The Tyranny of Growth – How Raising Our Standard of Living Destroys Our Quality of Life

In 1972 the world respected Club of Rome issued it’s report, Limits to Growth which concluded:

Conclusions

After reviewing their computer simulations, the research team came to the following conclusions:[2]: 23–24 

1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.[c] The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.

3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.

— Limits to Growth, Introduction

The introduction goes on to say:

These conclusions are so far-reaching and raise so many questions for further study that we are quite frankly overwhelmed by the enormity of the job that must be done. We hope that this book will serve to interest other people, in many fields of study and in many countries of the world, to raise the space and time horizons of their concerns, and to join us in understanding and preparing for a period of great transition – the transition from growth to global equilibrium.

We can contrast this with the general societal term for economic disaster, referred to as a recession, although in reality it is more a matter of economic decline rather than disaster, but mention the word and wait for the ensuing panic.

The Canadian Encyclopedia defines recession as:

A recession is a temporary period of time when the overall economy declines; it is an expected part of the business cycle. This period usually includes declines in industrial and agricultural production, trade, incomes, stock markets, consumer spending, and levels of employment. In purely technical terms, a recession occurs when two or more successive quarters (six months) show a drop in real gross domestic product (GDP), i.e., the measure of total economic output in the economy after accounting for inflation. In this sense, recessions are broad and can be particularly painful and challenging times for a country.

It is ironic that we have a problem, unrestrained growth that we know is not just bad for the planet environmentally but also a threat to our economic system and yet we consider the solution, degrowth as the worst thing that can happen to the economy.

The middle class of western industrialized countries have been taken in by the myth of raising one’s standard of living being the be all and end all. The point of an increased standard of living is to increase one’s quality of life which is about more than just producing and consuming more stuff at the expense of the habitat we have to live in. Indeed this myth is used to promote an anti-taxation theology that leads to the under-funding of the very things that increase a society’s quality of life, health care, education, social safety nets and environmental protection among others.

Yes a certain level of income is necessary for a good quality of life and this can be provided by raising minimum wages to a living wage and providing a guaranteed annual income (universal basic income) for everyone.

The problem is that we measuring the wrong things when we want to measure how successful our economies are. A strong economy must be a reflection of a strong society. If we want to measure the success of our society it is not by measuring how rich the wealthiest people are or even so-called per-capita GDP numbers that are distorted by excessive wealth and income levels of a minority of privileged people. If we want to improve the quality of life of a society we must improve everyone’s economic status and build a society that provides everyone with more than just more stuff.

We need to start by measuring poverty and inequality and setting our economic goals at reducing those rather than increasing abstract measures of stuff acquired.

The Economic Crisis Opportunity – The Short Term Response

With the global environmental crisis comes a global economic opportunity. Just as the response to climate change involves solutions that we should be undertaking anyway, so does the global economic crisis. In the long term we have to change our way of living to save the global environment and the global economy.

In the long term we have to move from an unlimited growth economy to a limits to growth economy. In the short term we have to preserve the livelihoods of working people while preparing for long term changes. That means we need short term economic stimulus and job creation.

Short term governmental budget deficits are going to be a necessary part of this response. We must bear in mind that budget deficits shift payments to future generations so they should be utilized in a manner that benefits future generations.

First of all they must not be used to transfer money from future generations to the present generation via tax cuts. The use of tax cuts at this time to stimulate the economy is a flawed approach anyway as people are more likely to save during times of economic uncertainty, rather than spend, because it is the prudent thing to do. The only people who will spend the tax cut funds are those that do not need them. Using deficit funding for tax cuts is simply stealing from our children and grandchildren.

The most important thing we can spend stimulus money on is dealing with the infrastructure deficit. If your roof was leaking and you had to borrow money to fix it – would you do that or leave it to deteriorate till the repairs could not be avoided and the costs had multiplied many times over what borrowing to fix it would cost you. That is what we have done with our infrastructure, except future generations will be saddled with those inflated costs. In our short-sighted concern about avoiding budget deficits we have let our country's infrastructure go into a deficit. Using deficit financing to eliminate the infrastructure deficit will save, not cost, future generations money.

As well, damaged transportation infrastructure increases transportation costs, as poor infrastructure leads to more necessary repairs on private vehicles, as well as public transit vehicles, and greater fuel consumption with it's environmental costs. Decaying water and sewer systems have health and environmental implications. Inadequate educational infrastructure affects the quality of our children's education and our society's readiness for the future.

The other component of economic stimulus that should provided by deficit spending is preparing for the new future. We should not be spending any government funds, and in particular funds that future generations will be paying for, on the old failed economy.

No funds should go to fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Funding of the energy sector should be targeted at renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources,

Industrial funding should be targeted at low energy and environmentally friendly infrastructure and sustainable industries. Funding for the automobile sector should be target to next generation environmentally friendly vehicles and public transit infrastructure.

We must prepare our economy, and the public, for the transition to a limits to growth economy and for the need to share the planets limited resources more equitably between those who now live in abject poverty and those who live in wasteful abundance driven by greed. This will be an economy with the emphasis on self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability, an economy based on a sense of community, locally and globally.