Life after the end of economic growth

[robertpaulsen]

Life after the end of economic growth

Richard Heinberg
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 November 2011 06.14 EST


The tide of economic growth that has flowed since the second world war may finally be ebbing. For politicians and most economists, this is like saying the sky is falling. Growth has become guidepost and grail, the sine qua non of economic existence. Growth is necessary to job creation and the health of businesses. Without growth the rolls of the homeless and jobless swell, requiring governments to shoulder more responsibility; yet at the same time tax revenues fall, making both new and existing government debt unbearable.

Stimulating growth has become job No 1 for policymakers. David Cameron insists that his nation must deregulate business and reform employment law in order to "go for growth". And at the conclusion of the recent G20 global economic summit, the US president, Barack Obama, reported that the discussions there had revolved around the question, "How do we achieve greater global growth?" Such statements raise nary an eyebrow; they are entirely expected.

Nonetheless, in recent years a few economists have advanced a contrary view. Tim Jackson in the UK, Herman Daly in the US, and Serge Latouche in France have argued that growth is not always good for the environment or for the real health of communities, and that GDP growth is impossible to sustain over the long run anyway because we live on a planet with limited natural resources. Their position has won few adherents in the mainstream. In the "real" worlds of politics and economics, questioning growth is like arguing against gasoline at a Formula One race.

But doubts about growth are no longer theoretical. We seem to have arrived at a moment when further economic expansion is hemmed in by financial as well as natural limits. As extraction industries chewed through the low-hanging fruit of the world's oil, coal, natural gas and other minerals, and turned to lower-grade and thus more expensive ores and fuels, managers of the economy tried to keep growth going by piling up debt in the mistaken belief that it is only money that makes the economy run, not energy and raw materials. Today, high oil prices are keeping a lid on commercial expansion in the older industrial nations as petroleum demand shifts to the hyperactive economies of Asia, which for now can afford steeper fuel prices. Meanwhile, we in the west seem to have maxed out government and consumer credit, and that realisation is sending financial markets into fibrillation. With energy resources and credit both stretched tight, that means more economic growth may simply not be possible in the US and Europe, regardless of our opinions about it.

more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/30/end-of-growth

[tabatha]

1. Libertarians will hate to see this

they think growth is endless.

[villager]

2. They are, in a sense, true flat Earthers, believing the planet extends to an infinite horizon

...rather than there being any limits or finitude on the orb we actually inhabit.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[Demeter]

4. We must distinguish between Growth, Speculation, and Profiteering

Growth hasn't been seen for quite some time.

Instead we've had bubbles and speculation, and economic warfare by "hot money" sloshing around the global bathtub, scalding whichever nation it hits to benefit the banksters and increase their hoards.

And, we've had theft, fraud, racketeering, all of which steals from the law-abiding and rewards the gangsters in charge. That theft ensures that growth cannot happen.

You know it's growth when: somebody gets food, shelter, education, medical care, public infrastructure, or even a reduction in pollution. An increase in the commonWEALTH, that is the only real form of growth. Everything else is more like a deadly cancer.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

5. +1000

[grasswire]

6. !

clearly stated

[GliderGuider]

7. Global growth is continuing

Here is the resource usage that underpins the growth Heinberg is talking about. The only thing that makes it slow down is global economic recession. The only thing that would make it stop is permanent global depression. We seem to have arrived. If so, welcome to Peak Everything. We hope you have enjoyed your short flight on Spaceship Earth.