Scientific American – The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth

3 comments

1. Part 1 of 2

   Under a different post, in the comment thread, another redditor condemned me at length then instantly blocked me before I could offer a reply. They concluded with *Your comments are toxic, and aren’t based in reality.*

   Setting aside the silly and the petty, this person ignorantly (or maybe studiously) rejected my assertion that the #1 priority for viable candidates in our neck of the woods is to deliver MORE economic growth. Well, friend, I hope you’re reading (even though you blocked me) because you beat me on the noggin’ with fictitious opinions, whereas I come with sources. From The Conversation, see [“Economic growth tops the priority list for Canadian policymakers — here’s why”](https://x.com/ConversationCA/status/1783198242211258533?mx=2) dated April this year. If you don’t like that one, there are plenty of others.

   So what is my central thesis? Simple to say, hard to fix: The climate crisis is a SYMPTOM. The underlying disease is PEGA – Perpetual Economic Growth Addiction.

   First I’ll address capitalism’s addiction to growth. Then I’ll briefly visit systems ecology. And I’ll wrap up by returning to the other post and the linked article in that other post about climate scientists and their growing ecological grief.

   CAPITALISM IS ADDICTED TO ECONOMIC GROWTH ….. Western democratic governments MUST keep their population minimally satisfied as evidenced by their quiescence…. and quiescence is measured by the lack of open civil war and armed insurrection. To survive, governments must keep their population minimally satisfied, yes? UH OH SPAGHETTI-O….. no one has figured out how to make a population living under capitalism minimally satisfied without economic growth. If there is DE-flation those with capital (i.e., money) won’t invest in means of production for fear they won’t make back their original investment. Factories close, employees are laid off, and the domino effect explodes through the society. And then there is IN-flation, so those with capital (i.e., money) are unwilling to just let it sit there getting less and less valuable. They demand ways to put their capital to work so they can have enough profit at least to offset inflation. Applied to a whole nation, the only way owners of capital can have enough profit to offset the wealth-erosion from inflation is to grow the overall economy, so the slice claimed by any owner of capital at least grows as fast as inflation erodes their net worth. If the wealth-erosion from inflation and the wealth-creation from growth are balanced, that’s OK…. at least in the wealthy capitalist’s mind… after all in terms of net worth in that scenario the capitalist is treading water. But of course they’d like to get even *further* ahead, and that means growing the economy faster than inflation erodes value so the owner-of-the-money…. the capitalist… can enjoy PROFIT (like a good Ferengi). In 1622 for the Pilgrims that might have meant cutting 10 more trees than they cut in 1621, and growing 5 more bags of corn. But constant growth is at least linear if not exponential. In 2024, growing the economy above that of 2023 means a great deal more than cutting 10 more trees and growing 5 bags of corn.

2. Part 2 of 2

   SYSTEMS ECOLOGY …… Economic growth can be achieved by various means. For example, making efficiency improvements, so whatever raw materials you have, you can produce more with them. Next, you look at the wastestream and figure out ways to make goods or services from what used to be garbage. And you might invent ways to expand the services sector. Those are all great and they are all part of squeezing the last drop of juice (economic goods) from the turnip (the raw materials and ecosystem services that made it all possible). Well OK….. as the years have gone by the governments ensured their people were minimally satisfied by delivering economic growth using all those techniques. There is no more economic juice to squeeze out of efficiency, or waste recovery, or services sector. How do you deliver more growth? First….. you make your people want even more crap than they had before, so you evolve a consumer culture. Second…. you build in planned obsolescence, so things that are hard to repair break down and other things go out of style. Third…. you turn human beings lower on the consumption spectrum into first-world fullblown consumers. Well OK…. imagine you’re the government that has to make your people minimally satisified and you are ALREADY doing as much of all that as you can. You have to deliver STILL MORE economic growth. How do you do that? Simple. You increase the extraction of raw materials to feed your industries and/or the demands you place on “Ecosystem services”, even as Earth’s capacity to provide ecosystem services is diminishing. Wait……..Wait………………”ecosystem services” WTF? Well, read here…. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service) . The only problem with an economic system that demands a steadily increasing extraction of raw materials and demand on ecosystem services is that the earth is finite. Constant (if not exponential) growth in using raw materials and ecosystem services on a finite planet is impossible You can test this yourself. Grab a balloon, and blow it up, but keep blowing forever. Before you have to go to bed today what will happen to the balloon? It will reach a critical threshold and collapse. Many who are new to these ideas will be more familiar with money…. specifically, trust funds. The main investment is the “principal”. Ideally the investments are profitable and you receive dividends and/or interest. Disciplined beneficiaries never spend more than the dividends & interest. They leave the principal alone, so it hopefully produces as much dividends and interest next year. OOPS…. lots of college trust fund babies overspend, and have to withdraw from the original principal. Their spending habits suffered from “overshoot”. And so it is with NATURE… the most important principal in the most important investment account. NATURE can replenish raw materials only so fast, it can rebuilt the capacity of ecosystem services only so fast. Thanks to capitalism’s demand for nonstop growth….. the ever-increasing pressure to extract more raw materials and place greater demands on ever-shrinking ecosystem services….. we can only keep the global economy going by withdrawing from the original principal investment – i.e., NATURE – and our spending habits suffer from OVERSHOOT. One group tries to estimate Earth’s replenishment capacity, and compares that to our rate of depleting raw materials & ecosystem services. The calendar date we use up Earth’s renewal capacity is “OVERSHOOT DAY”. [https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/](https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/) And so viable competitive politicians across the spectrum all exist in the 600-year paradigm of capitalism and ALL promise *still more* economic growth, Even though we live on a finite planet.

   PSYCHOLOGY AT PLAY ….. It should be obvious by now that simply ditching fossil fuels and miraculously switching to zero-carbon energy won”t be enough to ensure stability or sustainability. It’s career-suicide for politicians to openly discuss these inescapable truths. And for climate scientists, equilibrium and longterm sustainability is impossible to achieve without admitting these inescapable truths and re-designing everything accordingly. And when I say everything, I mean we need a new interpretation of Adam and Even, we need a new set of national holidays and legends of national heroes….. we need a new set of visions and dreams to feed our babies before they have even opened their eyes.

   The climate grief expressed in the article in the original post is only the tip of the iceberg…

   At least if you know more about ecology and past mass extinctions and politics and economics than you know about sports and gaming and social media.

   But I guess saying so makes my comments *toxic, and [not] based in reality.* Well, friend, if you say so…. but for the cartoon version see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYloNl3Ee3w&feature=youtu.be&t=2m18s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYloNl3Ee3w&feature=youtu.be&t=2m18s)

   I’d be happy to have a civil two-way if you choose, in which case you’ll need to undo something on your end, first.

3. LtG is 52 years old, where on planet Earth have you been, bro?
   “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.