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All capitalist countries define a lack of economic growth as a recession. What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits

by lucian1900 7y ago

All capitalist countries define a lack of economic growth as a recession. What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time?

chmod775 7y ago
> What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time? Wanting to do something is very different from having to do something.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Well, you kind of have to - otherwise people starve. There's lot of excesses and pointless elements to economies worldwide, but ultimately, at minimum they have to grow to compensate for population growth, or people will starve. And they really have to grow more than that, because a lot of people live in bad conditions and they justifiably want to earn their way out of it. Growth is currently needed in the world we live in; trying to eliminate it wholesale is self-destructing. But growth doesn't have to be as environmentally taxing as it is today, and we should strive to fix that.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >There's lot of excesses and pointless elements to economies worldwide, but ultimately, at minimum they have to grow to compensate for population growth, or people will starve. Several issues with this. There's no requirement that we need to have "population growth" above replacement rate. In fact we should probably have below for a while - and in many western countries we do. In which case "we need growth because we need to cater for the population growth" is a moot point. Second, "a lot of people living in bad conditions" does not necessarily means growth is required to get them out. Especially since we have unprecedented inequality and hoarding of resources by tiny elites. More equality / better distribution (and no grabbing from ex-colonial powers of developing world resource) would go a long way.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      RE second point, you can shift wealth from the richest to the poorest, but if you equalize everything and now everyone is miserable, you'll still need growth to correct this further.

All capitalist countries define a lack of economic growth as a recession. What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time?

chmod775 7y ago

> What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time? Wanting to do something is very different from having to do something.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Well, you kind of have to - otherwise people starve. There's lot of excesses and pointless elements to economies worldwide, but ultimately, at minimum they have to grow to compensate for population growth, or people will starve. And they really have to grow more than that, because a lot of people live in bad conditions and they justifiably want to earn their way out of it. Growth is currently needed in the world we live in; trying to eliminate it wholesale is self-destructing. But growth doesn't have to be as environmentally taxing as it is today, and we should strive to fix that.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >There's lot of excesses and pointless elements to economies worldwide, but ultimately, at minimum they have to grow to compensate for population growth, or people will starve. Several issues with this. There's no requirement that we need to have "population growth" above replacement rate. In fact we should probably have below for a while - and in many western countries we do. In which case "we need growth because we need to cater for the population growth" is a moot point. Second, "a lot of people living in bad conditions" does not necessarily means growth is required to get them out. Especially since we have unprecedented inequality and hoarding of resources by tiny elites. More equality / better distribution (and no grabbing from ex-colonial powers of developing world resource) would go a long way.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    RE second point, you can shift wealth from the richest to the poorest, but if you equalize everything and now everyone is miserable, you'll still need growth to correct this further.