing us today--the mystery of economic growth and what we need to do to solve it.--Andy Haldane, former chief economist of the Bank of England Daniel Susskind writes with verve, style, and conviction about one of the most important issues of our age.--Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between and How Not to Be a Politician For two centuries, economic growth has meant longer lives, better health, and material comfort. But has growth now come to an end? What can be done to restart the engine? Or should we halt growth deliberately, given its environmental costs? This panoramic book addresses the most fundamental economic questions from a deeply ethical perspective.--Diane Coyle, author of Cogs and Monsters and GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History What type of economic growth we should pursue, how much of it, and for whose benefit will be crucial questions in the years to come, especially if current trends--more and more inequality, and an increasing concentration of power among the select few companies shaping the future of technology--continue. This well-written, thought-provoking book is essential reading for anybody interested in these epochal debates.--Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Power and Progress and Why Nations Fail

Author Information

Daniel Susskind is a Research Professor in Economics at King’s College London and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University. He is the author of A World Without Work and coauthor (with Richard Susskind) of the bestselling The Future of the Professions. A former Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University, he has held numerous posts in the British government, including in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the Cabinet Office, and the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street.

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