Re: [Pen-l] The fundamental crisis response. was Ecological credit crunch

[raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Max Sawicky <sawicky@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> We might want to ratchet down the level of hours per working age person, but
> ongoing growth in productivity (where output includes non-market amenities
> and accounts properly for environmental costs) is hard to reject.  It takes
> affirmative action to rebuild coastal wetlands, restore natural habitats,
> create alternative energy sources, save endangered species, help the
> developing world, explore the universe, and other good stuff.  Growth is not
> necessarily individualist consumerism.

To be clear, when I say growth I always mean GDP growth. I believe
this is the implicit understanding of the word "growth" for economists
and for the media. Some people like to redefine growth to mean an
increase in "well-being" to include such things as leisure
(Sandwichman?), but to me this seems to be not a good strategy. I
think it'd be better to confront the key issue directly that the
pursuit of endless growth is extremely harmful and we have to
seriously consider certain ideas that will definitely reduce GDP e.g.
driving less, buying fewer cars etc.

Ideally we should be entirely growth neutral. GDP numbers should have
no bearing at all on whether some project is desirable or not.


> Finally, the problem of the poor and the working class to a great extent is
> not too much consumerism.

I'd say there is a problem with forced consumerism. For the lower
working class, long commutes in automobiles are not a choice, but
forced on them because of urban land-use patterns, ghetto-ization etc.
Similarly many lower income people may be forced to eat at McDonalds
because they have to hold multiple jobs and are unable to cook
themselves a decent meal.

We should be working to reduce GDP by providing affordable housing,
transportation alternatives and the means to eat a home cooked meal.
As long as our discourse is dominated by growth and GDP, we will not
be even able to discuss these things. So I say change the discourse.
Challenge "growth" whenever it comes up implicitly! And it comes up
implicitly *a lot*.
-raghu.

-- 
Confucius say, dirty book rarely dusty.
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