Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The power of language should not be ignored in analysing the desirability of
economic growth. For a society to be 'growing' implies that it is vital, alive,
expanding and achieving new possibilities. To oppose growth seems destruc-
tive, backward, and retrograde.
But economic growth is not the only kind of growth that society can
experience. Cultural growth, personal growth, scientific advancement, and
even spiritual growth are all attainable in a society where the amount of
goods and services being produced per capita is stable. In fact, it is highly
likely that these other dimensions of our selves and our society would be far
more likely to experience rapid growth if our creative energies and our phys-
ical and mental efforts were diverted away from the production and con-
sumption of new consumer 'needs'.
Leaving aside the potential benefits of a post-economic growth society -
as, no doubt, supporters of the status quo will do - there are wide-ranging
problems and pitfalls said to be inevitable if a society seeks to pursue low, or
zero, economic growth. There are three main objections that are typically
raised against a post-growth society, none of which remain persuasive when
carefully considered.
1 Without growth capitalism will collapse and everything will be thrown into
chaos
The most trenchant opponents of capitalism join with its most ardent sup-
porters in this view. The argument from the Left derives from Marx's analy-
sis of the accumulation of capital in which continuing expansion is at the
very core of 'the logic of the system'. Neoliberals share this belief in the logic
of the system and, like their counterparts on the Left, have difficulty going
beyond the mere assertion that capitalism must continue to grow or it will
die. This chapter does not attempt a detailed critique of Marx's accumula-
tion thesis, but some observations suggest a response.
First, if capitalism must continue to grow, must it grow at 4 per cent per
annum or will 2 per cent be enough? Would 1 per cent do, or something less?
At what point would capitalism collapse?
It is common for countries going through the industrialisation process to
sustain growth rates of 6 or 8 per cent for two or three decades but then see
the rate fall to the 2 or 3 per cent that typifies rich countries. In the 1990s the
Japanese economy went through an extended recession in which the average
growth rate in the decade to 2002 was around 1 per cent. In a country that
had been the envy of the Western world and the model for the Asian tigers,
