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.