Economic Growth Has Failed Us. What's the Alternative?

[marmar]

via commondreams:



Published on Thursday, November 5, 2009 by The Ecologist

Economic Growth Has Failed Us. What's the Alternative?
by Tim Jackson


Economic growth is supposed to deliver prosperity. Higher incomes should mean better choices, richer lives, an improved quality of life for us all. That at least is the conventional wisdom. But things haven't always turned out that way.

Growth has delivered its benefits, at best, unequally. A fifth of the world's population earns just 2 per cent of global income. Inequality is higher in the OECD nations than it was 20 years ago. Far from improving the lives of those who most needed it, growth let much of the world's population down. Wealth trickled up to the lucky few.

Fairness (or the lack of it) is just one of several reasons to question growth. As the economy expands, so do its ecological impacts. In the last quarter of a century an estimated 60 per cent of the world's ecosystems have been degraded. Global carbon emissions have risen by 40 per cent since 1990. Significant scarcity in key resources - such as oil - may be less than a decade away.

On the other hand, when growth stalls, as it has done over the past year, things go quickly from bad to worse. Firms go out of business, people lose their jobs and a government that fails to respond appropriately will soon find itself out of office. Dynamics are vital here. Continuous improvements in technology mean that fewer people are needed to produce the same goods from one year to the next. So if output doesn't expand, there is a downward pressure on employment and a spiral of recession looms. Growth is necessary within this system just to prevent collapse. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/05-11

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. What's the alternative?

Sustainability.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Meaning what?

[applegrove]

2. Regulations should be in place to undo bubbles in the stock market and banks. The great depression

and this housing bubble as well as the dot com bubble were all caused by excessive speculation and lack of regulations. And the workers and poor really suffer terribly when this happens. The people who cause the bubble are immune from suffering cause they have some money set aside by definition. There should be serious laws and regulation put into place to avoid bubbles at all cost. Slowing down the economy to undo excessive greed should be the first stop as rules & regulations go.

[DJ13]

3. The term "economic growth" became misconstrued to mean

a "higher standard of living", which never happened.

Yes there was growth, but the increase in profits from that growth never had a requirement it had to be shared with those who toiled for their bosses to create that increased growth.

Every time you see an economist or a TV talking head bragging about productivity increases that means the average guy is falling further and further behind (if he still has a job at all due to fewer people now doing the same amount of work).

[JohnWxy]

4. Economic Growth isn't what failed us. It was Republicans shifting too much of the taxes

to the middle class and away from the super-wealthy and the corporations that did it. You can't have, over the long run, a strong, healthy, growing economy if the bulk of the population is not also experiencing a growth in their real incomes. If they are not, in time companies find their sales don't' keep up and the economy stops growing.

But the conservatives never learn this..... UNTIL we get into a recession! THEN THEY SAY: "Well, when the consumer comes back, the consumer is two thirds of the economy, THEN WE'LL GET OUT OF THIS RECESSION." Well, the ol' consuer has to have disposable income to spend or you won't have a growing economy!

[katty]

5. How about some Common Sense & Emotional growth, maturity for a change

of pace

[Demeter]

6. We Haven't Had Any Economic Growth for Decades

We've had lots of fraud and theft, though.

[Andronex]

7. I disagree...

If I remember correctly productivity has increased around 60% since the 70's, it is just as you suggest that money has not made it into our pockets but into the pockets of a few who have increased their profit margin.

The best way to explain growth in a capitalist economy is to compare the GNP to building of the pyramid by the slaves in Egypt, it doesn't matter how big or how fast the pyramid is built only the king will benefit, growth in the GNP is really irrelevant to the general welfare. The slaves could unite and form a union to get better living conditions but their labour will still be a waste of energy and resources, like for example the trillions spent on the military to keep our ruling class in power.

We need an economy that is democratic and geared to meet human needs, if we do that all the rest will take care of itself.

[The Traveler]

8. We don't measure growth correctly

Economic growth without new capability to improve the lives of the average human being is meaningless.

I regard my new cell phone as an example of what I mean. What a marvellous toy. I now receive email and SMS messages from a variety of sources, seamlessly integrated and delivered to this amazing device ...

Was I a fuckin' idiot? Now every damn fool I ever met can contact me whenever they want! ARRRGH!!!

** Fantasy: Trav runs to his driveway, carefully places the Blackberry under the driver side rear tire of his trusty 91 Camaro, fires up that mighty 350 and slams the ratchet shifter into reverse. Crunch. Problem solved. A pleasant drive through abandoned winding roads ensues. **

But what does this technological marvel really accomplish in life improvement? It is a marginal benefit, at best. Economic growth has yielded some neat toys over the past 20 years, some powerful tools for manipulating information, etc. ... but very little in new or significantly improved hard capabilities.

New power production and transportation systems that produce near zero climate impact ... now THAT would be symptomatic of substantive growth. And indeed such technologies have been within grasp for a couple generations ... all it took was the will to develop them. But the imperious demands of this abstract, fictitious, "economic growth" mandated their abandonment. Now, of course, many of these options (wind, solar, geothermal, and several interesting new ideas we could have thought of a long time ago) are once again on the speculative table.

Other examples of substantive growth can be found easily with a little consideration. Look around. Few have been implemented.

There is a disconnect between measures of economic growth and the growth of the capabilities of the society that hosts the economy. And that, I submit, is part of the problem. We pursue the former at the expense of the latter, and lose thereby.

Trav