Jason Hickel | London School of Economics and Political Science (original) (raw)

Papers by Jason Hickel

Global Environmental Change, 2020

Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the "advanced economies" of the global Nor... more Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the "advanced economies" of the global North relies on a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the global South, extracted through price differentials in international trade. Past attempts to estimate the scale and value of this drain have faced a number of conceptual and empirical limitations, and have been unable to capture the upstream resources and labour embodied in traded goods. Here we use environmental input-output data and footprint analysis to quantify the physical scale of net appropriation from the South in terms of embodied resources and labour over the period 1990 to 2015. We then represent the value of appropriated resources in terms of prevailing market prices. Our results show that in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth 10.8trillioninNorthernpricesenoughtoendextremepoverty70timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled10.8 trillion in Northern pricesenough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled 10.8trillioninNorthernpricesenoughtoendextremepoverty70timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled242 trillion (constant 2010 USD). This drain represents a significant windfall for the global North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. For comparison, we also report drain in global average prices. Using this method, we find that the South's losses due to unequal exchange outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our analysis confirms that unequal exchange is a significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown.

Nature Energy, 2021

Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and r... more Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and reconcile this with the Paris targets by betting on speculative technological change. Post-growth approaches may make it easier to achieve rapid mitigation while improving social outcomes, and should be explored by climate modellers.

Economy & Society, 2021

During the transition to democracy in the 1990s, the departing apartheid regime granted political... more During the transition to democracy in the 1990s, the departing apartheid regime granted political power to the black majority but kept the main levers of economic policy insulated from the revolution. Control over the South African Reserve Bank (SARB; hereafter also Reserve Bank) was central to this strategy. The SARB was made private and independent, its mandate limited to maintaining ‘price stability’, and the financial sector was liberalized – all in line with neoliberal principles. The SARB represents itself as ‘apolitical’, and claims that independence is necessary to build investor trust. But since 2009, left-wing movements have argued that central bank policy is in fact political; that it ultimately benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. They want to renationalize the SARB and establish democratic control over finance and monetary policy, thus completing the revolution. This paper explores the history and politics of central banking in South Africa, including the role of African National Congress (ANC) decision-makers, to determine how and why the SARB become independent during the transition, and who benefits from this arrangement. I find that the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy does indeed have uneven distributional effects, and serves the interests of some class factions (specifically, speculative finance) over others. But I argue that the vision for a more democratic financial system may be difficult to actualize. Not because it is unrealistic, but because it fails to address the external pressures that overdetermine SARB policy. Ultimately, the Reserve Bank is beholden to powers that lie beyond the borders of the domestic political economy. Integration into global financial markets, and dependence on foreign investment, has severely curtailed South Africa’s economic sovereignty.

Political Geography, 2021

New Political Economy , 2021

This paper quantifies drain from the global South through unequal exchange since 1960. According ... more This paper quantifies drain from the global South through unequal exchange since 1960. According to our primary method, which relies on exchange-rate differentials, we find that in the most recent year of data the global North (‘advanced economies’) appropriated from the South commodities worth 2.2trillioninNorthernprices—enoughtoendextremepoverty15timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled2.2 trillion in Northern prices — enough to end extreme poverty 15 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled 2.2trillioninNorthernprices—enoughtoendextremepoverty15timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled62 trillion (constant 2011 dollars), or $152 trillion when accounting for lost growth. Appropriation through unequal exchange represents up to 7% of Northern GDP and 9% of Southern GDP. We also test several alternative methods, for comparison: we quantify unequal exchange in terms of wage differentials instead of exchange-rate differentials, and report drain in global average prices as well as Northern prices. Regardless of the method, we find that the intensity of exploitation and the scale of unequal exchange increased significantly during the structural adjustment period of the 1980s and 1990s. This study affirms that drain from the South remains a significant feature of the world economy in the post-colonial era; rich countries continue to rely on imperial forms of appropriation to sustain their high levels of income and consumption.

Globalizations, 2020

Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back int... more Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.

The Lancet Planetary Health, 2020

This analysis proposes a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for damages related... more This analysis proposes a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for damages related to climate change by looking at national contributions to cumulative CO2 emissions in excess of the planetary boundary of 350 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration.

As of 2015, the USA was responsible for 40% of excess global CO2 emissions. The European Union (EU-28) was responsible for 29%. The G8 nations (the USA, EU-28, Russia, Japan, and Canada) were together responsible for 85%. Countries classified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as Annex I nations (ie, most industrialised countries) were responsible for 90% of excess emissions. The Global North was responsible for 92%. By contrast, most countries in the Global South were within their boundary fair shares, including India and China. These figures indicate that high-income countries have a greater degree of responsibility for climate
damages than previous methods have implied.

These results offer a just framework for attributing national responsibility for excess emissions, and a guide for determining national liability for damages related to climate change, consistent with the principles of planetary boundaries and equal access to atmospheric commons.

Ecological Economics, 2020

When the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in the 1990s, it was an important step towa... more When the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in the 1990s, it was an important step toward a more sensible measure of progress, one defined less by GDP growth and more by social goals. But the limitations of HDI have become clear in the 21 st century, given a growing crisis of climate change and ecological breakdown. HDI pays no attention to ecology, and retains an emphasis on high levels of income that-given strong correlations between income and ecological impact-violates sustainability principles. The countries that score highest on the HDI also contribute most, in per capita terms, to climate change and other forms of ecological breakdown. In this sense, HDI promotes a model of development that is empirically incompatible with ecological stability, and impossible to universalize. In this paper I propose an alternative index that corrects for these problems: the Sustainable Development Index (SDI). The SDI retains the base formula of the HDI but places a sufficiency threshold on per capita income, and divides by two key indicators of ecological impact: CO2 emissions and material footprint, both calculated in per capita consumption-based terms and rendered vis-à-vis planetary boundaries. The SDI is an indicator of strong sustainability that measures nations' ecological efficiency in delivering human development.

New Political Economy, 2019

The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecolog... more The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecological breakdown. Green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our planet’s ecology, as technological change and substitution will allow us to absolutely decouple GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions. This claim is now assumed in national and international policy, including in the Sustainable Development Goals. But empirical evidence on resource use and carbon emissions does not support green growth theory. Examining relevant studies on historical trends and model-based projections, we find that: (1) there is no empirical evidence that absolute decoupling from resource use can be achieved on a global scale against a background of continued economic growth, and (2) absolute decoupling from carbon emissions is highly unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. We conclude that green growth is likely to be a misguided objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies.

Sustainable Development, 2019

There are two sides to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which appear at risk of contradi... more There are two sides to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which appear at risk of contradiction. One calls for humanity to achieve "harmony with nature" and to protect the planet from degradation, with specific targets laid out in Goals 6, 12, 13, 14, and 15. The other calls for continued global economic growth equivalent to 3% per year, as outlined in Goal 8, as a method for achieving human development objectives. The SDGs assume that efficiency improvements will suffice to reconcile the tension between growth and ecological sustainability. This paper draws on empirical data to test whether this assumption is valid, paying particular attention to two key ecological indicators: resource use and CO2 emissions. The results show that global growth of 3% per year renders it empirically infeasible to achieve (a) any reductions in aggregate global resource use and (b) reductions in CO2 emissions rapid enough to stay within the carbon budget for 2°C. In other words, Goal 8 violates the sustainability objectives of the SDGs. The paper proposes specific changes to SDG targets in order to resolve this issue, such as removing the requirement of aggregate global growth and introducing quantified objectives for resource use per capita with substantial reductions in high-income nations. Scaling down resource use is also the most feasible way to achieve the climate target, as it reduces energy demand. The paper presents alternative pathways for realizing human development objectives that rely on reducing inequality-both within nations and between them-rather than aggregate growth.

Real World Economics Review, 2019

Third World Quarterly, 2018

The safe and just space framework devised by Raworth calls for the world's nations to achieve key... more The safe and just space framework devised by Raworth calls for the world's nations to achieve key minimum thresholds in social welfare while remaining within planetary boundaries. Using data on social and biophysical indicators provided by O'Neill et al., this paper argues that it is theoretically possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries in poor nations by building on existing exemplary models and by adopting fairer distributive policies. However, the additional biophysical pressure that this entails at a global level requires that rich nations dramatically reduce their biophysical footprints by 40–50%. Extant empirical studies suggest that this degree of reduction is unlikely to be achieved solely through efforts to decouple GDP growth from environmental impact, even under highly optimistic conditions. Therefore, for rich nations to fit within the boundaries of the safe and just space will require that they abandon growth as a policy objective and shift to post-capitalist economic models.

The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘... more The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘the most successful anti-poverty movement in history’. Two key claims underpin this narrative: that global poverty has been cut in half, and global hunger nearly in half, since 1990. This good-news narrative has been touted by the United Nations and has been widely repeated by the media. But closer inspection reveals that the UN’s claims about poverty and hunger are misleading, and even intentionally inaccurate. The MDGs have used targeted statistical manipulation to make it seem as though the poverty and hunger trends have been improving when in fact they have worsened. In addition, the MDGs use definitions of poverty and hunger that dramatically underestimate the scale likely of these problems. In reality, around four billion people remain in poverty today, and around two billion remain hungry – more than ever before in history, and between two and four times what the UN would have us believe. The implications of this reality are profound. Worsening poverty and hunger trends indicate that our present model of development is not working and needs to be fundamentally rethought.

Third World Quarterly 35(8):1355–1373, 2014

The ‘girl effect’ – the idea that investment in the skills and labour of young women is the key t... more The ‘girl effect’ – the idea that investment in the skills and labour of young women is the key to stimulating economic growth and reducing poverty in the global South – has recently become a key development strategy of the World Bank, the IMF, USAID and DFID, in partnership with corporations such as Nike and Goldman Sachs. This paper examines the logic of this discourse and its stance towards kinship in the global South, situating it within the broader rise of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ as development objectives over the past two decades. Empowerment discourse, and the ‘capability’ approach on which it is based, has become popular because it taps into ideals of individual freedom that are central to the Western liberal tradition. But this project shifts attention away from more substantive drivers of poverty – structural adjustment, debt, tax evasion, labour exploitation, financial crisis, etc – as it casts blame for underdevelopment on local forms of personhood and kinship. As a result, women and girls are made to bear the responsibility for bootstrapping themselves out of poverty that is caused by external institutions – and often the very ones that purport to save them.

The Handbook of Neoliberalism, 2016

A contradiction lies at the very centre of the neoliberal project. On a theoretical level, neolib... more A contradiction lies at the very centre of the neoliberal project. On a theoretical level, neoliberalism promises to bring about a purer form of democracy, unsullied by the tyranny of the state. Indeed, this claim serves as the moral lodestar for neoliberal ideology – the banner under which
it justifies radical market deregulation. But, in practice, it becomes clear that the opposite is true: that neoliberalism tends to undermine democracy and political freedom.

This article explores the violent, anti-immigrant riots that swept through informal settlements i... more This article explores the violent, anti-immigrant riots that swept through informal settlements in South Africa in 2008, during which more than sixty foreigners were killed and more than one hundred thousand displaced. In the first part of the paper, I draw on research conducted in informal settlements around the city of Durban to argue that many people’s perceptions of foreigners are informed by ideas about witches and witchcraft, which articulate with widespread anxieties about rising unemployment, housing shortages, and a general crisis of social reproduction. These ideas provide a semiotic environment in which anti-immigrant violence becomes thinkable. In the second part of the paper, I argue that these ethnographic data help us interrogate existing theories of xenophobic violence, which tend to see it as a reaction to the cultural confusion and social anomie that globalization allegedly triggers. This dominant approach relies on assumptions about order and chaos that are native to Euro-American culture and thus do not necessarily apply cross-culturally. I show that these assumptions have a long and troubling history in South Africa, where colonial administrators and mid-century social scientists drew on them in their attempts to manage African populations.

The dominant narrative of global income inequality is one of convergence. Recent high-profile pub... more The dominant narrative of global income inequality is one of convergence. Recent high-profile publications by Branko Milanovic and the World Bank claim that the global Gini coefficient has declined since 1988, and that inter-country inequality has declined since 1960. But the convergence narrative relies on a misleading presentation of the data. It obscures the fact that convergence is driven mostly by China; it fails to acknowledge rising absolute inequality; and it ignores divergence between geopolitical regions. This paper suggests alternative measures that bring geopolitics back in by looking at the gap between the core and periphery of the world system. From this perspective, global inequality has tripled since 1960.

Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, despite the billions of dollars’ wort... more Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, despite the billions of dollars’ worth of prevention efforts mobilised to curtail the epidemic. In this article I will argue that Swaziland’s HIV prevention campaign fundamentally misperceives the causes of the epidemic by focusing on individual behaviour change to the exclusion of the wider soci-economic context of disease transmission. This model derives from a western biomedical paradigm that fetishizes the individual as the locus of responsibility and obscures the structural violence that constrains people’s agency. Over the past few decades, Swaziland has been subject to a regimen of neoliberal economic policies that have created an environment of unprecedented HIV risk. Structural adjustment programmes and export-oriented investment strategies have led to declining rates of economic growth, formal employment and agricultural productivity, exacerbating pressures for labour migration and transactional sex among poor households. At the same time, free trade agreements have hobbled the public health system and prevented the rollout of antiretroviral therapy. This article concludes that high HIV prevalence in Swaziland is less a biomedical condition than a symptom of neoliberal market policy and that the burden of behaviour change should lie not with HIV patients but with the architects and beneficiaries of the prevailing economic order.

Anthropological Quarterly, Jan 1, 2012

The Donors' Dilemma: Emergence, Convergence, and the Future of Aid, Andrew Sumner, ed. Global Policy, 2014

Global Environmental Change, 2020

Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the "advanced economies" of the global Nor... more Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the "advanced economies" of the global North relies on a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the global South, extracted through price differentials in international trade. Past attempts to estimate the scale and value of this drain have faced a number of conceptual and empirical limitations, and have been unable to capture the upstream resources and labour embodied in traded goods. Here we use environmental input-output data and footprint analysis to quantify the physical scale of net appropriation from the South in terms of embodied resources and labour over the period 1990 to 2015. We then represent the value of appropriated resources in terms of prevailing market prices. Our results show that in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth 10.8trillioninNorthernpricesenoughtoendextremepoverty70timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled10.8 trillion in Northern pricesenough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled 10.8trillioninNorthernpricesenoughtoendextremepoverty70timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled242 trillion (constant 2010 USD). This drain represents a significant windfall for the global North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. For comparison, we also report drain in global average prices. Using this method, we find that the South's losses due to unequal exchange outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our analysis confirms that unequal exchange is a significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown.

Nature Energy, 2021

Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and r... more Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and reconcile this with the Paris targets by betting on speculative technological change. Post-growth approaches may make it easier to achieve rapid mitigation while improving social outcomes, and should be explored by climate modellers.

Economy & Society, 2021

During the transition to democracy in the 1990s, the departing apartheid regime granted political... more During the transition to democracy in the 1990s, the departing apartheid regime granted political power to the black majority but kept the main levers of economic policy insulated from the revolution. Control over the South African Reserve Bank (SARB; hereafter also Reserve Bank) was central to this strategy. The SARB was made private and independent, its mandate limited to maintaining ‘price stability’, and the financial sector was liberalized – all in line with neoliberal principles. The SARB represents itself as ‘apolitical’, and claims that independence is necessary to build investor trust. But since 2009, left-wing movements have argued that central bank policy is in fact political; that it ultimately benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. They want to renationalize the SARB and establish democratic control over finance and monetary policy, thus completing the revolution. This paper explores the history and politics of central banking in South Africa, including the role of African National Congress (ANC) decision-makers, to determine how and why the SARB become independent during the transition, and who benefits from this arrangement. I find that the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy does indeed have uneven distributional effects, and serves the interests of some class factions (specifically, speculative finance) over others. But I argue that the vision for a more democratic financial system may be difficult to actualize. Not because it is unrealistic, but because it fails to address the external pressures that overdetermine SARB policy. Ultimately, the Reserve Bank is beholden to powers that lie beyond the borders of the domestic political economy. Integration into global financial markets, and dependence on foreign investment, has severely curtailed South Africa’s economic sovereignty.

Political Geography, 2021

New Political Economy , 2021

This paper quantifies drain from the global South through unequal exchange since 1960. According ... more This paper quantifies drain from the global South through unequal exchange since 1960. According to our primary method, which relies on exchange-rate differentials, we find that in the most recent year of data the global North (‘advanced economies’) appropriated from the South commodities worth 2.2trillioninNorthernprices—enoughtoendextremepoverty15timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled2.2 trillion in Northern prices — enough to end extreme poverty 15 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled 2.2trillioninNorthernprices—enoughtoendextremepoverty15timesover.Overthewholeperiod,drainfromtheSouthtotalled62 trillion (constant 2011 dollars), or $152 trillion when accounting for lost growth. Appropriation through unequal exchange represents up to 7% of Northern GDP and 9% of Southern GDP. We also test several alternative methods, for comparison: we quantify unequal exchange in terms of wage differentials instead of exchange-rate differentials, and report drain in global average prices as well as Northern prices. Regardless of the method, we find that the intensity of exploitation and the scale of unequal exchange increased significantly during the structural adjustment period of the 1980s and 1990s. This study affirms that drain from the South remains a significant feature of the world economy in the post-colonial era; rich countries continue to rely on imperial forms of appropriation to sustain their high levels of income and consumption.

Globalizations, 2020

Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back int... more Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.

The Lancet Planetary Health, 2020

This analysis proposes a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for damages related... more This analysis proposes a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for damages related to climate change by looking at national contributions to cumulative CO2 emissions in excess of the planetary boundary of 350 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration.

As of 2015, the USA was responsible for 40% of excess global CO2 emissions. The European Union (EU-28) was responsible for 29%. The G8 nations (the USA, EU-28, Russia, Japan, and Canada) were together responsible for 85%. Countries classified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as Annex I nations (ie, most industrialised countries) were responsible for 90% of excess emissions. The Global North was responsible for 92%. By contrast, most countries in the Global South were within their boundary fair shares, including India and China. These figures indicate that high-income countries have a greater degree of responsibility for climate
damages than previous methods have implied.

These results offer a just framework for attributing national responsibility for excess emissions, and a guide for determining national liability for damages related to climate change, consistent with the principles of planetary boundaries and equal access to atmospheric commons.

Ecological Economics, 2020

When the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in the 1990s, it was an important step towa... more When the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in the 1990s, it was an important step toward a more sensible measure of progress, one defined less by GDP growth and more by social goals. But the limitations of HDI have become clear in the 21 st century, given a growing crisis of climate change and ecological breakdown. HDI pays no attention to ecology, and retains an emphasis on high levels of income that-given strong correlations between income and ecological impact-violates sustainability principles. The countries that score highest on the HDI also contribute most, in per capita terms, to climate change and other forms of ecological breakdown. In this sense, HDI promotes a model of development that is empirically incompatible with ecological stability, and impossible to universalize. In this paper I propose an alternative index that corrects for these problems: the Sustainable Development Index (SDI). The SDI retains the base formula of the HDI but places a sufficiency threshold on per capita income, and divides by two key indicators of ecological impact: CO2 emissions and material footprint, both calculated in per capita consumption-based terms and rendered vis-à-vis planetary boundaries. The SDI is an indicator of strong sustainability that measures nations' ecological efficiency in delivering human development.

New Political Economy, 2019

The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecolog... more The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecological breakdown. Green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our planet’s ecology, as technological change and substitution will allow us to absolutely decouple GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions. This claim is now assumed in national and international policy, including in the Sustainable Development Goals. But empirical evidence on resource use and carbon emissions does not support green growth theory. Examining relevant studies on historical trends and model-based projections, we find that: (1) there is no empirical evidence that absolute decoupling from resource use can be achieved on a global scale against a background of continued economic growth, and (2) absolute decoupling from carbon emissions is highly unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. We conclude that green growth is likely to be a misguided objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies.

Sustainable Development, 2019

There are two sides to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which appear at risk of contradi... more There are two sides to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which appear at risk of contradiction. One calls for humanity to achieve "harmony with nature" and to protect the planet from degradation, with specific targets laid out in Goals 6, 12, 13, 14, and 15. The other calls for continued global economic growth equivalent to 3% per year, as outlined in Goal 8, as a method for achieving human development objectives. The SDGs assume that efficiency improvements will suffice to reconcile the tension between growth and ecological sustainability. This paper draws on empirical data to test whether this assumption is valid, paying particular attention to two key ecological indicators: resource use and CO2 emissions. The results show that global growth of 3% per year renders it empirically infeasible to achieve (a) any reductions in aggregate global resource use and (b) reductions in CO2 emissions rapid enough to stay within the carbon budget for 2°C. In other words, Goal 8 violates the sustainability objectives of the SDGs. The paper proposes specific changes to SDG targets in order to resolve this issue, such as removing the requirement of aggregate global growth and introducing quantified objectives for resource use per capita with substantial reductions in high-income nations. Scaling down resource use is also the most feasible way to achieve the climate target, as it reduces energy demand. The paper presents alternative pathways for realizing human development objectives that rely on reducing inequality-both within nations and between them-rather than aggregate growth.

Real World Economics Review, 2019

Third World Quarterly, 2018

The safe and just space framework devised by Raworth calls for the world's nations to achieve key... more The safe and just space framework devised by Raworth calls for the world's nations to achieve key minimum thresholds in social welfare while remaining within planetary boundaries. Using data on social and biophysical indicators provided by O'Neill et al., this paper argues that it is theoretically possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries in poor nations by building on existing exemplary models and by adopting fairer distributive policies. However, the additional biophysical pressure that this entails at a global level requires that rich nations dramatically reduce their biophysical footprints by 40–50%. Extant empirical studies suggest that this degree of reduction is unlikely to be achieved solely through efforts to decouple GDP growth from environmental impact, even under highly optimistic conditions. Therefore, for rich nations to fit within the boundaries of the safe and just space will require that they abandon growth as a policy objective and shift to post-capitalist economic models.

The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘... more The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘the most successful anti-poverty movement in history’. Two key claims underpin this narrative: that global poverty has been cut in half, and global hunger nearly in half, since 1990. This good-news narrative has been touted by the United Nations and has been widely repeated by the media. But closer inspection reveals that the UN’s claims about poverty and hunger are misleading, and even intentionally inaccurate. The MDGs have used targeted statistical manipulation to make it seem as though the poverty and hunger trends have been improving when in fact they have worsened. In addition, the MDGs use definitions of poverty and hunger that dramatically underestimate the scale likely of these problems. In reality, around four billion people remain in poverty today, and around two billion remain hungry – more than ever before in history, and between two and four times what the UN would have us believe. The implications of this reality are profound. Worsening poverty and hunger trends indicate that our present model of development is not working and needs to be fundamentally rethought.

Third World Quarterly 35(8):1355–1373, 2014

The ‘girl effect’ – the idea that investment in the skills and labour of young women is the key t... more The ‘girl effect’ – the idea that investment in the skills and labour of young women is the key to stimulating economic growth and reducing poverty in the global South – has recently become a key development strategy of the World Bank, the IMF, USAID and DFID, in partnership with corporations such as Nike and Goldman Sachs. This paper examines the logic of this discourse and its stance towards kinship in the global South, situating it within the broader rise of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ as development objectives over the past two decades. Empowerment discourse, and the ‘capability’ approach on which it is based, has become popular because it taps into ideals of individual freedom that are central to the Western liberal tradition. But this project shifts attention away from more substantive drivers of poverty – structural adjustment, debt, tax evasion, labour exploitation, financial crisis, etc – as it casts blame for underdevelopment on local forms of personhood and kinship. As a result, women and girls are made to bear the responsibility for bootstrapping themselves out of poverty that is caused by external institutions – and often the very ones that purport to save them.

The Handbook of Neoliberalism, 2016

A contradiction lies at the very centre of the neoliberal project. On a theoretical level, neolib... more A contradiction lies at the very centre of the neoliberal project. On a theoretical level, neoliberalism promises to bring about a purer form of democracy, unsullied by the tyranny of the state. Indeed, this claim serves as the moral lodestar for neoliberal ideology – the banner under which
it justifies radical market deregulation. But, in practice, it becomes clear that the opposite is true: that neoliberalism tends to undermine democracy and political freedom.

This article explores the violent, anti-immigrant riots that swept through informal settlements i... more This article explores the violent, anti-immigrant riots that swept through informal settlements in South Africa in 2008, during which more than sixty foreigners were killed and more than one hundred thousand displaced. In the first part of the paper, I draw on research conducted in informal settlements around the city of Durban to argue that many people’s perceptions of foreigners are informed by ideas about witches and witchcraft, which articulate with widespread anxieties about rising unemployment, housing shortages, and a general crisis of social reproduction. These ideas provide a semiotic environment in which anti-immigrant violence becomes thinkable. In the second part of the paper, I argue that these ethnographic data help us interrogate existing theories of xenophobic violence, which tend to see it as a reaction to the cultural confusion and social anomie that globalization allegedly triggers. This dominant approach relies on assumptions about order and chaos that are native to Euro-American culture and thus do not necessarily apply cross-culturally. I show that these assumptions have a long and troubling history in South Africa, where colonial administrators and mid-century social scientists drew on them in their attempts to manage African populations.

The dominant narrative of global income inequality is one of convergence. Recent high-profile pub... more The dominant narrative of global income inequality is one of convergence. Recent high-profile publications by Branko Milanovic and the World Bank claim that the global Gini coefficient has declined since 1988, and that inter-country inequality has declined since 1960. But the convergence narrative relies on a misleading presentation of the data. It obscures the fact that convergence is driven mostly by China; it fails to acknowledge rising absolute inequality; and it ignores divergence between geopolitical regions. This paper suggests alternative measures that bring geopolitics back in by looking at the gap between the core and periphery of the world system. From this perspective, global inequality has tripled since 1960.

Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, despite the billions of dollars’ wort... more Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, despite the billions of dollars’ worth of prevention efforts mobilised to curtail the epidemic. In this article I will argue that Swaziland’s HIV prevention campaign fundamentally misperceives the causes of the epidemic by focusing on individual behaviour change to the exclusion of the wider soci-economic context of disease transmission. This model derives from a western biomedical paradigm that fetishizes the individual as the locus of responsibility and obscures the structural violence that constrains people’s agency. Over the past few decades, Swaziland has been subject to a regimen of neoliberal economic policies that have created an environment of unprecedented HIV risk. Structural adjustment programmes and export-oriented investment strategies have led to declining rates of economic growth, formal employment and agricultural productivity, exacerbating pressures for labour migration and transactional sex among poor households. At the same time, free trade agreements have hobbled the public health system and prevented the rollout of antiretroviral therapy. This article concludes that high HIV prevalence in Swaziland is less a biomedical condition than a symptom of neoliberal market policy and that the burden of behaviour change should lie not with HIV patients but with the architects and beneficiaries of the prevailing economic order.

Anthropological Quarterly, Jan 1, 2012

The Donors' Dilemma: Emergence, Convergence, and the Future of Aid, Andrew Sumner, ed. Global Policy, 2014

Al Jazeera, 2012

Battling AIDS means challenging the power of rich nations over the world's resources.

Thought leader, Jan 1, 2011

Foreign policy in focus, Jan 1, 2011

Pambazuka news, Jan 1, 2010

Pambazuka news, Jan 1, 2010

While Jeffrey Sachs has done well to highlight the roles of colonialism, the Cold War and the &am... more While Jeffrey Sachs has done well to highlight the roles of colonialism, the Cold War and the 'ongoing political and economic plunder'in creating Africa's poverty, Jason Hickel argues that Sachs''Big Five'solutions are rooted in the same system that he seeks to criticise:'The ...

Foreign policy in focus, Jan 1, 2011

The Africa report, Jan 1, 2011

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2019

Journal of Religion in Africa, 2018

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , 2017

LSE Review of Books, 2014

The New Extractivism aims to address a fundamental dilemma faced by governments in Latin America:... more The New Extractivism aims to address a fundamental dilemma faced by governments in Latin America: to pursue, or not, a development strategy based on resource extraction in the face of immense social and environmental costs, not to mention mass resistance from the people negatively affected by it. This book offers a persuasive antidote to the misplaced optimism about Latin America that many progressives have bought into, writes Jason Hickel.

Journal of Modern African Studies 52(3), 2014

LSE Review of Books, 2014

The South Africa Reader represents an extraordinarily rich guide to the history, cultures, and po... more The South Africa Reader represents an extraordinarily rich guide to the history, cultures, and politics of South Africa. With more than eighty absorbing selections, the Reader aims to provide readers with many perspectives on the country’s diverse peoples, its first two decades as a democracy, and the forces that have shaped its history and continue to pose challenges to its future, particularly violence, inequality, and racial discrimination. Jason Hickel finds this gripping reading and a comprehensive treatment of the country’s exciting past and tumultuous present – a must for any eager student of South Africa.

Global Policy Journal, 2014

It is always a bit surprising to hear an economist described as a “rock star” in the media, but T... more It is always a bit surprising to hear an economist described as a “rock star” in the media, but Thomas Piketty has been collecting this accolade in spades since the publication of his runaway bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It surely says something interesting about our times that this 700 page tome packed with dense historical data on incomes and wealth has become so popular, spreading with meme-like force and leaving bookstores around the world struggling to keep pace with demand. Clearly his argument has touched a raw nerve. For many of us who have been concerned about rising inequalities over the past few decades, Piketty’s conclusions are nothing new, and many of the graphs that illustrate his text are long-familiar images. What makes this book different is that it draws on a new trove of datasets that adds a degree of substance to the left’s critique, which economists and policymakers simply cannot ignore.

In the fall of 2011, a small protest camp in downtown Manhattan exploded into a global uprising, ... more In the fall of 2011, a small protest camp in downtown Manhattan exploded into a global uprising, sparked in part by what many saw as the violent overreactions of the police. Occupy! is an unofficial record of the movement and combines first-hand accounts with reflections from activist academics and writers. Jason Hickel finds the book has excellent moments of insight but thought it could benefit from a more lengthy analysis.

The Future Is Now: A New Look at African Diaspora Studies is a collection of essays representativ... more The Future Is Now: A New Look at African Diaspora Studies is a collection of essays representative of new voices in this ever-expanding field. Writing in English, Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole, the volume’s contributors look at themes of memory, power, gender, identity within the fields of art, literature, film, and music. Despite its initial promise, Jason Hickel finds that the book as a whole falls short of presenting a successful challenge to outdated ideas about the African diaspora.

Penguin Random House UK, 2017

University of California Press, 2015

This book examines the African home as a key site of struggle in the making of modern KwaZulu-Nat... more This book examines the African home as a key site of struggle in the making of modern KwaZulu-Natal, a South African province that instantiates in extreme form many of the transformations that shaped the colonial world. Its essays explore major themes in African and global history, including the colonial manipulation of kinship and the exploitation of labour, modernist practices of social engineering and the changes wrought within intimate relationships by post-industrial decline.

Ranging from the rural to the urban and the pre-colonial era to the presidency of Jacob Zuma, this volume emphasises the affective and ideological dimensions of ikhaya. It offers insight into how the home, which embodies both modernist aspirations and nostalgic longings for the past, has become the touchstone for popular discontent and political activism in recent decades. Just as colonialism in South Africa was a colonialism of the home, so too politics in South Africa are a politics of the home.

Berghahn Books, 2018

Globalization promised to bring about a golden age of liberal individualism, breaking down hierar... more Globalization promised to bring about a golden age of liberal individualism, breaking down hierarchies of kinship, caste, and gender around the world and freeing people to express their true, authentic agency. But in some places globalization has spurred the emergence of new forms of hierarchy—or the reemergence of old forms—as people try to reconstitute an imagined past of stable moral order. This is evident from the Islamic revival in the Middle East to visions of the 1950s family among conservatives in the United States. Why does this happen and how do we make sense of this phenomenon? Why do some communities see hierarchy as desireable? In this book, leading anthropologists draw on insightful ethnographic case studies from around the world to address these trends. Together, they develop a theory of hierarchy that treats it both as a relational form and a framework for organizing ideas about the social good.

Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa, 2015

Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa, 2015

University of California Press, 2015

Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa, 2015

University of California Press, 2015