5 ms·
That's rather wrong, though it's a common enough bit of nonsense slung at the degrowth movement. In any reasonably modern use of the word, "growth" is defined
by Syonyk 3y ago
That's rather wrong, though it's a common enough bit of nonsense slung at the degrowth movement.
In any reasonably modern use of the word, "growth" is defined as "exponential growth" - percent year over year growth. We expect companies to grow by N percent, every year - this is how expectations are phrased. And while it may be a small number, "1% growth, year over year," is still an exponential curve.
The first question that matters is, "Can exponential growth continue forever on a finite planet?" We do live on a finite planet. Pick whatever metric you want and continue exponentially, you will run into limits, eventually. Various physics bloggers have played with this rather extensively over the years. A trivially true statement we don't often consider is, "Anything that can't go on forever will stop at some point."
Combine those two, and exponential growth on a finite planet will stop at some point.
People try to argue around it via "decoupling" or "But asteroids" or various other methods, and some have some effects, but so far, they've either been "one time" sort of gains (various lighting or transportation efficiency gains), or "slowing the rate of the exponential growth" - but not fundamentally changing the problem of it being exponential.
Given that, if you agree with both, there are then two general categories of response to it. The first, and I'd argue the current default, is to kick the can, and assume that someone or something else will fix the problem (or, more practically, that you'll die before it becomes a problem you have to deal with). This means that the collisions with the end of growth will be uncontrolled and generally quite destructive (as "accelerating into the approaching cliff face" tends to be).
The alternative, which is what the degrowth movement argues for, is finding ways to terminate the exponential growth before we hit those walls. Under our current economic systems, that does imply something that looks like a recession/depression, but that's not the goal - that's just a transition from a "must grow" economy to a "steady state" sort of economy in action.
And there's a lot of debate what it looks like, but I'm not convinced it's worth going into the details of that here, now.
So... if you're going to criticize a movement, at least try to understand it first?
- peepeepoopoo5 3y agoYou opened by saying that you're not proposing economic stagnation, but then wrote several paragraphs arguing for economic stagnation. Human technology isn't a finite resource.
- Syonyk 3y agoDo you believe that exponential growth can continue forever on a finite {planet, solar system, galaxy, universe}? If not, then we will eventually have to deal with the problem. We can do it now, or later. Personally, I think "sooner" is better than "later" to deal with it, because I don't see us meaningfully getting off the planet, so maybe let's not trash the place worse.
- peepeepoopoo5 3y agoIt's a fallacy to suggest that economic growth is finite, because human invention isn't a finite resource.
- Syonyk 3y agoHuman invention isn't, but energy certainly is, and the correlation between "economic growth" and "energy use per capita" is very, very strong. At least some of the "degrowth" has been a result of "financialization services," or the fine art of playing investor games enough times that you end up believing you're immune to things like, say, the 2008 housing crash. But we clearly disagree on this matter, and I don't see a point in continuing to go around on it. Time will tell which of us happens to be closer to correct.
- ChatGTP 3y agoHuman invention can also have its problems too. While it might not be finite, the risks can be infinite. For example Nuclear energy and weapons, bio-engineering, AI, genetic modification, fossil fuel based power generation, factory farming and more. I’d argue they nearly all the technologies on that list are economically driven, or have a an economically driven component. This is dangerous because it means someone will invent potentially harmful shit to keep riding the wave of economics.
- csdvrx 3y ago> Do you believe that exponential growth can continue forever on a finite {planet, solar system, galaxy, universe}? Yes, I believe exponential growth can continue forever, for 2 reasons: - 1) because you assume the universe is finite. This is a very long shot, not supported by mainstream science or theories. - 2) should the 1st point be eventually disproved and the universe has boundaries, I still do, because growth isn't only hardware. Software growth can leverage the increase gains from hardware (more storage density, lower power requirements etc) What's more plausible is that the growth rate will eventually tend towards a much lower value when most of the human needs and wants are satiated. Stagnation is implausible, because even if needs might be finite, wants are not. What's totally implausible is degrowth.
- yyyk 3y agoThese are common enough bit of nonsense slung by the degrowth movement. A 1% economic growth does not at all correspond to 1% increase in resource use. Saying that something can't go on forever is an irrelevant non-argument (just about nothing will 'go on forever'). Even if these had any connection to reality, that still does not suggest steady-state (maybe we'd want to expand and contract based on energy/resource availability?). In the 70s, the limits movement had measurable arguments - which did not pan out. Apparently their successors response was to renounce all measurement and make an argument about maybe the far far future. If we used that 'logic' in the past we'd still be living in caves.