Re: [Pen-l] The specter of a no-growth world

[Sandwichman <lumpoflabor@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is a beautifully written and thoughtful essay. The notion of
fallow as investment without growth is expressed in one of the oldest
and most enduring visions of social justice: the "sabbath of the land"
or jubilee year in the old testament. Reducing the hours of work has
long been viewed as a "jubilee of labor", foregoing immediate
consumption for social opportunity.

On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 7:00 AM, Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/0081958
> Fear of fallowing:
> The specter of a no-growth world
>
> By Steven Stoll
>
>    Discussed in this essay:
>
>    The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and
> Culture, by Brink Lindsey. Collins. 394 pages. $26.95.
>
>    The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, by Benjamin M. Friedman.
> Vintage. 570 pages. $16.95 (paper).
>
>    Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, by Bill
> McKibben. Holt. 272 pages. $14 (paper).
>
> From the March 2008 issue. Steven Stoll is Senior Fellow at the Rutgers
> Center for Historical Analysis. His book The Great Delusion: A Mad Inventor,
> Death in the Tropics, and the Utopian Origins of Economic Growth was
> published this year by Hill and Wang.
>
> Costco shoppers navigate with carts broad enough to seat two children side
> by side. The carts had better be big. They need to haul gallon jars of
> mayonnaise, 117-ounce cans of baked beans, 340-ounce jugs of liquid
> detergent, and 70-ounce boxes of breakfast cereal. The coolers advertised
> for summer picnics hold 266 cans. Giant warehouse stores, shelved to the
> ceiling with goods from all the waters and forests of the world, make no
> excuses for consumption. But although Costco sells its goods in large
> packages, there is no item here that cannot be found at a corner grocery. So
> why don't I lighten up and buy a pallet of mango salsa? Because thundering
> all around me is the scope and scale of American economic growth. Here it is
> possible to see the enormous throughput of the economy—its capacity to
> mobilize resources and energy and turn out waste. One store manager, on the
> floor for fourteen years, tells me he has seen eight pallets of paper towels
> move out the door in a single day. At forty packages to a pallet, twelve
> rolls to a package, this means nearly 4,000 rolls. I can hear the sound of
> chain saws laying off as falling trees cut the air somewhere high in the
> Cascades. The question that comes to my mind whenever I catch a glimpse of
> aggregate consumption is always the same: How can it last?
>
> (clip)
>
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-- 
Sandwichman
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