Utopia in the anthropocene: a change plan for a sustainable and equitable world

Utopia in the Anthropocene offers an expansive overview of the interrelated threats of environmental degradation and global wealth inequality. Michael Harvey paints a stark, dystopian vision of the world, should we fail to act. Yet, this only serves to lay the groundwork for a utopian plan for a sustainable and equitable world, which is the core focus of the book. The text seeks to acknowledge the deep interconnectivity of a range of social, environmental and political issues. Overall, Harvey’s book offers a useful and well-researched overview for those relatively new to the subject of environmental justice and ecological economics.

The concept of utopia has become a recurring theme within the discourse concerning a transition to a sustainable society. Harvey draws on a lesser used approach to utopia to frame this text – interpreting Thomas More’s play on words as ‘no place in particular’, rather than the more traditional interpretation of ‘no place’. Harvey argues that, in this way, we can understand the term ‘utopia’ as unifying and global. If it refers to no one specific place, it can refer to everywhere equally: ‘utopianism has always been concerned with humanity as a whole, regardless of geographical location, and over the centuries it has become increasingly universal, espousing a plan for the entire planet’ (p. 6). This global perspective is a recurring theme throughout the book, which seeks to highlight colonisation and ‘our sloping world’ (i.e., the vast and multiple inequalities between the global north and south). Harvey seeks to address the global environmental crisis alongside rising wealth inequality (within nation states and globally) as essentially interrelated issues. This draws from the lively discourse around climate justice, which highlights the disproportionate impact of the global north on environmental degradation, whilst the global south is being hit hardest by the effects of climate change.

To begin, Harvey makes the case for the urgent need for change, offering a broad account of the environmental and social global issues we face. In his analysis of what drives these global issues, Harvey focuses on the detrimental impacts of the ‘growthist world system’. It is unclear why he avoids the term ‘capitalism’ in this analysis; in his usage, ‘growthism’ appears to be a coterminous concept. The negative impacts of this growthist world system are wide reaching, and he offers accounts of the detrimental role growthism plays within democracy, automation, health, and community (amongst others), each returning the reader to how these impacts contribute to and reinforce global inequality and environmental degradation.

In the second half of the book Harvey draws on his background as an organisational psychologist and leadership coach to articulate a vision for ‘a sustainable and equitable world in which wellbeing can flourish planetwide’ (p. 93). He is explicitly utopian and global in his ambitions, arguing that, given the scale of the issues faced, this is a necessary response. His 12-step change plan combines radical proposals such as food and energy rationing as well as more popular and well-known measures such as a circular economy, alternatives to GDP and a universal basic income. At times, the text reads like a literature review for ecological economic and social proposals. The plan, particularly in Step 4, also offers imaginative descriptions of how these measures may impact upon ‘the plain of lived experience’ (p. 134) within cities, slums and rural communities in terms of housing, health and education. This almost fictional account of the future offers a useful addition to the text, offering a positive reinforcement of the purpose and rationale for the project and an antidote to the initial chapters of the book, which focus on the dystopian perils of consumer society.

Overall, Harvey’s book offers an interesting approach to addressing both environmental crisis and dramatic global inequalities. In many ways, this text is reminiscent of utopian offerings from sociology, such as Erik Olin Wright’s Real Utopias and Ruth Levitas’ Utopia as Method. However, Harvey’s approach, whilst interdisciplinary, draws primarily from organisational psychology. This is particularly evident in his significant usage of mnemonics throughout the text, as well as the overall framing of a 12-point plan. The risk with this approach, when applied to such complex, contested and global topics, is that the frameworks leave little space for the ambiguity and ongoing debates contained within these topics. For example, the potential tensions between specific and prescriptive measures, such as rationing (outlined in Step 2), ensuring universal access to contraception (in Step 6), and significantly deepening participatory democracy on a global level (in Step 5) are not explored. However, Harvey’s aim is not to contribute to or unpick any singular debate within the multiple disciplines he touches upon, but rather to articulate an overarching utopian vision for achieving global sustainability and equity. As he states in the conclusion, ‘a change plan is not an action plan – it is more general and less detailed’ (p. 249), and fundamentally aimed at making the case for change, rather than providing a clear route for enacting it. Therefore, whilst there may be numerous critiques launched at his relatively thin critique of alternative approaches to democracy, conflict resolution or post-growth economics (amongst other topics), the overall picture reminds the reader of the deep interconnectedness of the global issues we face, as well as the scale of ambition needed to address them.