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I’ve seen the argument for 2-3% inflation targets that this is the population growth rate, and so if economic growth doesn’t match, people would be relatively p
by voisin 3y ago
I’ve seen the argument for 2-3% inflation targets that this is the population growth rate, and so if economic growth doesn’t match, people would be relatively poorer. But then when we talk about the population aging, stagnating, or shrinking, we still seem obsessed with maintaining economic growth.
The desperate need for continuous growth will be the downfall of our species.
- midasuni 3y agoInflation is nothing to do with growth, and if gdp per capita is increasing that’s growth even if population is decreasing
- 11235813213455 3y agocontinuous growth is simply impossible in a bounded place
- voisin 3y agoAnd yet we’ve based our entire world economy on it and destroyed the environment and our psychological stability in attempting to subvert this immutable law.
- dukeyukey 3y agoNo growth functionally means your material life won't improve. Individual lots might improve, but only at the expense of others.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago> Individual lots might improve, but only at the expense of others. This is already true, we’re seeing the worst wealth inequality since the gilded age. The benefits of growth are increasingly being captured by the wealthy.
- logicchains 3y agoWealth equality is completely orthogonal to increasing standards of living. If you get 2x wealthier and everyone else gets 10x wealthier, wealth inequality has increased but your standard of living is still better than before, unless the sole thing you value in life is envy.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y agoThis is not true. To follow your example, if everyone around me is 10x wealthier, then the market adjusts and everything around me rises in price accordingly. This is the essence of gentrification. To your point, if the minimum wage in a lot of areas is $15, then why aren’t there any decent houses selling for $30k anymore like they were back in the 50’s? $15/hr is quite wealthy by those standards but it is becoming pretty poor nowadays. The problem with wealth is that we tend to measure it by the concrete dollar amount in our bank account and not the purchasing power it represents.
- arrosenberg 3y agoWrong. The person who got 2x wealthier will effectively be priced out of any market with limited supply. Maybe the odd person values TVs more highly than land and property, but for the rest of us, it would definitely feel poorer.
- harimau777 3y agoThat's only true in situations where relative wealth doesn't determine standard of living. For example, if someone is able to outbid me and buy up more than their fair share of the finite housing supply leaving me without a home, if a wealthy people can afford better schooling and therefore can outcompete me for desirable jobs, or if a wealthy person gets a greater say in government due to being able to donate to politicians.
- dukeyukey 3y agoIn that case we need plentiful supplies of all those things - build _lots_ of houses everywhere, easily accessible education, and a political system that dilutes the power of donations.
- tsimionescu 3y agoGiven that most of the world's wealth is in the hands of less than a thousand people or thereabouts, and that these are the same people who keep benefitting most from economic growth, there is plenty of room to improve everyone's lot in life while not even materially hurting the richest of the rich (most of whom could still live a life of unimaginable luxury with only a thousandth or a few hundredths of their current wealth).
- dukeyukey 3y agoAbsolutely, but a world without growth is also a world where there are zero possible challengers to those thousand people or so. I don't see this leading to economic egalitarianism.
- ta1243 3y agonot really. If you had a society where people worked 80 hour weeks to produce X amount of economic activity, and you moved that to a society working 20 hour weeks with the same productivity, that's an improvement in everyones individual lot.
- logicchains 3y ago> If you had a society where people worked 80 hour weeks to produce X amount of economic activity, and you moved that to a society working 20 hour weeks with the same productivity, that's an improvement in everyones individual lot. And that would show up as an improvement in GDP growth, because unless you banned private businesses, there's always going to be some people (business owners, independent contractors) working more than 20 hours, so they'd produce more than before, which would show up in GDP.
- schemescape 3y agoOnly if you ignore technology/productivity improvements.
- logicchains 3y agoNo GDP growth means no technology/productivity improvements, because such things are counted in GDP growth.
- schemescape 3y agoI think I was mistaken, but I thought they were talking about population growth.
- dukeyukey 3y agoA world without growth is necessarily one without technological improvements.
- schemescape 3y agoI thought you meant population growth.
- Tarq0n 3y agoInflation + growth is what makes a pensions system possible in the first place. Devaluing debt and growing capital allows for a period of no productivity at old age, otherwise it would be unaffordable.
- tcfhgj 3y agoIt = wealth distributed extremely unevenly and lots of unnecessary luxuries
- harimau777 3y agoHow do you define a necessary versus unnecessary luxury? Aren't all luxuries by definition unnecessary?
- tcfhgj 3y agoYes
- harimau777 3y agoSo what are you advocating? That everyone live in a non-descript gray apartment block, eat unflavored nutrient paste, wear identical undyed clothing, etc.?
- tcfhgj 3y agoPrioritizing what really matters
- Apes 3y agoThat's not true - Inflation + growth is what makes a pension fund designed for generating votes possible. Any system that intentionally pays out significantly more than people pay in is going to have sustainability problems. It's so bad with the California pension systems that they're facing immenant collapse, despite being in an economy with the highest growth rate in human history.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoIf Covid was as deadly as everyone thought, we'd have lost about 1% of humans and still seen population numbers grow that year. That's nuts. Also, population growth rates vary a lot by country. Many countries have a negative growth rate, whether due to birth rates or immigration rates. I think Canada's birth rate is almost as low as Japan's, but Canada allows a lot of immigration and Japan allows less.
- tcfhgj 3y agoDead people cost less than ill people
- onos 3y agoI’m pro growth and I don’t see any reason why that has to be done badly. Eg I also care about the environment being healthy, but think we can switch to solar and be smarter about other sorts of pollution etc and achieve both ends.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y agoI think Gresham’s Law applies here. The main problem is that caring about the environment becomes a competitive disadvantage to your business when your competitor doesn’t care and is willing to do anything to get ahead. Sometimes it’s fine if you’re a luxury brand trying incorporate sustainability into your brand, but that matters less in a B2B context. The “bad” money inevitably beats the “good” money.
- sologoub 3y agoWhile it starts out as an ethical choice, it is ultimately up to the society to define the minimum acceptable standard and prevent the “bad” money from “winning”. Unfortunately, that societal will requires greater societal and ethical cohesion.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y agoThe problem is that “bad” money eventually accumulates to undermine the political system. We see this now with dark money in US politics. “Bad” money works to circumvent society altogether and is not interesting in participating in a societally-driven dialogue about what’s ethical and what’s not. If it did, there would be no dark money or influencing-peddling in the system.
- sologoub 3y agoThat position assumes that society is relatively dumb and can be dupped into anything given enough money is spent. While in short term some of this might work, long term people tend to “wake up”, sometimes too late. This is where various checks and balances are vital and society needs to constantly remind its young people that ends do not justify the means. Something we are definitely losing these days.
- ianai 3y agoThis “degrowth” stuff probably makes sense if we were all at the carrying capacity of an interstellar generational ship. But simply housing, clothing, and feeding the disadvantaged humans would provide rocket growth for decades to centuries. India just passed China as most populous and only something like 60 million of their population participates in their elections. The rest are living very resource starved. That’s a huge potential for growth-simply choose sustainable ways to grow. And, great thing, they’re already largely vegetarian. And that’s just one of many populations.