Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources

By Rob Dietz and Daniel W. O’Neill

It’s time for a new kind of economy

We’re overusing the earth’s finite resources, and yet excessive consumption is failing to improve our lives. In Enough Is Enough, Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill lay out a visionary but realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth—an economy where the goal is not more but enough.

They explore specific strategies to conserve natural resources, stabilize population, reduce inequality, fix the financial system, create jobs, and more—all with the aim of maximizing long-term well-being instead of short-term profits. Filled with fresh ideas and surprising optimism, Enough Is Enough is the primer for achieving genuine prosperity and a hopeful future for all.

“Humans seem to be intent on confirming the argument of biologist Ernst Mayr that higher intelligence may be a lethal mutation. But the grim prognosis is not inevitable. This lucid, informed, and highly constructive book shows that with the will to act, solutions can be found to build a steady-state economy geared to meeting human needs.”
—Noam Chomsky

“Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill bring clarity and style to their impassioned and meticulous analysis, offering the way to a better quality of life and a sustainable future for all.”
—Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, University of York; cofounder, The Equality Trust; and coauthor of The Spirit Level

“Dietz and O’Neill create a remarkable vision—a world with enough prosperity and happiness for everyone, not just for a few. This book will restore your hope in the future and give you specific things you can do to help!”
—Thom Hartmann, internationally syndicated talk show host and author of twenty-four books

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781609948078

Rob Dietz

Rob Dietz is the editor of the Daly News and the former executive director of CASSE (Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy).

Reviews for Enough Is Enough

[tonysomerset · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An important must read book. Easy reading, not patronising but a gentle stroll through an evolving idea of just why Enough is Enough. Better than another doom and disaster expose, it actually maps out an alternative to this cliff edge we are all teetering on. There really is hope of an alternative destiny.In simple journalist phrasing, a million miles away from a textbook thesis, it lays out in plain language where we are. How the money we daily use is foundered on a loan. As with all loans there is interest to be paid on it. The loan is so large the only way we can make the due interest payments is by taking out a further loan. So long as we keep taking out more loans, we can keep up with the interest payments. This is the much advocated Expanding Capital system all nations currencies are based on.In a world of infinite resources, no problem, you just extract more materials, make more stuff then bury that you no longer use. Except as we are increasingly aware of, the world is not infinite. Its very finite limited resources are being coveted by nations to ensure their future survival. Worse the world population carries on growing and all those new mouths are waking up and beginning to demand the same choices and opportunities that the 20% population of the western world take for granted as their birth right.Our life expectations and the economic world system is based on each of us having ever more and more stuff. Clearly the warning signs are all around us. Just like our effects on the climate, our need for more and more is beginning to exhaust our planets capacity to provided. Doom? Fortunately not, as the book maps out, there are alternatives economics models for us to follow. Economics based on a steady state economy. When we all declare enough really is enough and settle back and accept a sustainable life style. Hopeless pie-in-the-sky? No! The most important truth to get your head around is that there is an alternative path to this path of self-destruction we are currently following. That is the big message. Sure immense difficulties lie ahead to change course but there is an alternative path. Keep that firmly in mind and start shouting to all an sundry, Enough really is Enough.