Off the Pedestal: Creating a New Vision of Economic Growth

via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 by Yale Environment 360
Off the Pedestal: Creating a New Vision of Economic Growth

by James Gustave Speth


Is anything in America more faithfully followed than economic growth? Its movements are constantly watched, measured to the decimal place, deplored or praised, diagnosed as weak or judged healthy and vigorous. Newspapers, magazines, and cable channels report endlessly on it. Promoting growth may be the most widely shared and robust cause in the United States today.

If the growth imperative dominates U.S. political and economic life, what happens when growth hits some serious stumbling blocks?

.....(snip).....

Let’s first take up the limits of growth. Despite the constant claims that we need more growth, there are limits on what growth can do for us. The ecological economist Herman Daly has reminded us that if neo-classical economists were true to their trade, they would recognize that there are diminishing returns to growth. Most obviously, the value of income growth declines as one gets richer and richer. Similarly, growth at some point has increasing marginal costs. For example, workers have to put in too many hours, or the climate goes haywire. It follows that for the economy as a whole, we can reach a point where the extra costs of more growth exceed the extra benefits. One should stop growing at that point. Otherwise the country enters the realm of “uneconomic growth,” to use Daly’s delightful phrase, where the costs of growth exceed the benefits it produces.

.....(snip).....

“Within this century, environmental and resource constraints will likely bring global economic growth to a halt…,” Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote in Foreign Policy earlier this year. “We can’t live with growth, and we can’t live without it. This contradiction is humankind’s biggest challenge this century, but as long as conventional wisdom holds that growth can continue forever, it’s a challenge we can’t possibly address.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/31-7

"Let’s first take up the limits of growth. Despite the constant claims that we need more growth, there are limits on what growth can do for us. The ecological economist Herman Daly has reminded us that if neo-classical economists were true to their trade, they would recognize that there are diminishing returns to growth. Most obviously, the value of income growth declines as one gets richer and richer. Similarly, growth at some point has increasing marginal costs. For example, workers have to put in too many hours, or the climate goes haywire. It follows that for the economy as a whole, we can reach a point where the extra costs of more growth exceed the extra benefits. One should stop growing at that point. Otherwise the country enters the realm of “uneconomic growth,” to use Daly’s delightful phrase, where the costs of growth exceed the benefits it produces."

The beginning speaks of microeconomic concerns, and while the latter tries to go back to macro, ignores completely the main reason why growth in the economy is important and positive per se. The population IS growing, and absent genocide or forced expulsions on a massive scale there is nothing we can do to stop it. Therefore GDP stagnation equals lower real wealth per capita,

GDP measures the movement of money. FIAT currency, debt and interest, ponzi scheme of the banking system that requires continuous growth.

This money is not wealth, on the contrary it creates artificial scarcity in a world of abundance - for example half the food produced goes waste mainly because food is produced to earn money and make more money for elites, not to feed people. Real wealth is not quantitative ("more is better") but qualitative state of having tummy full, warm and cosy and safe, friends and something meaningfull to do. Having one's basic needs satisfied.

GDP of course measures output denominated in dollars rather than dollars themselves.

tell about "output"? Circulation of dollars. Denominated in dollars, measured in dollars.You can't eat them. When you go some unhospitable place (e.g. shop) where food is available only for money, Money is not only artificial scarcity but also obligatory waste, since the money logic dictates that food is better wasted than given for free for those who need to eat.Since dollar output systemically equals interest. And interest equals requirement of perpetual growth of the money system.

It might be worth while to think materialistically and organically insted of giving credo to the dollar ideology and -ism. It's a con, you know it's a con, and it's a fucking disaster.

PS: And let's have confidence!

Dollars tell us the current (or static, depending on how you do the math) value of the output in the only medium of exchange that has any widespread use in this country. It doesn't matter a damn what dollars per se can be used for, because they can be exchanged for the output you want to measure. You might want to live in some anarchistic dreamland where barter is king but until that's reality then dollars are a, indeed the only, perfectly valid way to measure production of goods and services.

in a "anarchistic dreamland", community not based on barter but gift economy and sharing. The fact that fiat currencies and banksters are still around and have much influence is no reason to stay blind and abandon what logic and reason tell about this money system.

get counted in the GDP. If they work for themselves at home, doing the same work, it is not reflected in the GDP.

When's it's monetized, it's "real". When it's not monetized, it's not "real".