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It's not that I don't understand that (I live, by choice, where the population density is 1/40th that of Netherlands). And, if Netherlands wants to choose not

It's not that I don't understand that (I live, by choice, where the population density is 1/40th that of Netherlands). And, if Netherlands wants to choose not to grow, that's great. That's not encountering some inherent limit to growth, though, as the article implies - it's choosing not to grow. I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. I've never seen an economics model that convincingly has a path for no-growth. Clearly, we all need one.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. That’s a trick question. You have to take into account that the way we mesure economic prosperity nowadays - mainly via GDP - is deeply flawed. Externalities are discounted everywhere. The way we chose to measure and control the economy really serves to enforce a power structure which is becoming more precarious by the day. If you look at the facts, the insane productivity gain of the twentieth century should have allowed every human on this planet to live a fairly good life. Materially speaking we could be living in a world free of hunger and extreme poverty and it’s something we can sustain in an ecologically friendly way. Yet inequality is rising nearly everywhere. What we are witnessing currently is a complete failure of leadership. We have built a complex system which is greatly advantageous to a few and their greed makes them prefer the destruction of everything to risking a chance of a change happening.