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Extremely interesting take, with a lot of good stuff to think about. I'm unclear about the claim that less economic growth would be better, though, and the aut
by ewjordan 8y ago
Extremely interesting take, with a lot of good stuff to think about.
I'm unclear about the claim that less economic growth would be better, though, and the author seems very committed to it. I wasn't able to find the article they reference as explaining how less growth is what we really need (J.W. Forrester, World Dynamics, Portland OR, Productivity Press, 1971), and it comes from almost 50 years ago, which might as well be another economic era altogether.
Does anyone know what the arguments are, what assumptions they require, and whether they still apply today? My understanding is that "less growth is better" is a distinctly minority take amongst modern economists, but the rest of this article seems very intelligently laid out, so I'd like to dig deeper.
I've always thought that for any dial we have, there's always an optimal setting, whether it's tax rates, growth rates, birth rates, etc., and blindly pushing one way or the other (like both political parties tend to do) is not helpful, or at the very least merely indicates different value systems.
- Jtsummers 8y agoIt’s a book, not an article, which is why you’re having trouble finding it. Niche and long out of print it seems. But I haven’t read it yet either so I cannot comment on its arguments.
- lcam84 8y agoThe book is called "limits to growth", and it's a work of the Club of Rome. You can watch this video to have an idea of their work [1]. At first it's a very strange idea, afterall we work and consume everyday in order to grow the economy. But every healthy system as a homeostastic point, a point where it doesn't need to grow, only to be maintained. We are now a fat society and we need to get our health back, we need to degrow. We need to work much less hours and consume much less. Reducing working hours is a great leverage point. People will start to have time to care about the community, and take care of their own health. Maybe have more time to take a walk instead of using the car. This can improve health and environment but will not contribute to economic growth, healthy people that don't use cars are not good friends of economic growth based on GDP. English is not my mother language, Ursula Le Guin had an eloquent post about this on her blog, but was removed to be on the last book. The post is called "Clinging to a Metaphor" (the metaphor is economic growth) and the book is called "No Time to Spare". [1] https://youtu.be/kz9wjJjmkmc https://youtu.be/kz9wjJjmkmc
- westurner 8y ago"The Limits to Growth" (1972) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth "Thinking in Systems: a Primer" (2008) https://g.co/kgs/B71ebC https://g.co/kgs/B71ebC Glossary of systems theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_systems_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_systems_theory Systems Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory ... Computational Thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_thinking Which of the #GlobalGoals (UN Sustainable Development Goals) Targets and Indicators are primary leverage points for ensuring - if not growth - prosperity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals