> A stable economic system requires two components: growth and inclusivity. Stability and continuous growth would seem to be incompatible, surely? > Economic

> A stable economic system requires two components: growth and inclusivity. Stability and continuous growth would seem to be incompatible, surely? > Economic growth matters because most people want their lives to improve every year. It may be true that most people want that but so what? I'm a big proponent of everyone having a decent level of quality of life, that's not the problem. The problem is taking a child's view of reality and trying to make it stick when it comes to deciding policy. We can't "improve every year" forever. What does that mean? A larger house each year? I can understand saying that as a political move to get people on your side, but it's irrational. We must design forms of economic growth that respect basic physical reality. > In a zero-sum world, one with no or very little growth, But we don't live in a zero-sum world. We live in a bubble sandwiched between hard vacuum and magma that hosts a fantastic chemical tautology powered (mostly) by the energy gradient between the Sun and the rest of the dark sky. This process is not zero-sum. In order to have a stable system with continuous growth there must also be death and decay. - - - - I think we could set up a "split-level" economy that is physically steady-state and virtually growth-and-death dynamic. The physical economy would be much simpler and much much more efficient than it is today, and everyone would have a decent standard of living within their energy/pollution budget. Most of the wins and losses and creativity and innovation and all that good economic drama would happen in the online virtual economy where it can't cause environmental issues with our Spaceship Earth. But I don't think you have to make national policy to do that. Buy some land in the desert, build "Village Homes"[1] with some integrated regenerative farms, rent/lease/sell it and repeat. Build hyper-efficient ecologically harmonious neighborhoods. We could do this today, it's self-funding and self-correcting. The major issues there would be putting together the expertise and getting past the red tape. All the technology you would need is off-the-shelf. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes