Richard Heinberg writes in the Guardian (UK):
"The tide of economic growth that has flowed since the second world
war may finally be ebbing. For politicians and most economists, this is
like saying the sky is falling. Growth has become guidepost and grail,
the sine qua non of economic existence. Growth is necessary to
job creation and the health of businesses. Without growth the rolls of
the homeless and jobless swell, requiring governments to shoulder more
responsibility; yet at the same time tax revenues fall, making both new
and existing government debt unbearable.
Stimulating growth
has become job No 1 for policymakers. David Cameron insists that his
nation must deregulate business and reform employment law in order to "go for growth".
And at the conclusion of the recent G20 global economic summit, the US
president, Barack Obama, reported that the discussions there had
revolved around the question, "How do we achieve greater global growth?"
Such statements raise nary an eyebrow; they are entirely expected.
Nonetheless, in recent years a few economists have advanced a contrary view. Tim Jackson in the UK, Herman Daly in the US, and Serge Latouche
in France have argued that growth is not always good for the
environment or for the real health of communities, and that GDP growth
is impossible to sustain over the long run anyway because we live on a
planet with limited natural resources. Their position has won few
adherents in the mainstream. In the "real" worlds of politics and
economics, questioning growth is like arguing against gasoline at a
Formula One race."
Read the full article here.
Polarities (Part 3)
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I’m talking about ‘causal loop diagrams’, which are graph with edges
labeled by ‘polarities’. Often the polarities are simply and signs, like
here: But pol...
5 hours ago
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