Why the Economy Should Stop Growing - and Just Grow Up

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/36730-why-the-economy-should-stop-growing-and-just-grow-up

Listen to the political candidates as they put forward their economic solutions. You will hear a well-established and rarely challenged narrative. “We must grow the economy to produce jobs so people will have the money to grow their consumption, which will grow more jobs…” Grow. Grow. Grow.

But children and adolescents grow. Adults mature. It is time to reframe the debate to recognize that we have pushed growth in material consumption beyond Earth’s environmental limits. We must now shift our economic priority from growth to maturity—meeting the needs of all within the limits of what Earth can provide.

Global GDP is currently growing 3 to 4 percent annually. Contrary to the promises of politicians and economists, this growth is not eliminating poverty and creating a better life for all. It is instead creating increasingly grotesque and unsustainable imbalances in our relationship to Earth and to each other.

<snip>

“How do we grow the economy?” is an obsolete question. The questions relevant to this moment in history are “How do we navigate the step to a mature economy that meets the needs of all within the limits of a finite living Earth?” How do we rebuild the strength and power of living communities? How do we create a culture of mutual caring and responsibility? How do we assure that the legal rights of people and communities take priority over those of government-created artificial persons called corporations?

Living organisms have learned to self-organize as bioregional communities that create and maintain the conditions essential to a living Earth community. We humans must take the step to maturity as we learn to live as responsible members of that community.

[Sherman A1]

1. K&R!

This is indeed long overdue. We really need to rethink and reorganize how we are doing things.

[Fuddnik]

2. You can't grow forever.

[Fast Walker 52]

3. a very important point indeed

we need new language to discuss this, or a new paradigm.

[On the Road]

4. Imagine Having Put This Philosophy Into Practice a Hundred Years Ago

Now imagine the world today if that had been the plan.

[Enthusiast]

5. Just embrace stupidity instead. Yay, Idiocracy!

[genxlib]

6. I have had these thoughts many times

I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly.

However, I keep coming back to two things.

One, this is inextricably linked to population growth. In order for the economy to stabilize at a set level, it must be accompanied by a level population. I am not certain we have the will to accomplish that on our own but it will be forced on us some day.

Two, I fear that economies are like sharks. They may not be viable at a standstill. Which leads to the next conclusion. If they can't continue going up, there is only one other way for them to go if they keep in motion.

They are both dark thoughts but I fear that we humans lack the selflessness and cooperation it would take to accomplish it without disaster.

[Locrian]

7. great article

On the same topic - Douglas Rushkoff's book "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity" goes in depth on this. As long as we have an economy based on growth (which is the way it works with an economy based on debt) we are locked in this system.

[Hydra]

8. I've been of this opinion for a long time

But climate change is the last nail in the coffin. We have to evolve into a negative growth economy to survive. Right now we are eating into our future needs, so either we cut back and let the earth regenerate, or a lot of us die off later.