What ever happened to the “How on Earth” book?

Jennifer Hinton – March 12, 2024

As you may know, I am the lead author of the How on Earth book, which I wrote with Dr. Donnie Maclurcan of the Post Growth Institute. What you might not know is the book was never published and that this has been quite a stressful ordeal for me.

Dr. Maclurcan recently published a statement taking full responsibility for the Post Growth Institute’s failure to deliver the book. It includes an apology to me, our crowdfunders, and others who have been negatively impacted.

Background (in a nutshell)

In June 2013, the Post Growth Institute (PGI) raised money via crowdfunding to support Dr. Donnie Maclurcan and me in writing the How on Earth book, which was to offer a post-growth economic model: the Not-for-Profit World. It was to be published by the Post Growth Institute in December of 2013, which was when Dr. Maclurcan estimated we could have it finished. Dr. Maclurcan was supposed to lead the project, as it was initially his idea and he had already started developing the model. I volunteered to support him in the research and writing.

Dr. Maclurcan and I began having regular meetings to work on the model, discussing things like how banks, money creation, and financial circulation would work in the Not-for-Profit World. However, by 2015, he had not made any significant progress with the writing of the book and just kept pushing back the publication date. At the suggestion of a PGI colleague, I offered to take the lead in the project. Donnie accepted this offer and I took nine months away from my paid work to write the first draft in 2015. Thus, I became the lead author of the book.

I felt the book was ready to be published in August 2016, after Dr. Maclurcan and I had done several rounds of editing to the first draft I’d written. Yet, Donnie insisted that it was not ready and said he would get it into better shape.

By 2019, I was in the final half of my PhD, which built on the Not-for-Profit World model, and I needed something to reference. So, Dr. Maclurcan agreed that we could publish the 2016 version of How on Earth as a working draft. The final book has never been published.

My reflections

I have been carrying the burden of this unpublished book for about eight years; an unresolved issue constantly lurking in the background. It’s felt like a gut-punch every time someone asks where they can buy the book or why it has not yet been published, which happens regularly. There’s also the sadness that these ideas, which could help the world in so many ways, have still not been properly published.  Over the years, I’ve felt anger, betrayal, and resentment that Dr. Maclurcan and the PGI have been able to hold back the publication of the book. There was also the sadness and pain of leaving the PGI and no longer having the institutional and moral support of an organization that I helped build up.

I very much enjoyed working on the Not-for-Profit World model with Dr. Maclurcan during those early years. In July of 2016, after having developed the model with Dr. Maclurcan, as well as having written and edited various drafts of How on Earth, I felt the book was good enough for the PGI to publish. For me, the priority was to get this important post-growth economic model out to the world (even in a slightly rough form), so people could start working with it and discussing it. I knew we could always publish a new edition or an improved book in the future.

By August 2016, we’d started receiving a stream of refund requests from crowdfunders who were upset about not having received the book. Yet, Dr. Maclurcan wanted to do more editing rather than go for publication. At that point, I told him that it was unfair to the crowdfunders to continue delaying the book, and it was unfair to me that his failures might be hurting my reputation as a reliable person. Unfortunately, Dr. Maclurcan responded to my concerns with deflection, projection, and even blame. In early 2017, after Dr. Maclurcan had still not delivered an edited draft, I decided I could no longer work with the Post Growth Institute. There was simply too much cognitive dissonance. As the years passed, I slowly gave up any hope that Dr. Maclurcan or the PGI would publish the book.

Fortunately, I have found wonderful opportunities to move forward with this important line of work in my own way. And I’ve had a lot of fun doing so. I look forward to what the coming years bring. I am as dedicated as ever to developing and spreading post-growth ideas that can help us meet everyone’s needs in harmony with the rest of nature. Watch this space…