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Why does growth even need to keep occurring? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/peter-victor-deficit-growth http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/0

Why does growth even need to keep occurring? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/peter-victor-deficit-growth http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/peter-victor-def... "Technological advances make workers more productive every year. In the mainstream view, these labor efficiencies make goods cheaper, which leaves consumers with more disposable income—which they invest or spend on more stuff, leading to more hiring to fulfill demand. By contrast, the no-growthers would do things differently; they would use those efficiencies to shorten the workweek, so that most people would stay employed and bring home a reasonable salary. If new technology continued to drive productivity gains, citizens in a nongrowing economy would actually work less and less over time as they divvied up the shrinking workload."

gms 14y ago
Because for the latter scenario to hold true every society and organisation would have to agree to stop chasing growth. How would that even be done? Have a universal law that sets a ceiling on the amount of work one is allowed to perform in a week? That is unrealistic.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Or some form of socialism. Even a guarantee of some minimal income, even for the unemployed, should do the trick. With this method, you can think of the economy as a sliding scale of jobs that need to be done, and people willing to do them. As you increase the minimum income, you decrease the people willing to do the jobs, and as you decrease the minimum income you increase the people willing to do the jobs. The trick is to find the income that makes the two numbers equal. Now, as technology allows people to work more efficiently, the economy can support a higher effective minimum income. We can see how this could work even in our current system. At the moment, we have people willing and able to work who cannot. If we start giving every citizen some amount of money, either the unemployed will stop wanting to work, or the employed will decide that they would be happier working less because the additional money is no longer worth their time.
  - noahl 14y ago
    Interesting point. Thinking it through for myself, it seems important that the money be sent to everyone, not just the unemployed. Otherwise you'd get a weird situation where taking a job might not increase the amount of money you make - or even decrease it, if the rule is that you only get money if you have literally zero income. Giving money to everyone makes it much easier to view jobs as a sort of sliding scale where you work harder and get more money. Alternatively, you could set the minimum wage such that every job pays more than the base wage. But you'd still need a rule to deal with part-time work.
    - jacalata 14y ago
      We do already have this problem with high marginal tax rates (counting the drop in available welfare as part of that 'marginal tax') at the border between unemployed/low-income/middle class. This article gives some good examples of where it happens currently: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/01/effective-marginal-tax-rates-for-low-income-workers-are-high http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/01/effective-m...
      - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
        The other side of that same problem is that people who fall into lower levels of income have a very hard time proving they deserve access to the meager welfare programs that keep the permanently destitute from burning down society in a fit of lumpenproletarian rage.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    And where would the money for this "minimum income" come from? It's either printed, which simply inflates prices, or it's taken from the people who are actually working, which is not only a disincentive for them to work but also causes them to be resentful of the people who are sitting around on their couches being given an income. Socialism doesn't work. It's against human nature.
    - gizmo686 14y ago
afterburner 14y ago
People still need jobs to live well, low goods costs still doesn't necessarily compensate for rising rents, and the population keeps expanding. With a shrinking population on the other hand...

gms 14y ago

Because for the latter scenario to hold true every society and organisation would have to agree to stop chasing growth. How would that even be done? Have a universal law that sets a ceiling on the amount of work one is allowed to perform in a week? That is unrealistic.

gizmo686 14y ago
Or some form of socialism. Even a guarantee of some minimal income, even for the unemployed, should do the trick. With this method, you can think of the economy as a sliding scale of jobs that need to be done, and people willing to do them. As you increase the minimum income, you decrease the people willing to do the jobs, and as you decrease the minimum income you increase the people willing to do the jobs. The trick is to find the income that makes the two numbers equal. Now, as technology allows people to work more efficiently, the economy can support a higher effective minimum income. We can see how this could work even in our current system. At the moment, we have people willing and able to work who cannot. If we start giving every citizen some amount of money, either the unemployed will stop wanting to work, or the employed will decide that they would be happier working less because the additional money is no longer worth their time.
- noahl 14y ago
  Interesting point. Thinking it through for myself, it seems important that the money be sent to everyone, not just the unemployed. Otherwise you'd get a weird situation where taking a job might not increase the amount of money you make - or even decrease it, if the rule is that you only get money if you have literally zero income. Giving money to everyone makes it much easier to view jobs as a sort of sliding scale where you work harder and get more money. Alternatively, you could set the minimum wage such that every job pays more than the base wage. But you'd still need a rule to deal with part-time work.
  - jacalata 14y ago
    We do already have this problem with high marginal tax rates (counting the drop in available welfare as part of that 'marginal tax') at the border between unemployed/low-income/middle class. This article gives some good examples of where it happens currently: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/01/effective-marginal-tax-rates-for-low-income-workers-are-high http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/01/effective-m...
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      The other side of that same problem is that people who fall into lower levels of income have a very hard time proving they deserve access to the meager welfare programs that keep the permanently destitute from burning down society in a fit of lumpenproletarian rage.
- ams6110 14y ago
  And where would the money for this "minimum income" come from? It's either printed, which simply inflates prices, or it's taken from the people who are actually working, which is not only a disincentive for them to work but also causes them to be resentful of the people who are sitting around on their couches being given an income. Socialism doesn't work. It's against human nature.
  - gizmo686 14y ago

afterburner 14y ago

People still need jobs to live well, low goods costs still doesn't necessarily compensate for rising rents, and the population keeps expanding. With a shrinking population on the other hand...