Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "growth"

In the Introduction, Gore summarizes the current trends that provide challenges for how we make choices for the future: the global economy, electronic communications, a new balance of political, economic and military power, unsustainable growth, powerful new science technologies, and the emergence of a new relationship between human civilization and Earth's ecology.

The details he provides in the first 100 pages range from new technology to internet influences and the problems with current economics and Citizens United. Looks like this will be a valuable resource for anyone writing about our prospects for the future.

I'm especially encouraged by his understanding of how complexity impacts these issues and by the extensive Bibliography, Index and Notes he provides.The Future: Six Drivers of Global ChangeAl Gore

The End of Normal: The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth by James K. Galbraith, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2014.
This book came out at the same time steadystate.org was making a strong case that "Enough Is Enough." A book with that title by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill was published at the same time we released our fictional portrayal of how no-growth economics might work—the award-winner The Webs of Varok (http://archivesofvarok.com).

My shelves are full of excellent non-fiction written in the last four decades by experts in many fields that agree that we must learn to pull back, stabilize populations, and conserve resources—that economic growth is not sustainable in the long run.

Nowadays, no one dare talk about population limits, but it cannot be reasonably separated from our concern that resources are limited. We are already seeing water shortages. Surely we can now agree that classical economics is faulty in neglecting to apply resource availability and scarcity in their equations. Galbraith makes the detailed case, sharing how the equations lead to false conclusions.

He reviews the Soviet Union's demise and how it sends a shadow of parallel concerns with America's loss of post-World War II's booming economy. Things have changed, and we cannot expect to see business as usual. In the end, Galbraith preaches "slow growth," assuming that some economic growth is necessary because human greed and power drives must be assumed.

Given that assumption, I don't see much hope. I believe he is wrong. We are smarter than that. We know that nothing real grows forever. Given the chance for a decent existence, the human being is a remarkable creature, capable of selfless reasoning and brilliant creativity. Capable, even of saying, "Enough is enough."

We can understand how a population of germs can grown and prosper in a closed test tube filled with liquid nutrients. We seed the test tube with a few multiplying bacteria. We watch the population grow until the resources—the nutrient broth—is used up. We can understand why the population growth of the bacteria then slows, then drops to zero as the death rate increases. For a while a few mutants survive on the wastes, then they wink out.

Earth is our test tube, but we are know now that our resources are finite. Therefore, with willful restraint, we can keep them available over millennia by recycling and keeping count, by being watchful, resourceful and efficient in maintaining a comfortable status quo.

Already our population overload may seem overwhelming. It's true that technology will help, but only if it adds to our efficiency. It can't save us if we squander what Earth supplies. Growth—even slow growth—is not a long-term solution.

Neither is escaping to some other planet, for all but very few of us. Again, realism raises hard-to-grasp concepts. The time, energy and distances required to travel through the galaxy--even if we invent speed-of-light buses—are huge. We must take care of planet Earth, and tame our baser instincts to reproduce beyond reason.

The End of Normal: Why the Growth Economy Isn't Coming Back-and What to Do When It Doesn'tThe End of Normal by James K. Galbraith, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Galbraith begins by mentioning books published as a result of the 2008 debacle—“misfeasance both in government and in the banking sector.”

Galbraith reviews our economic theory, its history and the current worries about capitol takeovers and continuous upgrading, while insisting on growth as the world’s fix-all. He describes calls from both D. Meadows and Herman Daly for recognition of the limit to resources, but he dismisses them as forgetting the “power of new reserves, new technology, and resource substitutes.” He concludes that we must “preserve slow growth…below what cheap energy and climate indifference once made possible,” forgetting that nothing material can grow forever.

It will require “…careful investment and persistent regulation.” Decentralized banks should only “…support household consumption or business investment…in low-cost ways.” To avoid the winner-take-all inequality of high growth, the low-growth economy should be “…based on more decentralized economic units…supported by a framework of labor standards and secured protection. Then all could enjoy value…education, health care, elder care, art and sport.

It’s not Herman Daly’s carefully crafted steady-state ideal, but it is close. The driving force and stress coming from continually growing human populations could easily overwhelm his slow-growth, equitable economic plans.