Continual growth has been our background belief about how the economy works for 150 years. Perhaps it is time to return to those thinkers who didn't make this assumption.
[you too can reproduce this graph: only the ratio of two variables; have at it]
The year 2000 is a special fulcrum. It is the meeting point of the two slopes. (caveat: the jump in GDP right prior is alleged to be due to money being squirreled away in the new-fangled IRA retirement savings accounts)
Is it glass-steagall repeal? is it the secular trend interest rate dropping below 4%?
Whatever it is, money growth has been un leashed from GDP (rich get richer w/o GDP contribution).
Not quite comprehending this James, if under a socialist programme we switched to putting our efforts into (say) building more useful things such as schools, colleges and hospitals instead of putting the valuable earth resources into useless personalised trinkets of the capitalist consumer market; then we would still be increasing GDP as we are still actually building the physical “stuff” and increasing services for peoples’ use. A net social gain.
Now the only way that you could actually shrink GDP without society being in a more impoverished state is if the shrinkage exactly matched efficiency gains in the same period of time. Otherwise all shrinkage in GDP would result in some sort of impoverishment overall. Quite how that impoverishment was distributed would be another matter of course.
So in order to protect the environment what we are after surely is Green Growth not No Growth?
Aside: Aye! 'Tis true!
" inequality will increase when the returns to wealth are above the rate of growth "
It's been happening from Y2K onwards...money growth over and above GDP.
https://imgur.com/gallery/CbC2z5Q
[you too can reproduce this graph: only the ratio of two variables; have at it]
The year 2000 is a special fulcrum. It is the meeting point of the two slopes. (caveat: the jump in GDP right prior is alleged to be due to money being squirreled away in the new-fangled IRA retirement savings accounts)
Is it glass-steagall repeal? is it the secular trend interest rate dropping below 4%?
Whatever it is, money growth has been un leashed from GDP (rich get richer w/o GDP contribution).
We are living Piketty.
Not quite comprehending this James, if under a socialist programme we switched to putting our efforts into (say) building more useful things such as schools, colleges and hospitals instead of putting the valuable earth resources into useless personalised trinkets of the capitalist consumer market; then we would still be increasing GDP as we are still actually building the physical “stuff” and increasing services for peoples’ use. A net social gain.
Now the only way that you could actually shrink GDP without society being in a more impoverished state is if the shrinkage exactly matched efficiency gains in the same period of time. Otherwise all shrinkage in GDP would result in some sort of impoverishment overall. Quite how that impoverishment was distributed would be another matter of course.
So in order to protect the environment what we are after surely is Green Growth not No Growth?