An urgent and passionate plea for a new and ecologically sustainable vision of the good life.

The reality of runaway climate change is inextricably linked with the mass consumerist, capitalist society in which we live. And the cult of endless growth, and endless consumption of cheap disposable commodities isn't only destroying the world, it is damaging ourselves and our way of being. How do we stop the impending catastrophe, and how can we create a movement capable of confronting it head-on?

In Alternative Prosperity, philosopher Kate Soper offers an urgent plea for a new vision of the good life, one that is capable of delinking prosperity from endless growth. Instead, she calls for a renewed emphasis on the joys of being, one that is capable of collective happiness not in consumption but by creating a future that allows not only for more free time, and less conventional and more creative ways of using it, but also for more fulfilling ways of working and existing. This is an urgent and necessary intervention into debates on climate change.

"A provocative and necessary book that provides us with the means to rethink consumption, work and sustainable prosperity without losing sight of what makes us feel good." - Nick Taylor

"Kate Soper's vision is necessary and beautiful." - Bookforum

"In an overheating world, Soper switches the focus to the philosophy of happiness: the relationships, the time to "stand and stare" and the reflective autonomy that make life worthwhile. Her Post-Growth Living is a manual for rebuilding the economy with humans in mind." - Prospect: The world’s top 50 thinkers 2021

"I am confident that this singular plea is both fecund and needed, even if, after reading, I am still not sure exactly what "alternative hedonism" actually is." - Monthly Review

"It is a great testament to Soper that this patient and provocative work will no doubt continue, in the crucial decades ahead, to remind us of the urgent need to move daily life firmly beyond growth." - Marx & Philosophy