[Pen-l] Re: critique of "growth" [was: Mankiw's critique of Obama's proposed fiscal policy.]

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

oops. I sent this by mistake. Ignore it for now.

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 1:54 PM, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Sandwichman wrote:
>> ... John Kenneth Galbraith remarked fifty-odd years ago:
>>
>> "If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is
>> plausible to seek to increase the supply, to decrease the waste, to
>> make better use of the stocks that are available, and to develop
>> substitutes. But what of the appetite itself? Surely this is the
>> ultimate source of the problem. If it continues its geometric course,
>> will it not one day have to be restrained? Yet in the literature of
>> the resource problem this is the forbidden question. Over it hangs a
>> nearly total silence. It is as though, in the discussion of the chance
>> for avoiding automobile accidents, we agree not to make any mention of
>> speed!"
>
> "Growth is good, all the time; all the time, Growth is good."
>
> That's a modified version of a Christian prayer. It's a perfect mantra
> for the orthodoxy within the economics profession. Naturally enough,
> they typically do not ask exactly what "growth" is. It's assumed that
> real GDP per person is an adequate measure of it; it's assumed that if
> real GDP per person rises, that's good for people. I've forgotten who
> it was, but one pen-pal said that he uses the word "growth" as
> synonymous with real GDP growth (per capita, I presume). This fits
> with the orthodoxy's perspective, even though that contributor does
> not like "growth."
>
> Empirically, because we live within a capitalist system, the kind of
> "growth" we see is _capitalist_ growth. GDP growth measures the growth
> of exchange-value, not use-value. (Adjusting for the role of inflation
> does not change that.) This growth in turn reflects the accumulation
> of capital.
>
> In a capitalist economy, the popular focus on real GDP makes sense
> (given the balance of political power). After all, if capitalists do
> not accumulate fast enough (so that real GDP does not grow fast
> enough), the availability of jobs falls relative to the number of
> people seeking them. Since the vast majority of people aren't
> independently wealthy, rising unemployment (as in the current
> recession) is a total pain. As has been noted, rising unemployment is
> associated with rising suicide rates, rising drunkenness, and the
> like. (Rising drunkenness may be associated with greater college
> attendance, as people give up on job-seeking and decide to go back to
> school, where people drink a lot.)
>
> As anti-growth folks note correctly rising real GDP per capita has
> been associated with rising destruction of the environment, rising
> hours of work per household, rising inequality, and other ills. This
> is especially true in recent decades. Real GDP is missing a lot as a
> measure of how well we're doing. In response, some have developed
> alternative measures of aggregate output such as the Genuine Progress
> Indicator (GPI). In this measure, the cost of environmental
> destruction is subtracted from GDP, as are other non-market costs.
> Also, non-market benefits such as leisure time are added into GDP. The
> total is also adjusted for the role of increasing inequality. The GPI
> (in real, per person terms) has largely been flat in recent years,
> even as real per-person GDP has generally risen.
>
> If the GPI is an adequate measure of use-value,[*] the contrast
> between its path and that of GDP (which measures exchange-value) is a
> symptom of the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value that
> Marx pointed to.
>
> Note the phrase "given the balance of political power" above. It's
> possible that a mass movement could impose
>
>
> [*] It's not, since use-values are non-quantitative and thus can't be
> added up. But something like the GPI may be as good as it gets.
> --
> Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
> way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
>



-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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