Why We Must Stop Fetishizing Economic Growth

[Klukie]

Forget the fancy formulas - economics needs to ask profound questions about what makes a good life and just society.

Can economics be morally centered? And perhaps more importantly, should it be?

These are questions that society is grappling with in the face of the economics profession's failure to confront the global impact of exploding inequality within and between countries.

Limitations of the Dismal Science

Economists are very good at studying mechanisms for efficiently allocating things. But they are less effective at addressing more fundamental questions related to these things' social value. Indeed, economists typically leave values unexamined in their mathematical formulas. Social utility is simply not explored.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-we-must-stop-fetishizing-economic-growth?page=0%2C0

[get the red out]

1. I agree

I hope that's possible.

[aletier_v]

2. Buddhist Economics is what you're searching for

http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/buddhist-economics


From a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity. It means shifting the emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the subhuman, a surrender to the forces of evil. The very start of Buddhist economic planning would be a planning for full employment, and the primary purpose of this would in fact be employment for everyone who needs an "outside" job: it would not be the maximisation of employment nor the maximisation of production

[Klukie]

3. Thanks!!

This is an awesome perspective!

[abumbyanyothername]

4. The movement is already afoot

Google Transition Rob Hopkins.

[tama]

5. The origin of compulsory growth

Financially: interest and debt of the fractional banking system. Fix: democratic control of banks, government aka monetary system giving zero interest money to people instead of banks.

But that is not enough. Imperialistic growth of civilizations goes way back to unsustainable farming methods leading to erosion, silting etc. and collapse of the carrying capacity of the ecosystem; and consequent waves of imperialism and colonialism.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Absolutely right, but think bigger. It does, inexorably, all come back to economics. n/t

[tama]

8. What do you mean by "economics"?

I blame top down power hierarchies.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. That authoritarian hierarchical system that controls us is based on the economics of civilization.

Unsustainable agricultural techniques can be fixed. Suicidal water management systems are not written in stone, and can likewise, be altered. Any problem you can think of can be turned around. We know this. What prevents us from adopting better ideas is money, or more accurately, the people that control the monetary system. We are captured by economic ideas and systems that originated in (arguably) the 9th century and have changed only incrementally since then and not at all since the 19th.

We are well into the 21st century, but are shackled by ideas that haven't changed in centuries. We have to come to terms with some fundamental truths or we doom ourselves to another cycle of needless deprivation and suffering.

Human understanding of what is has changed in ways that are completely incompatible with the existing power structure. We will either recognize what is and adapt, or our future is bleak.

[tama]

11. Ha, I was thinking bigger! ;)

As far as I have studied the matter, the problem goes back at least to birth of agricultural civilizations, urban authoritarian hierarchical control over rural populations and ecosystems and the coevolutionary relation between human populations and certain hay plants such as wheat and barley. Writing and math originated as accounting of taxes and privatized property.

"Permaculture" in wide sense works beautifully, if and when allowed.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Hear, hear. It's that "allowed" part that is our biggest problem, as I see it.

And I did say arguably. It is rare to find someone that has actually looked into this kind of thing online.

[tama]

18. 'Topsoil and Civilization'

is one of the best books on the subject, IMHO more to the point that Zerzan etc. "anarcho-primitivism" and the nihilistic critique of symbol.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. I think we're on the same track, but talking about related but somewhat different subjects.

It is my judgment that it really went wrong when we forgot(?) the purpose of currency. I believe that we have the knowledge/understanding to fix or minimize the agricultural/energy/environmental problems we face if we can separate currency from finance.

There is a reason that all of the major religions forbid usury. Without it, it is impossible to make money by simply having money.

[Zalatix]

10. Ah, someone else gets the fractional reserve ponzi scheme.

Would you say that zero population growth could serve as a major threat to the FRB?

I am thinking that once it runs out of new people to loan to, it could also run out of new loans to make... which could bring the system crashing down as it would then fail the the rule of compulsory growth.

[tama]

17. Would not say so

As far as I understand, the Ponzi scheme depends from exponential monetization of natural social and environmental relations (social and environmental "capital&quot , which can in principle continue also with negative population growth.

The relation of the financial Ponzi scheme to real economy and it's growth is complex, but one fundamental is "purchacing power" of the numeric symbols of power which depends on energy consumption per capital and it's growth.

It's hardly a coincidence that zero or slightly negative growth of energy consumption per capita and purely debt driven neoliberal consumerism began at the same time, three decades ago around 1980. And that the final(?) collapse of the Ponzi bubble of debt "wealth" began in 2008 when total global production of liquid fuels peaked, supply could not satisfy demand and demand destruction aka "austerity" really began.

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. K&R This hits on the foundation of nearly all of our problems today.

As recently as the 19th century, the argument over which is superior, capital or labor, was foremost in the struggle to create our new nation.

It was in the latter half that same century that the system of capital dominance was thoroughly established and we have pursued that path ever since. Sometimes faster and sometimes slower, but the advocates of capital, the rich, have captured the process and authority of government and we have been placed on this path ever since.

At some point we will still have to face the consequences of that choice. So far we have borne the inequity that comes with subservience to capital, but it does seem like the tension is currently close to the breaking point. I just hope I get to live long enough to see what we eventually decide.

[AndyTiedye]

21. Both Models Exclude the Real Value of Natural Resources

The labor theory of value assigns no value to anything but labor.
In that model, natural resources have no value except the labor of extracting them.

The capital theory of value is all about money, and the value of resources there
is determined by how rapidly they can be extracted relative to the demand for them.

Most of these resources can be replaced only very slowly, if at all, and neither model takes this into account.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. That is a very good point. However, I think it far more likely that a model that recognizes the

supremacy of labor over capital would be able to reflect that hidden cost.

The economics of plunder will, at some point have to end.

[woo me with science]

13. HUGE K&R It is time to start questioning our fundamental assumptions

about what metrics reflect a healthy society.

We drown in the propaganda of the one percent. Hard work, profit, economic growth, hard work, profit, economic growth, hard work, profit.... We are conditioned from the day we are born to run in their hamster wheels, for their profit.

We now have a society in which everything is geared toward corporate profit, even when the motivations for profit become diseased and destructive to society itself.

For-profit prisons and surveillance states, wars and privatization, cultivating a nation of poorly paid drone workers...These are all more immediately profitable for the one percent than good public schools, libraries, renewing our infrastructure.... Foster care for profit, prison for profit, education for profit, health care for profit....

Trade agreements, importing cheap goods from China, planned obsolescence of consumer goods so that everything is disposed into landfills and consumers are trapped in a constant cycle of buying, degradation of our food with cheap ingredients and shortcuts of questionable safety and nutrition....These things are all immediately profitable...

Making Americans work long hours, creating authoritarian/mechanized work environments, pushing temporary work over salaried work, reducing benefits and vacations and salaries, demanding more productivity for less recompense, reducing health insurance and safety nets, capturing workers in debt traps and forcing them to work until they die....These things are all more immediately profitable than building mutual loyalty between companies and workers and providing a structure for dignified retirement and old age...


Yes, it is time to question the assumptions. What makes a healthy society? What should we really be valuing here? Should working all the time for profit really be the most important and central goal of a human society? Maybe it is time to ask that question all over again--what makes life worthwhile for human beings? what do we want for our children?--and start from scratch to envision a society created to facilitate what really matters.


Great post you made there.

[Skidmore]

14. We have to stop with the notion that "entrepreneurs" are all knowing and that

a business owns its risk, not the public.

[Amak8]

15. When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned

You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money

[randome]

16. If our population keeps growing, so must the economy to keep our standard of living.

Until someone addresses that, we're doomed to keep trying to outdo the previous economic cycle.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. Except at a certain point...that becomes impossible

that point may very well be now. Facts: Conventional crude oil production has been flat since 2005 or so, at about 75 million barrels a day. The lack of new conventional crude oil supplies has led to growth in drilling for unconventional crudes (shale oil, tar sands) which are very resource intensive to produce, very polluting, and which don't break even below about $80-100 a barrel. The shortfall in conventional crude is made up, in addition to unconventional oil, by biofuels (which in the USA means corn ethanol, which accounts for the use of 40% of the corn crop), and by natural gas liquids and condensates. Other facts: the USA, with 5% of the global population, continues to use around 20$ of the world's oil. With the rise of China and India as major economies and increased competition on world energy markets, this can't really continue for very long; the American way of life is unsustainable at present levels of energy consumption. The plateau in oil production probably means in any case that the era of economic growth is over for good; oil is what fuels the global economy, after all. What we saw in 2007/2008, apart from the banking crisis, was a massive increase in oil prices and increased resource competition as global production was flat-out and there was no overhead for increase. Once that ceiling was hit, oil prices went up and up and up. Until the fundamental unsustainability of high prices, and the knock-on effect of high energy prices on every other sector of the economy, including personal income and the ability to repay loans, led to an inevitable recession...which is probably the first of many, and I personally expect it to become cyclical. Crash, feeble and sluggish recovery, rising energy prices, tight supplies, crash again, repeat.

[Locrian]

23. The Barbaric Heart

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4680/

[quote]This is the barbaric calculation: if you can prosper from violence, then you should go ahead and be violent. In short order the Barbaric Heart is led to conclude that in fact prosperity is dependent on violence. Therefore, you should be good at violence, for your own sake and the sake of your country. That was Roman virtu. Which is a way of saying that the barbaric itself is a form of virtue, especially if you think that winning, surviving, triumphing, and accumulating great wealth are virtues, just as, in order, athletes, Darwinians, military commanders, and capitalists do. Ultimately, these types are all the same. The athlete, the soldier, and the businessman all want to “win,” and by whatever means necessary. [/quote]