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World War, but there is ample evidence that growth is making us less and less happy. In
America, for example, GDP has been going up steadily since the late 1940s, but altern-
ative indicators of human well-being, such the GPI index (the Genuine Progress Indic-
ator— Figure 43 ), which take into account things that make us happy and discount those
that don't, peaked around the 1970s and have remained stationary ever since, despite
continued GDP growth. Clearly, growth is failing to make us happier. In the words of
the Australian economist Clive Hamilton, growth has become “an inanimate object wor-
shipped for its apparent magical powers”—it is a “fetish” that we worship irrationally
because our sense of self-worth is tied up with our power to consume.
Figure 43: GDP and GPI for the United States.
( source: www.redefiningprogress.org )
Growth is bad for Gaia, and the reason is blindingly obvious. We live in a world of lim-
ited 'resources', which will eventually run out as the growth economy exploits them to
exhaustion. It has always amazed me how economists seem unable to understand what
is patently obvious to little children—that the contents of the biscuit box will run out if
you eat them faster than your mum or dad can replenish them. A growing economy must
eventually wipe out all the forests, exhaust all the fisheries, mine all the minerals and
extract all the oil. Furthermore, growth will erode both a favourable climate and human
 
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