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January 03, 2009
Growthbusters
I just came across a particularly dumb site called Growthbusters. They claim that a growing economy is a bad thing and that if we can just get our situation static or reduced even, the general situation of humans will improve. "The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever. Companies get bigger. National economies need to swell by a certain percent each year. People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more - ever more.Of course Donna isn't too smart. Are there really enough computers in the world? Wouldn't it be good to increase those numbers? Do we really have enough accessible bandwidth? Or would it be good to increase the amount of bandwidth? Is everyone on the planet well fed? Or would it be a good idea to continue to increase the food supply? Is everyone on earth well housed or would it be a good idea to deploy more housing? Does every one in the world have access to enough energy supplies? Or would it be good to improve it? What we know empirically is that population increases fastest in places that are the most economically deprived. That very fact was brought up in the comments to this Democratic Underground post. One thing not brought up by the Enough! folks is that we can make more by making things smaller. Nanotechnology to the rescue. We can also make more with what we have by translating ideas into technology. For instance we can get more out of a pound of iron by making it stronger with various alloys. We can make plastics stronger by strengthening them with carbon nanotubes instead of glass. Concrete can be strengthened by reinforcing it with steel. We can make more food with the land we have by improving the productivity of our crops. Biotechnology to the rescue. So what commodity are we really shortest of? What is our most glaring lack? Knowledge. We need to be doing more to grow our knowledge base. There is a place where growth can continue unhindered for centuries if not millennia. The results should support humans quite nicely. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 01.03.09 at 03:33 PM
Comments
When taken to the extreme, I agree with you. However, there is a certain wisdom to prevent something from growing too big, especially if it is feeding off a limited supply. Any corporation that is too big to fail is too big to exist in the first place, IMHO. Same goes with government. In fact, I think they go hand in hand. Donna B. · January 4, 2009 12:16 AM oh, Chrome says the Growthbusters site hosts malware. Donna B. · January 4, 2009 12:17 AM The only malware on the Growthbusters site is a little virus called critical thinking. Be careful, it may cause you to question the conventional wisdom: because growth and expansion has provided a lot of benefits over the past 200 years, that must be what we are supposed to do for eternity. Thanks for talking about this subject. We're trying to get people thinking about just how logical it is to expect never-ending growth on a finite planet. Dave Gardner Dave Gardner · January 5, 2009 10:01 PM Dave, As long as we keep making things smaller there is a lot of room for growth. And when (if) we do run out of room on the planet there is still a lot of room in space and on other planets. In any case as long as there are a lot of poor people on Earth there is a lot of growing that NEEDS to be done. M. Simon · January 6, 2009 12:35 AM It's about so much more than space! It's about the land to grow the food to feed the people, the land to process the waste, the resources to meet housing and clothing needs, the jobs (which also consume resources) and the energy to run it all. The average American has an ecological footprint of 24 acres. If the only way to raise the poor out of poverty is to increase the wealth and consumption of the rich, then we are screwed. Dave Gardner Dave Gardner · January 9, 2009 09:31 AM Dave, I don't see why. Re: actual consumption patterns - the rich in America consume about 4X as much as the poor. The rest goes into investment making us all richer over time. As to land needed to grow food. That has been declining for several centuries. So much so that the forested land in America has doubled since 1900. And the decline in land required to grow a given amount of food continues to decline. All your assumptions are based on stasis. We are no where near stasis. And as people get richer reproductive rates decline. More wealth IS the answer. We are not screwed. Wealth continues to increase. There are now almost as many in the middle class in India as there are citizens in the USA. A very good thing. Poverty is the cause of the worst ecological disasters. With wealth comes the opportunity for remediation. At $3K to $5K per capita people start getting interested in environmental preservation. Poverty is your enemy - not wealth. M. Simon · January 9, 2009 09:46 AM Post a comment
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If Donella really wants the economy to start declining, maybe she should consider becoming an anarchist because human civilization has always been about production for the greater good. Even in the wild, where there is no civilization, animals and plants compete and try to collect and use the most resources they can so that they can grow and survive.