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To make it precise: growth is the next generation having a greater abundance than the current. If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you

To make it precise: growth is the next generation having a greater abundance than the current. If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you care about growth. Since we do not have levels of abundance which reach everyone even in rich societies, growth is everywhere a concern. To "question its value" is to say: since I have sufficient wealth, that'll do for the planet.

Joeri 7y ago
Well, let’s optimize for those things then. Right now growth mostly means making the rich richer. Trickle down economics have been discredited for a while. I wish governments would set quality of life targets instead of gdp targets. If you need to grow gdp to get to a better quality of life, fine, but please, let’s all stop spreading the lie that gdp growth inevitably leads to increased quality of life, because often it causes the reverse.
- mjburgess 7y ago
  lol. What has happened to poor countries in the last 40 years, and why? Answer: unprecedented levels of poverty dropping. Unprecedented, in all history, improvements in quality of life. Why ? Because people buy things they make. it's that simple and it hasn't been "discredited ". Growth is that continuing. What has been discredited is that idea that whatever spare crumbs the west has is sufficient to divide up for the poor. Redistribution as a mechanism of substantial long term improvement is a (genocidal) sham. Discredited by the whole 20th century
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > Growth is that continuing. For how long? Until when? What is the endgame?
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. Growth doesn't necessarily mean doing more, sometimes you can achieve growth by doing less. This will become a bigger focus in future.
      - Razengan 7y ago
        > Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. And then what? How will you maintain that? And how much of other species' habitats would we ruin to achieve that in the first place? People may never be satisfied with their lives as long as they perceive inequality (real or imagined).
        cameronbrown 7y ago
        Put it this way, if economic growth no longer happens, then we aren't growing as a species either. Are any of us prepared for the ramifications of humanity's peak?
  - jason0597 7y ago
    I think the reason you are being downvoted is due to your aggressive tone and due to you not including many sources in your claims (or at least, minimal reasoning behind them).
    - mjburgess 7y ago
      https://ourworldindata.org/ https://ourworldindata.org/ The reason I phrased it as a search term, rather than via reference, is to encourage people just to search for it. I'm sufficiently confident in the empirical evidence that any reputable-looking resource measuring these things over the last 40year will report what I describe.
Razengan 7y ago
> If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you care about growth. I care about diseases being allowed to spread more than they should in the name of growth. This pandemic happened precisely because of greed and the “growth” fetish. Poverty is skyrocketing now precisely because we didn't bother to stop to set up safeguards in our neverending lust for growth. I care about our privacy being forcibly penetrated to sell data on our every eye saccade in the name of growth. I care about every physical and virtual space being bombarded with advertisements during every waking moment in the name of growth. I care about having every single aspect of human existence from water to companionship, being monetized and curated in the name of growth. I care about IP franchises being milked to death and their corpses defiled and then their graves exhumed in the name of growth. I care about the vast biomes being burned down and entire species going extinct in the name of growth. I care about ethics and morals getting thrown under a steamroller in the name of growth.
- mjburgess 7y ago
  A word cloud of nonesense ideological boogeymen connected by free-association. In two years time when the death rate on C19 is reported at as-flu levels and the world is in a global depression with massive excess poverty, death, and abuse you'll be ranting then too -- just connecting these to "neoliberal conspiracies" as now. Rather, this will be caused by precise the lack of concern for the economy.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > A word cloud of nonesense The same could be easily said about your comments here, comparing "redistribution of wealth" to genocide.
    - mjburgess 7y ago
      Not a comparison, an observation. Those societies which tried to create prosperity by redistribution, found there is in fact too little to redistribute. And indeed, therefore, engaged in mass murder to deal with that scarcity. The same holds today. The GDP of the planet, distributed to all its population is a one-off 20k USD. Not enough wealth for almost anything. Wealth is about producing over time, and increasing global wealth, ie. decreasing global poverty, is about producing more. I think the failure to associate such policies with the genocides which underpin them is one of the great educational and moral failures of the 20th C. It hasn't been explained to people that our society is the most moral (by being the richest) in history because people engage in productive activities which provide for their own wealth.

Joeri 7y ago

Well, let’s optimize for those things then. Right now growth mostly means making the rich richer. Trickle down economics have been discredited for a while. I wish governments would set quality of life targets instead of gdp targets. If you need to grow gdp to get to a better quality of life, fine, but please, let’s all stop spreading the lie that gdp growth inevitably leads to increased quality of life, because often it causes the reverse.

mjburgess 7y ago
lol. What has happened to poor countries in the last 40 years, and why? Answer: unprecedented levels of poverty dropping. Unprecedented, in all history, improvements in quality of life. Why ? Because people buy things they make. it's that simple and it hasn't been "discredited ". Growth is that continuing. What has been discredited is that idea that whatever spare crumbs the west has is sufficient to divide up for the poor. Redistribution as a mechanism of substantial long term improvement is a (genocidal) sham. Discredited by the whole 20th century
- Razengan 7y ago
  > Growth is that continuing. For how long? Until when? What is the endgame?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. Growth doesn't necessarily mean doing more, sometimes you can achieve growth by doing less. This will become a bigger focus in future.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      > Until everyone on Earth is satisfied with their quality of life. And then what? How will you maintain that? And how much of other species' habitats would we ruin to achieve that in the first place? People may never be satisfied with their lives as long as they perceive inequality (real or imagined).
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Put it this way, if economic growth no longer happens, then we aren't growing as a species either. Are any of us prepared for the ramifications of humanity's peak?
- jason0597 7y ago
  I think the reason you are being downvoted is due to your aggressive tone and due to you not including many sources in your claims (or at least, minimal reasoning behind them).
  - mjburgess 7y ago
    https://ourworldindata.org/ https://ourworldindata.org/ The reason I phrased it as a search term, rather than via reference, is to encourage people just to search for it. I'm sufficiently confident in the empirical evidence that any reputable-looking resource measuring these things over the last 40year will report what I describe.

Razengan 7y ago

> If you care about global poverty, disease, famine etc. then you care about growth. I care about diseases being allowed to spread more than they should in the name of growth. This pandemic happened precisely because of greed and the “growth” fetish. Poverty is skyrocketing now precisely because we didn't bother to stop to set up safeguards in our neverending lust for growth. I care about our privacy being forcibly penetrated to sell data on our every eye saccade in the name of growth. I care about every physical and virtual space being bombarded with advertisements during every waking moment in the name of growth. I care about having every single aspect of human existence from water to companionship, being monetized and curated in the name of growth. I care about IP franchises being milked to death and their corpses defiled and then their graves exhumed in the name of growth. I care about the vast biomes being burned down and entire species going extinct in the name of growth. I care about ethics and morals getting thrown under a steamroller in the name of growth.

mjburgess 7y ago
A word cloud of nonesense ideological boogeymen connected by free-association. In two years time when the death rate on C19 is reported at as-flu levels and the world is in a global depression with massive excess poverty, death, and abuse you'll be ranting then too -- just connecting these to "neoliberal conspiracies" as now. Rather, this will be caused by precise the lack of concern for the economy.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > A word cloud of nonesense The same could be easily said about your comments here, comparing "redistribution of wealth" to genocide.
  - mjburgess 7y ago
    Not a comparison, an observation. Those societies which tried to create prosperity by redistribution, found there is in fact too little to redistribute. And indeed, therefore, engaged in mass murder to deal with that scarcity. The same holds today. The GDP of the planet, distributed to all its population is a one-off 20k USD. Not enough wealth for almost anything. Wealth is about producing over time, and increasing global wealth, ie. decreasing global poverty, is about producing more. I think the failure to associate such policies with the genocides which underpin them is one of the great educational and moral failures of the 20th C. It hasn't been explained to people that our society is the most moral (by being the richest) in history because people engage in productive activities which provide for their own wealth.