Orders of Magnitude of Change

Abstract

We have argued in Chapters 2 to 4 that our present social order is wasteful, unsustainable and destructive of human welfare. We have argued that a shift to evaluating policies in terms of human welfare rather than output growth — with welfare understood as a broad set of social concerns, rather than as an automatic consequence of output growth — leads to the conclusion that the major direction of change should be towards reduced economic activity.¹