Life After Progress

From a renowned pioneer of the localization movement, an anthology of essays challenging the narrative that technological progress and an increasingly globalized economy will lead us to a better world.

This collection of essays has been selected from 30 years of published articles, book chapters and blog posts by the staff of Local Futures, internationally known as pioneers of the emerging localization movement. Some of these writings involve a fundamental rethinking of our most basic assumptions―about progress, poverty, and happiness―while others seek the root causes of our multiple crises, from climate change and income inequality to the erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. All of them point towards the most strategic steps we can take to confront these problems and bring a healthier, happier world into being. Several of these prescient essays were written decades ago, but they have become even more relevant today as our crises deepen, and the need for systemic change becomes more apparent.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is the author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures, and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness. A pioneer of the new economy movement, she founded the International Alliance for Localization, and co-founded the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network. She is a recipient of the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize.

Steven Gorelick is the co-director of the film The Economics of Happiness, author of Small is Beautiful, Big is Subsidized, and co-author of Bringing the Food Economy Home. He has been published on Resilience, Counterpunch and numerous other online publications, and in The Ecologist and Resurgence magazines. He and his spouse run a small-scale organic farm in Vermont.

Alex Jensen has worked with Local Futures in the USA and India, where he coordinates the organization’s Ladakh Project. He has worked at the Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics in Himachal Pradesh, India, and represents Local Futures in the Vikalp Sangam/Alternatives India initiative. He has worked with cultural affirmation and agro-biodiversity projects in campesino communities in a number of countries, and is active in environmental health/anti-toxics work.

Bayo Akomolafe was born to Yoruba parents in western Nigeria, and now lives between India and the United States. He is a widely celebrated international speaker, teacher, public intellectual, and essayist, and is the author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home and We Will Tell Our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. He has taught at Middlebury College, Sonoma State University, Simon Fraser University, and Schumacher College, Pacifica Graduate Institute and the University of Vermont. In 2021 he was the recipient of the New Thought Walden Award.