Life without growth?

As a young impressionable economics undergraduate I recall being intriged by E.J Misham’s 1969 classic “The Cost of Economic Growth”. Misham wrote about the environmental impacts of resource depletion as more recent writers who talk about the survival of our civilisation  depending on reduced consumption and greater concern for the environment (e.g. Ronald Wright’s “A short history of progress”). Published research by my old employer Research International, back in 1989, showed that changing behaviour (like paying more for environmentally friendly detergents) would only happen when consumers felt personally threatened by the trends. If we look around us now we can see a big  increase in environmentally friendly products but is it enogh?

I often wonder what would life without growth be like? Would it be the panacea of living off the land, recycling everything, less stress, more time to be friendly to neighbours? or would it be like one long recession?  Higher unemployment, no new technology, endless repeats on telly, make the car last for 20 years instead of 10!  Maybe there’s a middle path? But to keep on the middle path, can capitalism survive?  Is state control the only alternative? Certainly, some of the Green Party talk suggests much greater state intervention to achieve the outcomes they want.

The answer must be that we create markets for environmentally friendly products and services, that we factor in resource use into our spending decisions. However, the problems we are having with the Emissions Trading Scheme are symptomatic of the difficulties.  Somehow we need to change our concepts of progress; replace the GDP measures of progess with a Happiness Index or the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) that we have heard so much about? My thinking, based on the Research International study, is that we are going to have to endure a lot more pain before these changes take place. Sad really isnt it!

Advertisement