Article Title: Economics in a Full World
Author: Herman E. Daly
Growth is thought to be the universal cure for all the major economic ills in the world. To eliminate poverty, just grow the economy and increase the production of goods and services and prompt consumer spending. Don't redistribute wealth from rich to poor because that slows growth. To remove unemployment, increase demand for goods and services by lowering interest rates on loans and investment which leads to more jobs and growth. To solve overpopulation, push economic growth and rely on demographic transition to reduce birth rates. However, the world's human population has increased and the "ecological footprint" of each person in developed countries has increased also. The main idea behind sustainability is to shift the path of progress from growth, which is not sustainable, to development, which is. A sustainable economy not only requires a demographic transition of people, but of goods too.
We need to start making decisions and choices to achieve a sustainable economy. If we don't, the world will be more polluted and depleted of necessary items for living and natural resources. The article says "Avoiding this calamity will be difficult. The sooner we start, the better." I totally agree with this quote. As the world's population increases, more resources would be depleted and if this continues, we might have a mass extinction on Earth; like what happened to the dinosaurs but instead of a giant meteor wiping out the whole race, it will be famine. The sooner we start conserving our limited resources, the better chance we have of surviving.
Author: Herman E. Daly
- Growth is thought to be the universal cure for all the major economic ills in the world.
- Poverty - just grow the economy, increase production of goods and services and prompt consumer spending. Don't redistribute wealth from rich to poor because that slows growth.
- Unemployment - increase demand for goods and services by lowering interest rates on loans and investment which leads to more jobs and growth.
- Overpopulation - push economic growth and rely on demographic transition to reduce birth rates.
- Uneconomic growth - producing bads faster than goods, making a country poorer.
- U.S. may have already entered the uneconomic growth phase.
- Some people benefit from uneconomic growth and have no incentive to change.
- Any subsystem must at some point cease growing and adapt itself to a steady rate - birth rates must equal death rates and production rates of material must equal depreciation rates.
- Human population has increased, "ecological footprint" has increased.
- As the world becomes full of us and our stuff, it becomes empty of what was here before; to deal with this, scientists need to develop a "full world" economics to replace our "empty world" economics,
- The main idea behind sustainability is to shift the path of progress from growth, which is not sustainable, to development, which is.
- A sustainable economy requires a demographic transition not only of people but of goods.
Growth is thought to be the universal cure for all the major economic ills in the world. To eliminate poverty, just grow the economy and increase the production of goods and services and prompt consumer spending. Don't redistribute wealth from rich to poor because that slows growth. To remove unemployment, increase demand for goods and services by lowering interest rates on loans and investment which leads to more jobs and growth. To solve overpopulation, push economic growth and rely on demographic transition to reduce birth rates. However, the world's human population has increased and the "ecological footprint" of each person in developed countries has increased also. The main idea behind sustainability is to shift the path of progress from growth, which is not sustainable, to development, which is. A sustainable economy not only requires a demographic transition of people, but of goods too.
We need to start making decisions and choices to achieve a sustainable economy. If we don't, the world will be more polluted and depleted of necessary items for living and natural resources. The article says "Avoiding this calamity will be difficult. The sooner we start, the better." I totally agree with this quote. As the world's population increases, more resources would be depleted and if this continues, we might have a mass extinction on Earth; like what happened to the dinosaurs but instead of a giant meteor wiping out the whole race, it will be famine. The sooner we start conserving our limited resources, the better chance we have of surviving.