Re: Does capitalism really need growth to survive?

[Colin Danby <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

>From Mat:

>>
Supposedly Keynes said, "If a man marries his housekeeper, GNP goes
down."  Should unpaid housework and child-rearing be accounted for?
Should we subtract resource depletion, adjust for externalities,
consider volunteerism or other non-market production?
<<

I'd heard this attributed to Pigou.  But it may just be a macro
commonplace.

>>
These are worthy questions for discussion in my view, but perhaps not
for others.  That's the nature of an e-mail list.  If no one is
interested, the thread will dissolve. Mat
<<

Households in general are a PK weakness, perhaps because generic PK
macro assumes that hhs are merely reliable income-spenders.  You mention
a PK bias to growth; I'd note a PK love for the formal-sector firm that
tends to ignore other sites of production.  Notice how scant the PK
literature on consumer finance is (Peter Howells is a noteworthy
exception).  Households can leverage their operations; households have
cash flows and future-dated obligations.

I find the question of "what should be counted" relatively uninteresting
in the form in which it's usually presented (e.g. Marilyn Waring),
because it tends to misplaced concreteness.  More interesting is the
issue of how we delimit the range of questions we are willing to ask.

Best, Colin