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More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources―and What Happens Next
From the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Second Machine Age , a compelling argument—masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated—that we have at last learned how to increase human prosperity while treading more lightly on our planet.
Throughout history, the only way for humanity to grow was by degrading the chopping down forests, fouling the air and water, and endlessly digging out resources. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the reigning argument has been that taking better care of the planet means radically changing reducing our consumption, tightening our belts, learning to share and reuse, restraining growth. Is that argument correct?
Absolutely not . In More from Less, McAfee argues that to solve our ecological problems we don’t need to make radical changes. Instead, we need to do more of what we’re already growing technologically sophisticated market-based economies around the world.
How can he possibly make this claim? Because of the evidence. America—a large, high-tech country that accounts for about 25% of the global economy—is now generally using less of most resources year after year, even as its economy and population continue to grow. What’s more, the US is polluting the air and water less, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and replenishing endangered animal populations. And, as McAfee shows, America is not alone. Other countries are also transforming themselves in fundamental ways.
What has made this turnabout possible? One thing, the collaboration between technology and capitalism, although good governance and public awareness have also been critical. McAfee does warn of issues that haven’t been solved, like global warming, overfishing, and communities left behind as capitalism and tech progress race forward. But overall, More from Less is a revelatory, paradigm-shifting account of how we’ve stumbled into an unexpectedly better balance with nature—one that holds out the promise of more abundant and greener centuries ahead.
Throughout history, the only way for humanity to grow was by degrading the chopping down forests, fouling the air and water, and endlessly digging out resources. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the reigning argument has been that taking better care of the planet means radically changing reducing our consumption, tightening our belts, learning to share and reuse, restraining growth. Is that argument correct?
Absolutely not . In More from Less, McAfee argues that to solve our ecological problems we don’t need to make radical changes. Instead, we need to do more of what we’re already growing technologically sophisticated market-based economies around the world.
How can he possibly make this claim? Because of the evidence. America—a large, high-tech country that accounts for about 25% of the global economy—is now generally using less of most resources year after year, even as its economy and population continue to grow. What’s more, the US is polluting the air and water less, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and replenishing endangered animal populations. And, as McAfee shows, America is not alone. Other countries are also transforming themselves in fundamental ways.
What has made this turnabout possible? One thing, the collaboration between technology and capitalism, although good governance and public awareness have also been critical. McAfee does warn of issues that haven’t been solved, like global warming, overfishing, and communities left behind as capitalism and tech progress race forward. But overall, More from Less is a revelatory, paradigm-shifting account of how we’ve stumbled into an unexpectedly better balance with nature—one that holds out the promise of more abundant and greener centuries ahead.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
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June 9, 2020
I read more from less with interest and was surprised with some of the claims in the book.
The whole argument is based on this premise : "America is now generally using less of most resources year after year"
I checked and this is in fact, at best misleading. Researchers measure material consumption with DMC (Domestic Material Consumption) that account for national extraction + imports - exports. US's DMC is stagnating not decreasing. But we now know that DMC is largely flawed because it doesn't account for the material involved in the production and transportation of the imported goods. So an iphone is accounted for 200g in the DMC when in fact you had to use much more minerals, fossil fuels, to produce it and transport it...
The material footprint is a much more accurate indicator. Looking at the material footprint the story is different there is no absolute decoupling. There's in fact a recoupling : The US'material footprint is growing faster than its GDP since the 90's !
See : https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112...
Go further on decoupling : https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Starting with this false premise the rest of the reasoning is largely irrelevant. It seems strange that the author isn't aware of this huge caveat. Is he cherry picking data to prove an ideological point ?
It's a shame given that the author otherwise make some interesting observations, notably on the difference of efficiency between US and China war on air pollution.
The whole argument is based on this premise : "America is now generally using less of most resources year after year"
I checked and this is in fact, at best misleading. Researchers measure material consumption with DMC (Domestic Material Consumption) that account for national extraction + imports - exports. US's DMC is stagnating not decreasing. But we now know that DMC is largely flawed because it doesn't account for the material involved in the production and transportation of the imported goods. So an iphone is accounted for 200g in the DMC when in fact you had to use much more minerals, fossil fuels, to produce it and transport it...
The material footprint is a much more accurate indicator. Looking at the material footprint the story is different there is no absolute decoupling. There's in fact a recoupling : The US'material footprint is growing faster than its GDP since the 90's !
See : https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112...
Go further on decoupling : https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Starting with this false premise the rest of the reasoning is largely irrelevant. It seems strange that the author isn't aware of this huge caveat. Is he cherry picking data to prove an ideological point ?
It's a shame given that the author otherwise make some interesting observations, notably on the difference of efficiency between US and China war on air pollution.
January 12, 2020
Upon reading this, I must balance two reactions very carefully.
I agree with the basic premise that ON THE WHOLE, dire poverty across the world has reduced and a lot of this has to do with the free exchange of goods MINUS the looters who exploit the system OR external negatives such as unrestrained pollution. We DO have a lot of reasons to remain optimistic. Technology, awareness, the willingness of governments to combat looting, and general innovation HAS forestalled some of the very worst predictions of history. The fact that we're still around and still driving cars and have cleaner air and waterways is proof of this.
I LIKE reading books that lay out all the points where we have not fulfilled all our most dire predictions. That we haven't achieved our worst dystopias.
However, despite this book devoting the last third of its pages to notes and bibliography, it does appear to suffer from a lot of rather telling biases and cherrypicking.
Yes, when the forces of good are doing good, we accomplish a lot. But when the forces of evil are bent on maintaining the harmful status quo and governments are consistently rolling back the kinds of protections that kept us safe from monopolies, polluters, economic slavery, and disaster economics, there's no way we can say that we can sit back and relax.
Indeed, the author does not say we shouldn't worry. But he DOES give us a lot of good, real data mixed in with some perhaps wildly misinterpreted data, all of which paints a very positive picture.
For one, we are on a trend to use fewer resources as a whole. We're not perfect, but we are innovating and consistently finding alternatives. The same is true for energy consumption. We are finding ways to do the same thing as before but more efficiently. Free market DOES help this trend nicely, assuming that other forces aren't interfering with it... like coalitions and monopolies that use strong-arm techniques to keep innovation down. But that's the purpose of regulation and politics, the same area that seems to be always under siege.
Even with my fairly large quibbles, I AM quite pleased to be reading books that illustrate the positive aspects of our world. It isn't all complete s**t.
I agree with the basic premise that ON THE WHOLE, dire poverty across the world has reduced and a lot of this has to do with the free exchange of goods MINUS the looters who exploit the system OR external negatives such as unrestrained pollution. We DO have a lot of reasons to remain optimistic. Technology, awareness, the willingness of governments to combat looting, and general innovation HAS forestalled some of the very worst predictions of history. The fact that we're still around and still driving cars and have cleaner air and waterways is proof of this.
I LIKE reading books that lay out all the points where we have not fulfilled all our most dire predictions. That we haven't achieved our worst dystopias.
However, despite this book devoting the last third of its pages to notes and bibliography, it does appear to suffer from a lot of rather telling biases and cherrypicking.
Yes, when the forces of good are doing good, we accomplish a lot. But when the forces of evil are bent on maintaining the harmful status quo and governments are consistently rolling back the kinds of protections that kept us safe from monopolies, polluters, economic slavery, and disaster economics, there's no way we can say that we can sit back and relax.
Indeed, the author does not say we shouldn't worry. But he DOES give us a lot of good, real data mixed in with some perhaps wildly misinterpreted data, all of which paints a very positive picture.
For one, we are on a trend to use fewer resources as a whole. We're not perfect, but we are innovating and consistently finding alternatives. The same is true for energy consumption. We are finding ways to do the same thing as before but more efficiently. Free market DOES help this trend nicely, assuming that other forces aren't interfering with it... like coalitions and monopolies that use strong-arm techniques to keep innovation down. But that's the purpose of regulation and politics, the same area that seems to be always under siege.
Even with my fairly large quibbles, I AM quite pleased to be reading books that illustrate the positive aspects of our world. It isn't all complete s**t.
October 26, 2019
Did you know the world's paper consumption peaked in 2013 and total global paper use has been declining ever since? Or that since 1982, America has taken an area the size of Washington State out of cultivation while simultaneously increasing total crop tonnage by 35%?
Welcome to the power of "dematerialization." I first encountered this idea while reading Buckminster Fuller's 1969 "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth," although he called it "ephemeralization." MIT economist Andrew McAfee takes Bucky's idea and updates it for the world of 2019, writing a clear synthesis of many of the key ideas of the last 50 years. "More from Less" presents a strong case against neo-Malthusian alarmism and is required reading for anyone who wants to have an informed conversation about economics and the environment.
A surprising graph! Total timber use down by a third and paper by half since 1990. From page 105
McAfee's central thesis revolves around what he calls the "four horsemen of the optimist" - namely technological progress, capitalism, public awareness, and responsive government. These forces combine to create new solutions for many of the major challenges we face. In the environmental sphere, this manifests as the reduction of natural resource inputs into economic production, hence the title "More from Less."
But don't humans have unlimited wants? Don't we always want to consume more? McAfee elegantly deflates this classic argument with one of the best one-liners in the book:
This intellectual approach stands in stark contrast to the alarmist rhetoric of other members of the academy, especially tenured Stanford biology professor and notable neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich. McAfee devotes an entire chapter to the Paul Ehrlich / Julian Simon bet on the future prices of commodities - a bet Ehrlich famously lost. In the same tradition, McAfee actually puts up $100K of his own money for a series of commodity bets he lists at the end of the book! For deeper reading on the topic, I'd recommend Yale professor Sabin's "The Bet."
McAfee's book is a timely and clear synthesis of history of big ideas in environmental economics. Here's a (partial, semi-chronological) list of many of the usual suspects along with a few surprising characters:
* Thomas Malthus - the intellectual grandpa of resource scarcity alarmism
* de Tocqueville - a footnote wryly comments that de Tocqueville references are de rigueur for any "serious" book about America
* Adam Smith, Marx, and Engels - it is a book about economics, after all!
* Thorstein Veblen - author of "Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899) and intellectual father of the theory of conspicuous consumption
* Buckminster Fuller - early thinker on "ephemeralization" of production (1960's and 70's)
* Paul Ehrlich - famous neo-Malthusian alarmist and author of "The Population Bomb" (1968)
* John Holdren - Obama's science advisor and frequent collaborator with Paul Ehrlich
* Donella Meadows - part of the "Limits to Growth" (1972) team and the "Club of Rome"
* Julian Simon - economist, Ehrlich antagonist, and author of "The Ultimate Resource" (1981)
* Ronald Coase - won a Nobel for being the intellectual father of cap and trade
* William Nordhaus - Yale prof and climate economist
* Vaclav Smil - one of Bill Gates' favorite authors and a prodigious producer of really dense books on resource flows in the global economy
* Bjørn Lomborg - controversial author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (1998). Sort of a bold move for McAfee to favorably cite him!
* Robert Putnam - author of "Bowling Alone" (2000)
* Tyler Cowen - author of "The Great Stagnation" (2011) and perhaps our generation's greatest reader? Not mentioned by name, but McAfee takes a shot at his big idea - "I believe that technological progress today is faster than ever before in our history."
* Daron Acemoglu - author of "Why Nations Fail" (2012)
* Matt Ridley, Stephen Pinker, Hans Rosling - authors of popular modern books about how the world is getting better
* Johann Hari - author of "Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" (2015) about the epidemic of alienation in America
These ideas exert real influence on policy and incorrect analysis can lead to immense human suffering (a theme familiar to readers of another one of my favorites - "Seeing Like a State"). McAfee notes that Song Jian, the architect of China's infamous "One Child Policy" was heavily influenced by the book "Limits to Growth." As modern China struggles with a severe gender imbalance and a rapidly aging population, most contemporary analysts have cast the One Child Policy as an unmitigated disaster for the country (to say nothing of the tragedy and violence endured by Chinese individuals). Yet when the policy was officially retired in 2015, Ehrlich tweeted, "China to End One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children… GIBBERING INSANITY—THE GROWTH-FOREVER GANG."
McAfee, on the other hand, actually looks at the data. Fortunately for our civilization, the numbers are actually looking pretty good. One exception to this is Branko Milanovic's famous "Elephant Chart."
The famous "elephant chart" - great Voxplanation at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...
This chart is so famous that somehow I had never even heard of it. It shows that while the global poor and the super-elite have generally seen a large improvement in their incomes, those in the 80-90th percentiles (the middle class in the US and Western Europe) have been stagnating. If you see me in real life at any point in the next few years, I'll probably still be ranting about this graph.
Anyways, I loved this book. It surprised me with data, presented a clear theory of change, and was accessibly written - what more can a non-fiction reader ask for? (OK, it didn't have the Shakespearean majesty of Caro's "The Power Broker," but honestly, who does these days?) McAfee is sort of an odd duck ideologically - how many other public intellectuals are pro-GMO, pro-carbon-tax, pro-nuclear, and pro-vaccine? I pay attention to what he says. He was very early on this current wave of thinking about automation, publishing "Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy" back in 2011. "More from Less" cements his status as a must-read popular author on the modern economy. I'm looking forward to his next book.
Also, if you know him in real life... could you connect me?
Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/more-from-less
Welcome to the power of "dematerialization." I first encountered this idea while reading Buckminster Fuller's 1969 "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth," although he called it "ephemeralization." MIT economist Andrew McAfee takes Bucky's idea and updates it for the world of 2019, writing a clear synthesis of many of the key ideas of the last 50 years. "More from Less" presents a strong case against neo-Malthusian alarmism and is required reading for anyone who wants to have an informed conversation about economics and the environment.
A surprising graph! Total timber use down by a third and paper by half since 1990. From page 105
McAfee's central thesis revolves around what he calls the "four horsemen of the optimist" - namely technological progress, capitalism, public awareness, and responsive government. These forces combine to create new solutions for many of the major challenges we face. In the environmental sphere, this manifests as the reduction of natural resource inputs into economic production, hence the title "More from Less."
But don't humans have unlimited wants? Don't we always want to consume more? McAfee elegantly deflates this classic argument with one of the best one-liners in the book:
We do want more all the time, but not more resources.Or, said another way, I really just want to buy a pair of pants - I don't care about the nitrogen and water inputs used to grow the cotton that goes into the pants.
This intellectual approach stands in stark contrast to the alarmist rhetoric of other members of the academy, especially tenured Stanford biology professor and notable neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich. McAfee devotes an entire chapter to the Paul Ehrlich / Julian Simon bet on the future prices of commodities - a bet Ehrlich famously lost. In the same tradition, McAfee actually puts up $100K of his own money for a series of commodity bets he lists at the end of the book! For deeper reading on the topic, I'd recommend Yale professor Sabin's "The Bet."
McAfee's book is a timely and clear synthesis of history of big ideas in environmental economics. Here's a (partial, semi-chronological) list of many of the usual suspects along with a few surprising characters:
* Thomas Malthus - the intellectual grandpa of resource scarcity alarmism
* de Tocqueville - a footnote wryly comments that de Tocqueville references are de rigueur for any "serious" book about America
* Adam Smith, Marx, and Engels - it is a book about economics, after all!
* Thorstein Veblen - author of "Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899) and intellectual father of the theory of conspicuous consumption
* Buckminster Fuller - early thinker on "ephemeralization" of production (1960's and 70's)
* Paul Ehrlich - famous neo-Malthusian alarmist and author of "The Population Bomb" (1968)
* John Holdren - Obama's science advisor and frequent collaborator with Paul Ehrlich
* Donella Meadows - part of the "Limits to Growth" (1972) team and the "Club of Rome"
* Julian Simon - economist, Ehrlich antagonist, and author of "The Ultimate Resource" (1981)
* Ronald Coase - won a Nobel for being the intellectual father of cap and trade
* William Nordhaus - Yale prof and climate economist
* Vaclav Smil - one of Bill Gates' favorite authors and a prodigious producer of really dense books on resource flows in the global economy
* Bjørn Lomborg - controversial author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (1998). Sort of a bold move for McAfee to favorably cite him!
* Robert Putnam - author of "Bowling Alone" (2000)
* Tyler Cowen - author of "The Great Stagnation" (2011) and perhaps our generation's greatest reader? Not mentioned by name, but McAfee takes a shot at his big idea - "I believe that technological progress today is faster than ever before in our history."
* Daron Acemoglu - author of "Why Nations Fail" (2012)
* Matt Ridley, Stephen Pinker, Hans Rosling - authors of popular modern books about how the world is getting better
* Johann Hari - author of "Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" (2015) about the epidemic of alienation in America
These ideas exert real influence on policy and incorrect analysis can lead to immense human suffering (a theme familiar to readers of another one of my favorites - "Seeing Like a State"). McAfee notes that Song Jian, the architect of China's infamous "One Child Policy" was heavily influenced by the book "Limits to Growth." As modern China struggles with a severe gender imbalance and a rapidly aging population, most contemporary analysts have cast the One Child Policy as an unmitigated disaster for the country (to say nothing of the tragedy and violence endured by Chinese individuals). Yet when the policy was officially retired in 2015, Ehrlich tweeted, "China to End One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children… GIBBERING INSANITY—THE GROWTH-FOREVER GANG."
McAfee, on the other hand, actually looks at the data. Fortunately for our civilization, the numbers are actually looking pretty good. One exception to this is Branko Milanovic's famous "Elephant Chart."
The famous "elephant chart" - great Voxplanation at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...
This chart is so famous that somehow I had never even heard of it. It shows that while the global poor and the super-elite have generally seen a large improvement in their incomes, those in the 80-90th percentiles (the middle class in the US and Western Europe) have been stagnating. If you see me in real life at any point in the next few years, I'll probably still be ranting about this graph.
Anyways, I loved this book. It surprised me with data, presented a clear theory of change, and was accessibly written - what more can a non-fiction reader ask for? (OK, it didn't have the Shakespearean majesty of Caro's "The Power Broker," but honestly, who does these days?) McAfee is sort of an odd duck ideologically - how many other public intellectuals are pro-GMO, pro-carbon-tax, pro-nuclear, and pro-vaccine? I pay attention to what he says. He was very early on this current wave of thinking about automation, publishing "Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy" back in 2011. "More from Less" cements his status as a must-read popular author on the modern economy. I'm looking forward to his next book.
Also, if you know him in real life... could you connect me?
Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/more-from-less
March 3, 2020
A fairly unconvincing, high level, pop-econ take on dematerialization in the economy. The first 7 chapters lay out the context: Malthusian condition, the Industrial Revolution, Earth Day, etc. Chapter 5,6,7 form the core of the book where we are treated to some pretty sketchy diagrams with everything improving up and to the right while our physical consumption of raw resources reverses. Very little is said about a number of obvious objections, eg the ongoing globalization and its effects. After Ch7 the book transitions into talking about capitalism and why it's the best thing since sliced bread. Did you know that in 1950 we got 117B pounds of milk from 22M cows, but in 2015 we got 209B pounds of milk from just 9M cows? Truly something wonderful to celebrate.
For anyone interested in the topic I'd recommend wikipedia and journal articles, e.g. I found the following to be much better "bang for the buck":
- https://mk0eeborgicuypctuf7e.kinstacd...
- https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112...
For anyone interested in the topic I'd recommend wikipedia and journal articles, e.g. I found the following to be much better "bang for the buck":
- https://mk0eeborgicuypctuf7e.kinstacd...
- https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112...
February 2, 2020
This book was extremely irritating. The author pretends that the last hundred years didn't happen, in order to assert that capitalists should keep doing what they do, making stuff and innovating. Government will sign treaties and limit pollution. That way, everything will turn out fine.
Want to know a bit more? The author says that naysayers are always wrong because Malthus was wrong and also, in the 1970's, doomsday predications about running out of raw materials were also wrong. He concludes that everything is fine, capitalists should ignore the naysayers and keep making stuff and innovating.
The author demonstrates a willful blindness. For example, his argument about dematerialization amounts to, "aluminum cans use 50% less aluminum, so it's okay to buy twice as many cans." It never occurs to him to ask if producing and using that much aluminum causes problems over a long period of time. It never occurs to him to explore if dematerialization is related to “disposable” or “single use” products, whose “planned obsolescence” may result in needless waste.
The author reveals his blindness in another way. He uses only US data when it serves his purpose. He provides data that proves the US uses less lumber than 20 years ago. But, what is the worldwide figure? Are entire forests disappearing?
I laughed at the sections that claim it is government's role to solve the problems which capitalism causes. In this era of Trump, Xi Jinping, Putin, Bolsonaro, Modi, the author must be joking. I found it to be pathetic when the author pokes fun at socialism as being the real cause of problems. This is the year 2019, not the year 1917. The author seems stuck in a frame of reference that was relevant 100 years ago.
The author has written what amounts to a book report. Good job, Andrew McAfee, to have learned the words capitalism, socialism, pollution, etc. And you used those words in sentences! What a splendid book report.
Want to know a bit more? The author says that naysayers are always wrong because Malthus was wrong and also, in the 1970's, doomsday predications about running out of raw materials were also wrong. He concludes that everything is fine, capitalists should ignore the naysayers and keep making stuff and innovating.
The author demonstrates a willful blindness. For example, his argument about dematerialization amounts to, "aluminum cans use 50% less aluminum, so it's okay to buy twice as many cans." It never occurs to him to ask if producing and using that much aluminum causes problems over a long period of time. It never occurs to him to explore if dematerialization is related to “disposable” or “single use” products, whose “planned obsolescence” may result in needless waste.
The author reveals his blindness in another way. He uses only US data when it serves his purpose. He provides data that proves the US uses less lumber than 20 years ago. But, what is the worldwide figure? Are entire forests disappearing?
I laughed at the sections that claim it is government's role to solve the problems which capitalism causes. In this era of Trump, Xi Jinping, Putin, Bolsonaro, Modi, the author must be joking. I found it to be pathetic when the author pokes fun at socialism as being the real cause of problems. This is the year 2019, not the year 1917. The author seems stuck in a frame of reference that was relevant 100 years ago.
The author has written what amounts to a book report. Good job, Andrew McAfee, to have learned the words capitalism, socialism, pollution, etc. And you used those words in sentences! What a splendid book report.
May 14, 2020
I've been doing a lot of reading on population and sustainability lately, and coming around to the position that Julian Simon might have been more right than I would ever have imagined possible 10 years ago. Maybe it is actually possible that technology and economic growth could, counter to all intuition, reduce ecological harm more than they increase it. How would you know without looking at the evidence? The problem is that the faction I have historically been most sympathetic to still thinks all purported dematerialization evidence is a scam meant to delay necessary change. I enjoyed Andrew McAfee's EconTalk interview and hoped his book would provide some evidence to make that evaluation myself.
Unfortunately, this is one of the least convincing books I've ever read? If I wasn't already on board with McAfee's thesis, I would have found this utterly dismissable. As it is, I'm still I guess leaning toward the sense that McAfee is right, but I don't feel like I have a particularly strong sense of how or why that's true. Instead of being an intellectual cautious economic exploration of the economic principles of dematerialization, it's an exercise in pure Whiggism. McAfee sketches out the whole history of human resource consumption, acknowledging in a kind of shallow, passing way that things like slavery and ecological devastation were bad, but it always feels as though this an exercise he engages in out of a sense of preemptive self-defense, not an integral part of this argument. The same is true of the last quarter, in which he talks at length and somewhat bizarrely about social connection and deaths of despair. It always feels like the book is making a case for optimism, so half of it is just irrelevant negatives thrown in to temper the impression that he's achieved that attitude by ignoring all the bad things.
Even when he is talking about the main event, he leans heavily on prior articles not just in collecting evidence but in drawing conclusions and finding mechanisms. It doesn't really feel like he's adding anything, just putting a megaphone on things he thinks are interesting. That's fine, I suppose, but the fact that the whole book feels like an exercise in "what's Andrew McAfee's perspective like" and the answer is "here's some articles and books he read and agreed with" I can't say the megaphone is very effective. It feels shallow and not necessarily any more credible than the degrowthers on the opposite extreme of this conversation.
The thing that bugged me the most, and which in a way I think is most revealing about McAfee's level of interest, is that he only talks about ecology at all by repeating the phrase "treading more lightly on our planet." It frames ecological harm as a kind of clumsiness, a phase in which we were simply unable to avoid destroying habitats because we didn't have the right skills and technologies. He never once gave me the sense that he understands why conservation is valued or what ecological harm or well-being actually consist or, how different scenarios might differ, etc. He just doesn't seem interested. All he cares about is this biggest-picture question of "footprint" that once again makes me question how much he actually knows or cares about what he's actually talking about.
Unfortunately, this is one of the least convincing books I've ever read? If I wasn't already on board with McAfee's thesis, I would have found this utterly dismissable. As it is, I'm still I guess leaning toward the sense that McAfee is right, but I don't feel like I have a particularly strong sense of how or why that's true. Instead of being an intellectual cautious economic exploration of the economic principles of dematerialization, it's an exercise in pure Whiggism. McAfee sketches out the whole history of human resource consumption, acknowledging in a kind of shallow, passing way that things like slavery and ecological devastation were bad, but it always feels as though this an exercise he engages in out of a sense of preemptive self-defense, not an integral part of this argument. The same is true of the last quarter, in which he talks at length and somewhat bizarrely about social connection and deaths of despair. It always feels like the book is making a case for optimism, so half of it is just irrelevant negatives thrown in to temper the impression that he's achieved that attitude by ignoring all the bad things.
Even when he is talking about the main event, he leans heavily on prior articles not just in collecting evidence but in drawing conclusions and finding mechanisms. It doesn't really feel like he's adding anything, just putting a megaphone on things he thinks are interesting. That's fine, I suppose, but the fact that the whole book feels like an exercise in "what's Andrew McAfee's perspective like" and the answer is "here's some articles and books he read and agreed with" I can't say the megaphone is very effective. It feels shallow and not necessarily any more credible than the degrowthers on the opposite extreme of this conversation.
The thing that bugged me the most, and which in a way I think is most revealing about McAfee's level of interest, is that he only talks about ecology at all by repeating the phrase "treading more lightly on our planet." It frames ecological harm as a kind of clumsiness, a phase in which we were simply unable to avoid destroying habitats because we didn't have the right skills and technologies. He never once gave me the sense that he understands why conservation is valued or what ecological harm or well-being actually consist or, how different scenarios might differ, etc. He just doesn't seem interested. All he cares about is this biggest-picture question of "footprint" that once again makes me question how much he actually knows or cares about what he's actually talking about.
December 13, 2019
Books like this, Better Angels of our Nature, Abundance, etc. are an excellent tonic to help recalibrate outlooks on current affairs. You may not agree with the four horsemen theory (I do and I love the coopted imagery of doomsday put in the service of thwarting Armageddon), but you will probably take heart from the evidence for optimism presented in this work. I'm really glad I bumped this book up on my to read list, and I highly recommend others check this book out.
January 16, 2020
It is sometimes really difficult to give final marks to a book written by an academic that is targeting a general public. Should we evaluate the book for what we have personally learned from it or what someone outside our field can be expected to learn from it?
McAfee joins the group of authors such as Bjorn Lomborg, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and Hans Rosling who point out that, while a lot may be wrong in the world, a lot of things are getting better and a lot of things are actually much better than most of us perceive them to be.
The key theme in McAfee's book is that, thanks to technological progress, we succeed in producing increasingly more products from an ever smaller resource base, and this should make us hopeful about our future as well. Compared to Lomborg and Ridley (who have often been criticized for an extremely selective reading of the literature and whose good faith are questioned by quite a lot of people), McAfee is much less Panglossian. In this sense, his views are closest to those of Rosling.
The book does contain a lot of surprising examples of spectacular improvements in resource efficiency (which even I have found surprising), but contains very little material besides that that I wasn't already familiar with. In this sense, the book was disappointing - I had expected more from a work that had received so much praise.
This being said, if you are new to the topic, you may indeed enjoy it. It is very accessible and the style is very lively.
My main negative comment about the contents is that, while McAfee's discussion of past evidence is rather balanced, his discussion of the future is really one big profession of faith in human ingenuity. But solving issues like climate change will require much more than just faith. I would thus have been very interested in hearing about his policy views in the field of innovation - which are largely absent.
McAfee joins the group of authors such as Bjorn Lomborg, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and Hans Rosling who point out that, while a lot may be wrong in the world, a lot of things are getting better and a lot of things are actually much better than most of us perceive them to be.
The key theme in McAfee's book is that, thanks to technological progress, we succeed in producing increasingly more products from an ever smaller resource base, and this should make us hopeful about our future as well. Compared to Lomborg and Ridley (who have often been criticized for an extremely selective reading of the literature and whose good faith are questioned by quite a lot of people), McAfee is much less Panglossian. In this sense, his views are closest to those of Rosling.
The book does contain a lot of surprising examples of spectacular improvements in resource efficiency (which even I have found surprising), but contains very little material besides that that I wasn't already familiar with. In this sense, the book was disappointing - I had expected more from a work that had received so much praise.
This being said, if you are new to the topic, you may indeed enjoy it. It is very accessible and the style is very lively.
My main negative comment about the contents is that, while McAfee's discussion of past evidence is rather balanced, his discussion of the future is really one big profession of faith in human ingenuity. But solving issues like climate change will require much more than just faith. I would thus have been very interested in hearing about his policy views in the field of innovation - which are largely absent.
September 20, 2021
When I asked Maarten Bourdy, one of Belgium’s most influential public philosophers and proponent of ecomodernism, where he got his optimistic belief in technological innovation and decoupling from as the solution to the climate and other ecological crises, despite the countless research papers [1] and reports [2] clearly pointing in the opposite direction, he suggested me this book. Although I’d heard McAfee talk about it on at least one podcast and found it far from convincing, I thought I should give it a shot regardless. After all, I really *want* to believe this, and if this book advocates it irrefutably, then I should not miss it.
Spoiler alert: the book doesn’t convince at all - rather the opposite.
The book starts off well, with a pretty solid defence of capitalism over central planning (and a rather educational and amusing, although surely biased, bashing of early environmentalists). Profit-maximizing companies will try to produce products ever-more efficiently, and indeed, as the price of resources increases, they will look for cheaper alternatives. And sure: we can find a couple of examples where these gains in efficiency have reduced the ecological (or at least, the carbon-) footprint of products, or in the case of the smartphone, the array of products they replace (however one could argue whether we ever really need to own the multitude of devices they replace, and whether a phone that uses lots of rare earth materials and has to be replaced every 4 years is really more ecological than the devices they replace, which use a fraction of the rare materials, can be rented or used only when needed, and last for decades). But was anyone really contesting that?
A first flaw in the book is that McAfee cherry-picks a couple of examples which agree with his point. But, as he mentions later on, the rebound or Jevons effect is very real: as efficiency increases, and as resources become less expensive, our total consumption very often increases to make up for the gained efficiency, or even surpass it; e.g. as the product becomes available to a larger market. And there are loads of examples where this results in products or services having a much larger material or ecological footprint than they used to: ever-more SUV’s being sold, ever-larger televisions, larger houses, further flights, more clothes, etc etc.
This leads me to the second large flaw in the book: although McAfee acknowledges that one of capitalism’s biggest flaws is its inability to deal with negative externalities, he doesn’t seem to understand the breadth of the implications this has - that there are far more, yet often still hidden, such externalities. Wherever he mentions improvements, e.g. reductions in emissions, he fails to see that these are often simply replaced with other sorts of negative externalities: typically things being outsourced to other countries with less stringent human rights or environmental regulations, or solutions which might have less emissions (or land use), but have other (less visible) environmental negative impacts. Or he ignores that the solutions require a lot more energy, which we then can’t use for other things. Some examples: we need to build more skyscrapers (what about the fact these require immense amounts of cement and steel); industrial agriculture with synthetic fertilizer has improved yield (what about the fact that they’re depleting the soil and rivers - he even acknowledges this later in the book); the yield of farmed animals has gone up (what about their wellbeing, and the effect on the environment); we keep on finding new ways to mine resources (what about the deteriorating effect on the environments); etc.
McAfee likes to stress that because of technological advancements, our impact on the environment decreases. He often claims that ‘we in the West have thus solved the issue’, and that we are doing so much better than less technologically advanced parts of the world. One example he gives, is that in some parts of the world, people are, indeed, still burning coal or charcoal for energy. But let’s have a look at the only number that’s relevant: CO2-emissions per capita. In the US that is 16 tons. In the sub-saharan African and other poor countries, which I assume McAfee refers to, with all their polluting charcoal-burning, this is e.g. 1.4 (Philippines), 1.3 (Congo), 1.0 (Pakistan), 0.6 (Bangladesh or Nigeria),...(2018 numbers, EDGAR). They are currently not the problem; we are.
Another troubling thing is how he keeps mentioning ‘solutions’ of which the impact is negligible; like ‘planting’ trees. If you do some research on this topic you’ll learn that a) *planting* trees is a horrible idea, we just have to let forests regrow naturally, and especially prevent existing forests from being cut, and b) the carbon which trees can trap, in such a way, is literally negligible compared to the amounts we’re still emitting, as in, only a few percent, in the best-case, completely unrealistic, scenario. Mentioning such things as the solution is intellectually dishonest and simply harmful.
In the book there are also two chapters on inequality, which to me felt very out of place. I thought they were very poor - there are many much better books on that subject. Also it’s not really fair to write about inequality, and not mention the most groundbreaking work that’s been done on it in the past few decades, from Piketty. Which clearly argues *against* capitalism: we have to prevent the income from capital (by investors) from growing faster than the average growth of the economy (and thus wages).
I could refute or question dozens more things in the book. I’ll end with one more. On several occasions, McAfee downplays the role governments play in innovation and improvements in efficiency. Yet, as Mariana Mazzucato has laid out, many of the most important innovations were only possible because of government - not private - funding. Even many of the examples that McAfee looks at: many of the technologies used in smartphones, Nuclear fission reactors, and in the future, who knows, fusion reactors. As if any private company is ever going to be able to invest in those.
So, the book ends with the only relevant question: does it look like the current rates of technological improvement, efficiency gains, decoupling, will be enough?
McAfee spends his entire book trying to convince us that we’ll get there through technological innovations and markets, (in combination with ‘susceptible governments’ and ‘people’, but more on this later), yet in his one-but-last chapter, he asks himself the question. Is it looking good? Are we going fast enough? And he admits it clearly: no, it is not, not by far.
Only in his last chapter, he acknowledges that by far, the most important role is to be played by… indeed: us, as consumers, activists, citizens. As consumers we have to show companies there's a market for sustainable products. As activists, possibly organized in NGO's, we have to keep companies in check, lobby governments, and raise awareness of abuse. And as citizens, we have to show our governments that we’re ready to do what is necessary to save the world.
That’s quite a surprising turn - basically advocating the exact opposite of what the book claims to be about at first glance, and what indeed all the other research that’s out there confirms. But what was that first 95% of the book for, then? Who was doubting any of that in the first place? Technology and markets are great and indispensible, but they *alone* are *not* sufficient. It is finally up to us to keep them in check, through a strong government. Everything does ultimately still fall on our shoulders. Bummer.
[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
[2] https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-de...
Spoiler alert: the book doesn’t convince at all - rather the opposite.
The book starts off well, with a pretty solid defence of capitalism over central planning (and a rather educational and amusing, although surely biased, bashing of early environmentalists). Profit-maximizing companies will try to produce products ever-more efficiently, and indeed, as the price of resources increases, they will look for cheaper alternatives. And sure: we can find a couple of examples where these gains in efficiency have reduced the ecological (or at least, the carbon-) footprint of products, or in the case of the smartphone, the array of products they replace (however one could argue whether we ever really need to own the multitude of devices they replace, and whether a phone that uses lots of rare earth materials and has to be replaced every 4 years is really more ecological than the devices they replace, which use a fraction of the rare materials, can be rented or used only when needed, and last for decades). But was anyone really contesting that?
A first flaw in the book is that McAfee cherry-picks a couple of examples which agree with his point. But, as he mentions later on, the rebound or Jevons effect is very real: as efficiency increases, and as resources become less expensive, our total consumption very often increases to make up for the gained efficiency, or even surpass it; e.g. as the product becomes available to a larger market. And there are loads of examples where this results in products or services having a much larger material or ecological footprint than they used to: ever-more SUV’s being sold, ever-larger televisions, larger houses, further flights, more clothes, etc etc.
This leads me to the second large flaw in the book: although McAfee acknowledges that one of capitalism’s biggest flaws is its inability to deal with negative externalities, he doesn’t seem to understand the breadth of the implications this has - that there are far more, yet often still hidden, such externalities. Wherever he mentions improvements, e.g. reductions in emissions, he fails to see that these are often simply replaced with other sorts of negative externalities: typically things being outsourced to other countries with less stringent human rights or environmental regulations, or solutions which might have less emissions (or land use), but have other (less visible) environmental negative impacts. Or he ignores that the solutions require a lot more energy, which we then can’t use for other things. Some examples: we need to build more skyscrapers (what about the fact these require immense amounts of cement and steel); industrial agriculture with synthetic fertilizer has improved yield (what about the fact that they’re depleting the soil and rivers - he even acknowledges this later in the book); the yield of farmed animals has gone up (what about their wellbeing, and the effect on the environment); we keep on finding new ways to mine resources (what about the deteriorating effect on the environments); etc.
McAfee likes to stress that because of technological advancements, our impact on the environment decreases. He often claims that ‘we in the West have thus solved the issue’, and that we are doing so much better than less technologically advanced parts of the world. One example he gives, is that in some parts of the world, people are, indeed, still burning coal or charcoal for energy. But let’s have a look at the only number that’s relevant: CO2-emissions per capita. In the US that is 16 tons. In the sub-saharan African and other poor countries, which I assume McAfee refers to, with all their polluting charcoal-burning, this is e.g. 1.4 (Philippines), 1.3 (Congo), 1.0 (Pakistan), 0.6 (Bangladesh or Nigeria),...(2018 numbers, EDGAR). They are currently not the problem; we are.
Another troubling thing is how he keeps mentioning ‘solutions’ of which the impact is negligible; like ‘planting’ trees. If you do some research on this topic you’ll learn that a) *planting* trees is a horrible idea, we just have to let forests regrow naturally, and especially prevent existing forests from being cut, and b) the carbon which trees can trap, in such a way, is literally negligible compared to the amounts we’re still emitting, as in, only a few percent, in the best-case, completely unrealistic, scenario. Mentioning such things as the solution is intellectually dishonest and simply harmful.
In the book there are also two chapters on inequality, which to me felt very out of place. I thought they were very poor - there are many much better books on that subject. Also it’s not really fair to write about inequality, and not mention the most groundbreaking work that’s been done on it in the past few decades, from Piketty. Which clearly argues *against* capitalism: we have to prevent the income from capital (by investors) from growing faster than the average growth of the economy (and thus wages).
I could refute or question dozens more things in the book. I’ll end with one more. On several occasions, McAfee downplays the role governments play in innovation and improvements in efficiency. Yet, as Mariana Mazzucato has laid out, many of the most important innovations were only possible because of government - not private - funding. Even many of the examples that McAfee looks at: many of the technologies used in smartphones, Nuclear fission reactors, and in the future, who knows, fusion reactors. As if any private company is ever going to be able to invest in those.
So, the book ends with the only relevant question: does it look like the current rates of technological improvement, efficiency gains, decoupling, will be enough?
McAfee spends his entire book trying to convince us that we’ll get there through technological innovations and markets, (in combination with ‘susceptible governments’ and ‘people’, but more on this later), yet in his one-but-last chapter, he asks himself the question. Is it looking good? Are we going fast enough? And he admits it clearly: no, it is not, not by far.
Only in his last chapter, he acknowledges that by far, the most important role is to be played by… indeed: us, as consumers, activists, citizens. As consumers we have to show companies there's a market for sustainable products. As activists, possibly organized in NGO's, we have to keep companies in check, lobby governments, and raise awareness of abuse. And as citizens, we have to show our governments that we’re ready to do what is necessary to save the world.
That’s quite a surprising turn - basically advocating the exact opposite of what the book claims to be about at first glance, and what indeed all the other research that’s out there confirms. But what was that first 95% of the book for, then? Who was doubting any of that in the first place? Technology and markets are great and indispensible, but they *alone* are *not* sufficient. It is finally up to us to keep them in check, through a strong government. Everything does ultimately still fall on our shoulders. Bummer.
[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
[2] https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-de...
February 3, 2020
I don't know. I'm not entirely sure that McAfee is right in the basic premise that in the US we are using less resources and therefore moving in the direction of burdening the planet less. Maybe. I do think that there are some hopeful signs in resource usage, and I think that it is important to maintain an optimistic attitude in looking for solutions, as promoted by this book and a few other recent books like "Factfulness" and "Better Angels of Our Nature," but I'm not ready to count on the free market to solve the problem of overburdening the planet.
Once you get past the somewhat doubtful basic idea of this book that the invisible hand of the free market is solving the problem of excessive resource use for us, the rest of it is just a rehash of a lot of standard ideas that have already been covered better in other books. Where's the beef, Mr. McAfee? Not here. I looked McAfee up, expecting to find that he was a journalist and was surprised to find that he is a research scientist at MIT. I hope that his serious academic work is better than this.
Once you get past the somewhat doubtful basic idea of this book that the invisible hand of the free market is solving the problem of excessive resource use for us, the rest of it is just a rehash of a lot of standard ideas that have already been covered better in other books. Where's the beef, Mr. McAfee? Not here. I looked McAfee up, expecting to find that he was a journalist and was surprised to find that he is a research scientist at MIT. I hope that his serious academic work is better than this.
September 4, 2019
More from Less is a interesting book that has some good advice. Although there a several reputable scientists that would disagree with this author on many claims of his, such as we are emitting less gas etc.
April 8, 2020
irritating
October 7, 2022
I read “More From Less”, or rather listened to the audiobook, a couple months ago. What I recall is the optimism expressed by the author that the world is using fewer resources to greater effect. This seems to be true to the level the author “peeled the onion”. I’m used to seeing dire predictions of impending doom when reading books about the future, so some optimism is a nice change of pace. There are plenty of stats that show progress. As some reviewers point out, if you peel the onion more or less, you can come often come up with some dire future result, or unconsidered cost or benefit. I think your reaction to a book like this really depends on your outlook on life. I believe I’m pessimistically optimistic, and I kinda liked it. I hope more people get to read this book or others like it.
January 15, 2020
This embarrassingly bad book was the worst book I read in 2019. If you are interested in these issues read one of Vaclav Smil's books (http://vaclavsmil.com/category/books/).
One wouldn't know it from reading the book but there is a large academic literature on dematerialisation (or making more from less) that the author ignores. His sloppy scholarship and conflation of the world and the US means you will be likely less informed after reading this book than before reading it.
I had to read this, but if you have a choice don't waste your time and read anything else.
One wouldn't know it from reading the book but there is a large academic literature on dematerialisation (or making more from less) that the author ignores. His sloppy scholarship and conflation of the world and the US means you will be likely less informed after reading this book than before reading it.
I had to read this, but if you have a choice don't waste your time and read anything else.
December 18, 2019
He raises some valid points however I feel that he’s too decisive about certain things like genetically modified food and nuclear power. I also think that considering he’s talking about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions he only included two lines about veganism rather than talking about adoption of a plant-based life.
Read
May 1, 2020The synthesis of discussions about Earth's natural resources - whether we are fucked or not. The author admits the following decades may be somewhere between bad and catastrophic, but he also sees many chances. For instance:
- now we can produce more economy from one piece of metal than earlier,
- now instead of the camera, dictaphone, notebook, calendar and many other things we need just one smartphone.
SOMETIMES this book is like Factfullness but completely focused on natural resources.
I don't know whether the author is right or not, but I appreciate one thing which he did. He bet his money on his predictions about things that he cannot control. In times when people during presenting opinions tend to "sound as convincing as possible," his commitment to his opinions impressed me.
- now we can produce more economy from one piece of metal than earlier,
- now instead of the camera, dictaphone, notebook, calendar and many other things we need just one smartphone.
SOMETIMES this book is like Factfullness but completely focused on natural resources.
I don't know whether the author is right or not, but I appreciate one thing which he did. He bet his money on his predictions about things that he cannot control. In times when people during presenting opinions tend to "sound as convincing as possible," his commitment to his opinions impressed me.
October 19, 2019
I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to attend an event to see Andrew McAfee speak about his book, so of course I had to read it first! He presents an optimistic world view that I can subscribe to. His thesis is that capitalism, technological progress, responsive government, and public awareness (the four horsemen of the optimist) have brought us to a point of dematerialization (we're increasing our well-being while shrinking our environmental footprint) and will continue to lead us down that path. His recommendation is, with a couple of important caveats, to stay the course. It's a really great read for those who might be starting to lean towards the Malthusian doom-and-gloom or the capitalism-is-evil schools of thought. McAfee shows that we're on the right track to continue to improve the human condition indefinitely while also being responsible stewards of our planet.
Read
January 11, 2020McAfee sees an interesting inversion taking place now. 'If the Enlightenment led to the Industrial Era, then the Second Machine Age has led to a Second Enlightenment - a more literal one. We are now lightening our total consumption and treading more lightly on our planet.'
The unbearable lightness of being.
'The most valuable of all capital is that invested in human beings.'
Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics
The unbearable lightness of being.
'The most valuable of all capital is that invested in human beings.'
Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics
February 29, 2020
A book that needs to be read or listened to in 2020 by you. Good balanced perspective, better that Factfulness. A little weaker on story telling hence 4 stars.
July 7, 2020
My daughter declared herself vegetarian after overhearing the book while I listened to it. She's now got me eating more of a plant-based diet. Funny enough, at the end of the book, that was one of the recommendations.
January 22, 2020
A book that is more an observation followed by opinion than a sustained argument. The observation (first 1/2 of the book) is that we're reached the point that consumption of input materials has gone from positively correlated to negatively correlated with economic growth. The opinion (second 1/2) is that this is due to competition in the market. The obvious conclusion of the book is that we've done a lot of good stuff, and should do more of it, such as extending markets for CO2 etc.
While the book is a useful survey covering things like Malthusian Trap etc, its inability to really engage with asking why the correlation changed sense leaves the text somewhat hollow. It's focus on the US, and on countries in isolation, means that it never grapples with the question of whether some countries are simply 'exporting' their consumption. Nor does it attempt to factor externalities into the correlation to see if it has indeed changed sense, or if there are a whole mess of problems hiding behind the figures.
While the book is a useful survey covering things like Malthusian Trap etc, its inability to really engage with asking why the correlation changed sense leaves the text somewhat hollow. It's focus on the US, and on countries in isolation, means that it never grapples with the question of whether some countries are simply 'exporting' their consumption. Nor does it attempt to factor externalities into the correlation to see if it has indeed changed sense, or if there are a whole mess of problems hiding behind the figures.
October 7, 2020
This is a curious book. Unrelentingly positive in its assessment of what technological progress and entrepreneurship have done to the planet, often naively so. While it is an unabashed apologist for technology-led industrial scale transformation of our planet- and rather one-sided- but it does lay out the core and fundamental arguments in layman-friendly language, so that thereafter the reader can make his/ her own judgement about the climate movement and what is to be done about it.
The book starts with a useful chronology of what has led to the current state of affairs, starting from the Malthusian gloomy prediction of pre-industrial late 1700s (that human population will grow geometrically while food will grow arithmetically, hence extinction is inevitable), to the Industrial revolution powered by steam engine and the agricultural revolution powered by manufacture of nitrogenous fertilizers (which meant that there was enough food to feed the exponential growth of population after all). Finally, to the post 1980 period- which he calls the Great Reversal, his main point that is the source of all his optimism- that dematerialization, or "peak stuff" has come to stay.
The crux of the author's argument revolves around productivity gains (propelled by what he calls "the four horsemen of the optimist"-viz. technological progress, capitalism, good government to supervise the addressing of negative/ positive externalities, and public opinion in healthy democracies that serve to keep everyone honest) achieved by private corporations in search of their enlightened self interest (profits).
The author points out how corporations (in their quest for profits), have ensured that it takes far fewer resources to produce one unit of output now, than ever before- and his view is that this will be the savior which allows unlimited unending growth, despite the finite size of the resource base of our planet.
There are charts about the flattening off in the use of metals, agricultural inputs, energy (in comparison to ever-rising world GDP) in the developed world, liberally sprinkled throughout the text to buttress this claim. In short, the author optimistically asserts that the shift from accumulating to simplifying; from products to services; from heavy resource use to being light on earth- is a trend that is accelerating and will save us all.
One chapter about Ehrlich's famous postulate of the 1970s, the IPAT model is quite interesting. This refers to the (intuitively, easy to understand) formula, I = P * A * T where I=society's total negative impact on the environment, P= population size, A= affluence (ie per capita GDP), and T= technology. This held that population and affluence was always bad for the environment, and while technology could be both good (like solar power) or bad (like more coal plants), even when good it would tend to be too slow, costly and insufficient in scale. So, the response to this dreary scenario of resource depletion leading to potential extinction, was CRIB: where everyone in the world were told to Consume less, Recycle more, Impose limits, and go Back to the land.
The author's critique of the above compelling-sounding formulae, revolves around the following arguments:
1. Consuming less, or de-growth, will not lift folks out of poverty
2. Recycling more, gives a false sense of comfort around availability of resources and counteracts the tendency to thrift
3. Imposing limits (or right to pollute, using cap-and-trade systems, or carbon taxes or whatever) have their own constraints in terms of getting everybody to cooperate
4. Going Back to the land has the corresponding limitation that making artisanal products with low economies of scale are not efficient like mass manufacturing, is bad for the land, and so won't help the world's poor to climb out of poverty.
Instead, the author's solution for the current imbroglio (where gloomy Malthusian predictions are starting to look correct after all) is to embrace even more the four horsemen of optimism, i.e the Market (Capitalism) and Technology as being the main drivers of prosperity and backed up by the State as regulator and the Crowd to keep a watchful eye. In other words- he says the only problem with capitalism is that we don't have enough of it- and that the only way forward is to rely even more on (a) profit seeking companies, buttressed by the (unlimited) human capital they can harness (even though physical resources have finite limits, human capital knows no such limits) (b) with the enormous engine of science and technology (c) backed up by responsive and effective government (to rein in pollution etc) and (d) free and fair public opinion and educated awareness to keep everyone honest.
The rest of the book is comprised of rather sweeping statements about countries that have brought millions out of poverty (ex China); and that urbanization (and the concentration that cities bring) are the most efficient ways for serving needs of human population in a sustainable way. To be fair, he does not espouse uncontrolled capitalism. But his argument is that capitalism (the pure, Adam Smith version) says that you can be self-serving and yet be able to serve the larger good because PRICE will be the factor you are watching and reacting to. And price will climb in response to demand and supply, but also to government action such as carbon taxes.
While China's efforts at lifting people out of poverty has been mentioned as a result of the four horsemen (capitalism, technology, government regulation and public voice) but this has not led to environment conservation as such. But that is my chief criticism of this book- the goal has to be to lift millions out of extreme poverty WITHOUT destroying the planet, and this book's blase defense of tech-led capitalism (without appreciating the true horrors of impending climate collapse) is its chief flaw.
The author also makes only a token reference to the sweeping inequality (that is further accentuated by the "winner takes all" characteristic of technology-driven solutions). Offering no solutions to address this, he only argues that as long as no one is really poor, and things are not perceived as being unfair- such inequality is OK, everybody is used to seeing it, and it is indeed inevitable.
One section that needs to be developed further is where he quotes Paul Romer, the 2018 Nobel Prize winning economist. This tries to explain how technology companies (supported by the Capitalist Motive, the well-Regulated Ecosystem and the savvy Crowd) are creating non-rival and partially excludable technologies (which in turn provide strong incentives for creating useful, profit enhancing new technologies that they alone will benefit from for a time, but eventually ensuring that this spills over and gets diffused/ adopted by more and more companies to benefit the world as a whole). This process ultimately leads to increasing returns to scale, which is the crux of the promise the author makes in the title of this book. I liked this chapter but it is too airy in brushing off valid objections to the tech firms' hegemony over data, privacy of the individual, and profits, to the exclusion of larger society. Not unexpected though, given that the author is the founder of McAfee Anti Virus software and a tech mogul in his own right- so I guess his own perspective is bound to be a bit biased, despite his best efforts....
The most useful and thought provoking section in this book comes at the end where he acknowledges that this new world has led to steep decline in social capital. Everyone is feeling polarised and disconnected from each other, and the technologies (such as social media) are only amplifying these to a terrifying degree. As countries urbanize, as old social ties break down, as middle class constricts, with more and more concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, this affects how disgruntled people feel about their eroding purchasing power- and this in turn leads to authoritarianism, populism etc and breakdown in society of social construct which had served us well through the ages. This is the real danger, to which no solutions have been unearthed as yet.
All in all, a good and easy read, giving the author's argument persuasively in large part- although it leaves open the crucial points about environmental conservation, privacy issues and the looming need for better tech regulation.
The book starts with a useful chronology of what has led to the current state of affairs, starting from the Malthusian gloomy prediction of pre-industrial late 1700s (that human population will grow geometrically while food will grow arithmetically, hence extinction is inevitable), to the Industrial revolution powered by steam engine and the agricultural revolution powered by manufacture of nitrogenous fertilizers (which meant that there was enough food to feed the exponential growth of population after all). Finally, to the post 1980 period- which he calls the Great Reversal, his main point that is the source of all his optimism- that dematerialization, or "peak stuff" has come to stay.
The crux of the author's argument revolves around productivity gains (propelled by what he calls "the four horsemen of the optimist"-viz. technological progress, capitalism, good government to supervise the addressing of negative/ positive externalities, and public opinion in healthy democracies that serve to keep everyone honest) achieved by private corporations in search of their enlightened self interest (profits).
The author points out how corporations (in their quest for profits), have ensured that it takes far fewer resources to produce one unit of output now, than ever before- and his view is that this will be the savior which allows unlimited unending growth, despite the finite size of the resource base of our planet.
There are charts about the flattening off in the use of metals, agricultural inputs, energy (in comparison to ever-rising world GDP) in the developed world, liberally sprinkled throughout the text to buttress this claim. In short, the author optimistically asserts that the shift from accumulating to simplifying; from products to services; from heavy resource use to being light on earth- is a trend that is accelerating and will save us all.
One chapter about Ehrlich's famous postulate of the 1970s, the IPAT model is quite interesting. This refers to the (intuitively, easy to understand) formula, I = P * A * T where I=society's total negative impact on the environment, P= population size, A= affluence (ie per capita GDP), and T= technology. This held that population and affluence was always bad for the environment, and while technology could be both good (like solar power) or bad (like more coal plants), even when good it would tend to be too slow, costly and insufficient in scale. So, the response to this dreary scenario of resource depletion leading to potential extinction, was CRIB: where everyone in the world were told to Consume less, Recycle more, Impose limits, and go Back to the land.
The author's critique of the above compelling-sounding formulae, revolves around the following arguments:
1. Consuming less, or de-growth, will not lift folks out of poverty
2. Recycling more, gives a false sense of comfort around availability of resources and counteracts the tendency to thrift
3. Imposing limits (or right to pollute, using cap-and-trade systems, or carbon taxes or whatever) have their own constraints in terms of getting everybody to cooperate
4. Going Back to the land has the corresponding limitation that making artisanal products with low economies of scale are not efficient like mass manufacturing, is bad for the land, and so won't help the world's poor to climb out of poverty.
Instead, the author's solution for the current imbroglio (where gloomy Malthusian predictions are starting to look correct after all) is to embrace even more the four horsemen of optimism, i.e the Market (Capitalism) and Technology as being the main drivers of prosperity and backed up by the State as regulator and the Crowd to keep a watchful eye. In other words- he says the only problem with capitalism is that we don't have enough of it- and that the only way forward is to rely even more on (a) profit seeking companies, buttressed by the (unlimited) human capital they can harness (even though physical resources have finite limits, human capital knows no such limits) (b) with the enormous engine of science and technology (c) backed up by responsive and effective government (to rein in pollution etc) and (d) free and fair public opinion and educated awareness to keep everyone honest.
The rest of the book is comprised of rather sweeping statements about countries that have brought millions out of poverty (ex China); and that urbanization (and the concentration that cities bring) are the most efficient ways for serving needs of human population in a sustainable way. To be fair, he does not espouse uncontrolled capitalism. But his argument is that capitalism (the pure, Adam Smith version) says that you can be self-serving and yet be able to serve the larger good because PRICE will be the factor you are watching and reacting to. And price will climb in response to demand and supply, but also to government action such as carbon taxes.
While China's efforts at lifting people out of poverty has been mentioned as a result of the four horsemen (capitalism, technology, government regulation and public voice) but this has not led to environment conservation as such. But that is my chief criticism of this book- the goal has to be to lift millions out of extreme poverty WITHOUT destroying the planet, and this book's blase defense of tech-led capitalism (without appreciating the true horrors of impending climate collapse) is its chief flaw.
The author also makes only a token reference to the sweeping inequality (that is further accentuated by the "winner takes all" characteristic of technology-driven solutions). Offering no solutions to address this, he only argues that as long as no one is really poor, and things are not perceived as being unfair- such inequality is OK, everybody is used to seeing it, and it is indeed inevitable.
One section that needs to be developed further is where he quotes Paul Romer, the 2018 Nobel Prize winning economist. This tries to explain how technology companies (supported by the Capitalist Motive, the well-Regulated Ecosystem and the savvy Crowd) are creating non-rival and partially excludable technologies (which in turn provide strong incentives for creating useful, profit enhancing new technologies that they alone will benefit from for a time, but eventually ensuring that this spills over and gets diffused/ adopted by more and more companies to benefit the world as a whole). This process ultimately leads to increasing returns to scale, which is the crux of the promise the author makes in the title of this book. I liked this chapter but it is too airy in brushing off valid objections to the tech firms' hegemony over data, privacy of the individual, and profits, to the exclusion of larger society. Not unexpected though, given that the author is the founder of McAfee Anti Virus software and a tech mogul in his own right- so I guess his own perspective is bound to be a bit biased, despite his best efforts....
The most useful and thought provoking section in this book comes at the end where he acknowledges that this new world has led to steep decline in social capital. Everyone is feeling polarised and disconnected from each other, and the technologies (such as social media) are only amplifying these to a terrifying degree. As countries urbanize, as old social ties break down, as middle class constricts, with more and more concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, this affects how disgruntled people feel about their eroding purchasing power- and this in turn leads to authoritarianism, populism etc and breakdown in society of social construct which had served us well through the ages. This is the real danger, to which no solutions have been unearthed as yet.
All in all, a good and easy read, giving the author's argument persuasively in large part- although it leaves open the crucial points about environmental conservation, privacy issues and the looming need for better tech regulation.
February 2, 2020
I found myself agreeing with most of Mcafee’s points. Can’t dispute evidence-based arguments about general progress in the world: much of our population has been alleviated from poverty, ingenious innovations have arisen from capitalism and its profit incentive that reduce collective harm from our manufacturing-industrial years. As an optimistic person, I see a lot of potential and future in Edtech, simple technology and tweaks that reduce unnecessary mortality in emerging economies, and agriculture that may be able to sustain our bourgeoning population. I can’t help but wonder what comes next in worrying (in my opinion) phenomena of geographic concentration. Large commercial cities are the epicenter for profit-seeking individuals, with great potential for wealth creation and satisfactory wages. Overcrowding will outpace marginal improvements in cities’ ability to host exponential growth in migrants. Mcafee points out that since the agricultural revolution, farmers have been productive in harvesting optimal amounts of food from the ground and the most effective environmental solution in this aspect is for people to concentrate in cities and “let nature be”. Talking to my friend today reminded me of The Rust Belt in the states— these empty, desolate stretches of land that are barren, both in minerals, and in commerce. Nature sure won’t take over vast empty factories, and people are geographically stuck in No Man’s Land. There are so many unique areas of urbanization, beyond the binary examples of city Vs nature. How can we help geographically-isolated, barren central states get More From Less? Secondly, we forget man’s need for self-actualización— cities can make us profoundly unhappy and disconnected from sometimes-stifling familial and friendly relations. For whatever reason, whether due to most of us in the first world having achieved majority of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or the escalating prices in real estate, there is a trend in which individuals move to cabins or start farms that model after natural ecosystems which are more resilient to crop failure and crop diseases. I would’ve loved to see Mcafee address more of environmental impacts of monoculture (even though it arguably has helped mankind extract More From Less). I find it justifiable that small, homestead farms, are a relative “waste” of resources (water, fertilizer, energy) compared to leaving all of our agricultural produce to Monsanto and the like. After all, More From Less has led the first world to waste indeterminate amounts of food anyway and massively decreased crop variety.
February 7, 2021
This was an excellent book club selection by James Devereaux. More from Less pulls together and summarizes lots of concepts that can be found elsewhere. McAfee's primary thesis is—as the title suggests—that we're using less of the earth's resources than we used to despite a larger population and a much higher standard of living. He backs up the claim with lots of clear data.
He starts by walking through all the failed projections of Malthus and others, the well-intentioned but absurd sacrifices they advocated to avoid catastrophe, and why they were completely wrong. He spends a lot of the book walking through what he terms the "four horsemen of the optimist": technological progress, capitalism, responsive government, and public awareness. As he says, "when all four are present, we tread more lightly on our planet. We progressively dematerialize our consumption, reduce pollution, and take better care of our fellow creatures."
McAfee is also optimistic about the future and the progress that will bring even more people out of poverty. He suggests "instead of worrying about the world's poor becoming richer, we should instead be helping them upgrade economically as much as as quickly as possible. Not only is it the morally correct ting to do, it's also the smart move for our planet. As today's poor countries get richer, their institutions will improve and most will eventually go through what Ricardo Hausmann calls 'the capitalist makeover of production.' This makeover doesn't enslave people, or does it befoul the earth. As today's poor get richer, they'll consume more, but they'll also consume much differently from earlier generations."
Along the way, he effectively dispels lots of common myths about nuclear power, GMO's, vaccines, and other marvelous scientific advances. And although not directly related to his primary thesis, he offers good insights into social capital and the challenges of disconnected communities.
My only mild criticism is of some of the details he gets wrong about a couple of Trump administration environmental policies which he has clearly not studied in depth and which he misinterprets as setbacks to environmental regulation. But those are minor details. Overall the book is excellent and worth reading, particularly for anyone involved in policy-making.
He starts by walking through all the failed projections of Malthus and others, the well-intentioned but absurd sacrifices they advocated to avoid catastrophe, and why they were completely wrong. He spends a lot of the book walking through what he terms the "four horsemen of the optimist": technological progress, capitalism, responsive government, and public awareness. As he says, "when all four are present, we tread more lightly on our planet. We progressively dematerialize our consumption, reduce pollution, and take better care of our fellow creatures."
McAfee is also optimistic about the future and the progress that will bring even more people out of poverty. He suggests "instead of worrying about the world's poor becoming richer, we should instead be helping them upgrade economically as much as as quickly as possible. Not only is it the morally correct ting to do, it's also the smart move for our planet. As today's poor countries get richer, their institutions will improve and most will eventually go through what Ricardo Hausmann calls 'the capitalist makeover of production.' This makeover doesn't enslave people, or does it befoul the earth. As today's poor get richer, they'll consume more, but they'll also consume much differently from earlier generations."
Along the way, he effectively dispels lots of common myths about nuclear power, GMO's, vaccines, and other marvelous scientific advances. And although not directly related to his primary thesis, he offers good insights into social capital and the challenges of disconnected communities.
My only mild criticism is of some of the details he gets wrong about a couple of Trump administration environmental policies which he has clearly not studied in depth and which he misinterprets as setbacks to environmental regulation. But those are minor details. Overall the book is excellent and worth reading, particularly for anyone involved in policy-making.
November 1, 2019
The central thesis of this book is that four factors in modern times are leading humanity to live in better harmony with the planet, and that countries where these four factors come together, there is strong evidence of progress in the right direction. The four factors are capitalism, technological progress, responsive government and public awareness.
MIT professor of Economics, Andrew McAfee makes a compelling case for this with various research papers and solid data illustrating progressive dematerialisation from 1970 onwards. In many ways, the dematerialisation argument is a corollary to Max Roser, Hans Rosling and Steven Pinker’s theses on how developmental progress in the world accelerates creation of equilibria where populations stabilise and automatically regulate consumption and their ecological footprint. While at first blush, this may seem hard to imagine, McAfee does a good job of convincing you with hard data from countries that serve as examples and counter examples.
I learned a number of surprising things from the book - the efficacy of cap and trade policies, US hitting peak paper in 2013, computing additional impact of carbon offsets, shockingly low levels of pollution from nuclear energy, German energy reboot progress being discouraging and relative levels of dairy vs meat caused emissions. Extra points for quotes from usual suspects Jonathan Haidt & Johann Hari to infuse nuances of human psychology into a logical and economic narrative.
Overall, worthwhile read.
MIT professor of Economics, Andrew McAfee makes a compelling case for this with various research papers and solid data illustrating progressive dematerialisation from 1970 onwards. In many ways, the dematerialisation argument is a corollary to Max Roser, Hans Rosling and Steven Pinker’s theses on how developmental progress in the world accelerates creation of equilibria where populations stabilise and automatically regulate consumption and their ecological footprint. While at first blush, this may seem hard to imagine, McAfee does a good job of convincing you with hard data from countries that serve as examples and counter examples.
I learned a number of surprising things from the book - the efficacy of cap and trade policies, US hitting peak paper in 2013, computing additional impact of carbon offsets, shockingly low levels of pollution from nuclear energy, German energy reboot progress being discouraging and relative levels of dairy vs meat caused emissions. Extra points for quotes from usual suspects Jonathan Haidt & Johann Hari to infuse nuances of human psychology into a logical and economic narrative.
Overall, worthwhile read.
November 9, 2019
Important and timely for environmentalists to keep doing their good work
At a time when I hear from everyone that everything is wrong, it’s important to learn what is right, so we can do more of it. And at a time when I hear so often that there are too many people for the planet, it is important to learn how population growth is on a trajectory to harm the planet less - if only because historically people who saw no alternative put their efforts into people dying. Industrialisation has been devastating to the planet but wealthy economies in the last 30 years have decoupled income growth from material destruction. China, India and other poorer countries are earlier in their curves, with more destruction, but it is important to know that their curve eventually reversed, and that they will go through their curve faster than previous economies.
This is not to say that we should not worry and we should do nothing. We should worry and we must do more of the good things and less of the bad things. This book gives a good framework of the 4 forces: technology (the change), capitalism (yes, to adopt the change), popular awareness (to demand the change) and government (to put a high price on the lack of change).
Interestingly he says people who seriously care about the environment should back nuclear power and GM food. I wish this would be properly included in environmental debates.
I also wish the second half of the book was as numerical and specific as the first half, spelling out more future changes like it had described past changes. Of course this is much harder.
Great book, I really enjoyed it.
At a time when I hear from everyone that everything is wrong, it’s important to learn what is right, so we can do more of it. And at a time when I hear so often that there are too many people for the planet, it is important to learn how population growth is on a trajectory to harm the planet less - if only because historically people who saw no alternative put their efforts into people dying. Industrialisation has been devastating to the planet but wealthy economies in the last 30 years have decoupled income growth from material destruction. China, India and other poorer countries are earlier in their curves, with more destruction, but it is important to know that their curve eventually reversed, and that they will go through their curve faster than previous economies.
This is not to say that we should not worry and we should do nothing. We should worry and we must do more of the good things and less of the bad things. This book gives a good framework of the 4 forces: technology (the change), capitalism (yes, to adopt the change), popular awareness (to demand the change) and government (to put a high price on the lack of change).
Interestingly he says people who seriously care about the environment should back nuclear power and GM food. I wish this would be properly included in environmental debates.
I also wish the second half of the book was as numerical and specific as the first half, spelling out more future changes like it had described past changes. Of course this is much harder.
Great book, I really enjoyed it.
April 9, 2023
Risking a lot of confirmation bias I say it is a good and sane book. On one hand acknowledging - as the situation always has been btw - challenging conditions for mankind and nature, and on the other hand rejecting all the catastrophizing - something we have also done throughout history btw - that is so common.
The debate about mankinds place and effects and role in nature seems to be as old and archetypal as any other running debate, with most people being fearful which makes some sense given our negativity bias. This book has a more positive view on the future of human conditions on earth - a view I fully share.
Some of the central themes of the book are: The actual state of nature is less catastrophic than most think, and we humans are not a cancer. We are also very good problemsolves. We are actually solving problems faster than ever, so the danger is rather that we stop progress than push forward. This is very very counterintuitive for many people, but a group of authors is making this case and I think they are doing it convincingly.
The debate about mankinds place and effects and role in nature seems to be as old and archetypal as any other running debate, with most people being fearful which makes some sense given our negativity bias. This book has a more positive view on the future of human conditions on earth - a view I fully share.
Some of the central themes of the book are: The actual state of nature is less catastrophic than most think, and we humans are not a cancer. We are also very good problemsolves. We are actually solving problems faster than ever, so the danger is rather that we stop progress than push forward. This is very very counterintuitive for many people, but a group of authors is making this case and I think they are doing it convincingly.
April 18, 2022
WOW. I loved this book. It really laid out that all is NOT doom and gloom when it comes to the planet and global warming.
The author makes convincing arguments that the last 100 or so years, we have been consuming less and less stuff. The peak material stuff was around 1970s.
If you think about it...your smart phone now is your enclyclopedia, a camera, a video recorder, a phone, a gps. It enables so much more stuff and takes up less space.
Further, look at all the things you no longer own....CD's, DVD's, Books....most are all digital now or streaming.
We need to embrace GMO's....I have never understood the argument against them. We need to embrace nuclear energy, and we need to capture more greenhouse gases.
It was great to read this book in 2o22 to see how much of the predictions have come true. A lot has.
I would recommend this book to anyone who needs help understanding the current political, social, and economic actions around pollution.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.
The author makes convincing arguments that the last 100 or so years, we have been consuming less and less stuff. The peak material stuff was around 1970s.
If you think about it...your smart phone now is your enclyclopedia, a camera, a video recorder, a phone, a gps. It enables so much more stuff and takes up less space.
Further, look at all the things you no longer own....CD's, DVD's, Books....most are all digital now or streaming.
We need to embrace GMO's....I have never understood the argument against them. We need to embrace nuclear energy, and we need to capture more greenhouse gases.
It was great to read this book in 2o22 to see how much of the predictions have come true. A lot has.
I would recommend this book to anyone who needs help understanding the current political, social, and economic actions around pollution.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.
November 26, 2020
I enjoy books like this that are written from an optimist’s perspective. This book catalogues many innovations that have drastically improved humanity, efficiency, and prosperity—and, most importantly, provides the “why.” Last, I really enjoyed the full throated defense of capitalism as the driver behind humankind’s ability to do more with less. Socialism may be trendy but it is sub-optimal long-term. Capitalism is far from perfect and needs reforms and continuous improvement but it should not be vilified.
November 4, 2019
I love essay books like this. They’re quick, informative reads that help you rest your ideas against the evidence. I’m generally disposed to agree with the author’s arguments. He argues cogently that whole our current economic and social formula has issues, that it’s mostly in the right direction, and that while we should curb our excesses, revolution our fundamental reorganization would hurt more than it helps. Imho a very sober analysis of our time, acknowledging our issues without falling victim to the doom and gloom narrative that’s all too common in today’s discourse
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