Growth - elephant in the room
- Thread starter Corax
- Start date
Have you never watched Star Trek. To boldly go where no party has gone before.
spacemonkey
I Love Noodles
I don't think anyone gives a shit about 'future generations' tbh.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
It's not just a matter of finite resources. The need for growth is what leads to massive funny-money games that push our society into debt and to our savings getting sucked away into investments in far places where higher returns are possible rather than being re-invested in ways where our citizens can benefit. It's also very arguably what drives privatisation and PFI etc.
the button
out on the kocker
Innit. It's capital's need for growth, with the illusion of infinite potential created by the expansion and creation of new markets.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
I seem to remember that in the late seventies the Liberal Party had a policy of "zero growth". Imagine if they'd ever been able to put that programme into practice and our economy had been stuck at 1980 levels.
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
I think we have to try to reach for the stars even if we know we can never attain that. The future will be all about how we can survive & possibly thrive on a finite planet with finite resources. To do that I think we need growth generally. I hope lessons have been learn't about the continuing need for a functioning banking system & the importantance of not almost destroying it.
We've barely scratched the surface of the planet. Resources will become more and more expensive to extract, but there's shedloads to share. There are roughly 6 billion (6x 10^9) people; the mass of the Earth is roughly 6x 10^24 Kg.
That's 1x 10^15 Kg - or 1 trillion tonnes - per person.
I don't think we're going to run out any time soon.
radio_atomica
mrs vole the vet
I think people with kids do.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Bit of a funny way of looking at it. Try this one ...
Humans get over 99% of their food from land, 10 million ha of crop land each year is lost to soil erosion which is around 20-30x the rate of soil renewal.
About half the world's population is already undernourished.
That we should look after what we have better is unarguable. I'm just pointing out that we have no lack of resources. So there's no excuse for not taking better care, is there?
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
We do have a lack of productive agricultural land, and it's getting worse each year. The reasons why are directly linked to capitalist growth ...
rioted
redundant
Without energy, your resources are nothing.
spacemonkey
I Love Noodles
Nah, not really. I can't see any evidence of my parents generation mitigating their consumption for the sake of future generations.
spacemonkey
I Love Noodles
I think you summed up that logic in your first sentence.
We'll only ever scratch the surface of earth. The deepest borehole ever created was about 12km, about 1/3rd of the way into the continental crust. The crust makes up about 1% of the earth's volume.spacemonkey
I Love Noodles
There's going to being human suffering either way. I think sustainable management of soils, water & energy will cause far less suffering in the long run.
But that's a non sequitur.
There's no reason to believe that the absence of economic growth will lead to sustainability.
Equally, it is not inevitable that economic growth will lead to exhaustion of environment.
Indeed, with the current population certain forms of economic growth may be the only way to manage resources effectively and in a long-term sustainable manner.
spacemonkey
I Love Noodles
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
I think it's specifically capitalism that requires say ~3% p.a. growth to avoid severe problems. So yes, without growth you get a bunch of suffering *if you live in a capitalist society* but not necessarily another kind of society (at least that remains to be shown)
The corollary though is that if uncontrolled growth is a problem, and there are some very good arguments that it is, then you need to replace capitalism with a form of society that can handle zero-growth without shitting all over people.
I don't think any society could ever handle zero-growth.
It would be a recipe for decline and breakdown.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Why?
Because at root it would require zero population growth.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
So? Make sure women are educated and have access to contraception and make sure there's a social safety net for people in their old age and population growth stabilises.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well we are probably soon going to find out just quite how much oil has to do with our economy. I expect its probably been the most important driver of growth, a multiplier of massive proportions, and when it dwindles/massively increases in price we will see decline of such proportions that we we will consider it great just to get a slower decline rate, let alone growth. Having said that its possible we will still get growth in certain areas, and that we may change the stuff we are measuring so that we still have some numbers going in the right direction.
Hard to imagine this stuff not involving some ugly decrease in the quality of life, but again I think that in order to remain hopeful and thankful for something, rather than hopelessly doomed in the style of 1970s fatalism and woe, we will start to look at it differently. Down is the new up, less is more, slower pace of life & much less consumption will be a headfuck to get used to but has an upside that those lucky enough to survive the transition may yet get to appreciate.
Hard to imagine this stuff not involving some ugly decrease in the quality of life, but again I think that in order to remain hopeful and thankful for something, rather than hopelessly doomed in the style of 1970s fatalism and woe, we will start to look at it differently. Down is the new up, less is more, slower pace of life & much less consumption will be a headfuck to get used to but has an upside that those lucky enough to survive the transition may yet get to appreciate.
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