What if modern society put a priority on the material security of its citizens andthe ecological integrity of its resource base? What if it took ecological constraint as a given, nota hindrance but a source of long-term economic security? How would it organize itself, structure itsindustry, shape its consumption?Across time and across cultures, people actually have adapted toecological constraint. They have changed behavior; they have built institutions. And they havedeveloped norms and principles for their time. Today's environmental challenges -- at once global,technological, and commercial -- require new behaviors, new institutions, and new principles.In thishighly original work, Thomas Princen builds one such principle: sufficiency. Sufficiency is notabout denial, not about sacrifice or doing without. Rather, when resource depletion andoverconsumption are real, sufficiency is about doing well. It is about good work and goodgovernance; it is about goods that are good only to a point.With examples ranging from timbering andfishing to automobility and meat production, Princen shows that sufficiency is perfectly sensibleand yet absolutely contrary to modern society's dominant principle, efficiency. He argues thatseeking enough when more is possible is both intuitive and rational -- personally, organizationallyand ecologically rational. And under global ecological constraint, it is ethical. Over the longterm, an economy -- indeed a society -- cannot operate as if there's never enough and never toomuch.

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