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Four Planets – How Loud Does the Wake-Up Call Have To Be?
30th April 2015
By Chris Thomson
Guest Writer for Wake Up World
If the whole world were to consume energy and resources at the same rate as the USA, we would require approximately four planetsto meet the demand. Clearly we do not have four planets. We have only one very overstretched planet.
Some might therefore think it odd that we are constantly encouraged, by governments and companies, to consume more and more and more. It seems less odd when we remind ourselves that we inhabit an Alice in Wonderland world of topsy-turvy values, in which many of us over-provide for our material needs – getting fat, sad and unhealthy in the process – while under-providing for our spiritual needs – getting anxious, confused and unhappy in the process.
There is widespread recognition that all is not well. We hear every day about crime, corruption, war, global warming, poverty and inequality, disease, pollution and many other problems. The litany is all too familiar. But there are many of us who continue to believe that by making the economy even bigger, we will be able to solve these problems. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, economic growth is widely regarded as the universal solution, or at least the precondition. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that perpetual economic growth has become the central purpose of the world, a world that cannot tolerate any more of it.
We often hear about economic growth, but how many of us ever stop to ask ourselves what this really means? In fact, it simply means that more money was spent this year on goods and services than last year. When we take a closer look, we discover that many of the things that are growing are undesirable. The list includes traffic, crime, stress, noise, ugliness, pollution, violence, dishonesty, greed, unhappiness, inequality, not to mention all the damage to the natural environment and the climate. We say that these things are undesirable, but we have a schizophrenic attitude to them because some of them are growth factors in the economy, which we think are desirable.
Our chief measure of economic growth, GDP, registers the bad and the ugly as well as the good, without telling us which is which. Actually, it is worse, because GDP registers the costs of growth as if they were benefits. For example, if dealing with crime, congestion, pollution, and illness involve legal money transactions, as it clearly does, then this spending will be shown as part of GDP. If an increasing proportion of our economic activity is going on this kind of expenditure, as it is, are we justified in saying that we are doing well and that we need even more growth? In any event, it does not make sense for countries to compare themselves with each other on the basis of economic growth when so much economic activity in so many countries is either outside the official economy (transactions involving cash but which do not get recorded) or does not involve money at all (e.g. people doing housework or other unpaid work or bartering goods and services).
Genuine Progress
There are much better ways of assessing how we are doing as a society. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is an excellent example. In complete contrast to GDP, GPI subtracts the costs of dealing with crime, divorce, and pollution; it adds in unpaid housework and volunteer work; and it takes account of income distribution and resource depletion. In other words, it gives us a more accurate picture of how we are really doing as a society. Although GPI is being actively developed in New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and in some states of the USA, most countries continue to use GDP as their main measure of progress, despite the fact that it is highly misleading. It is significant that although GDP and GPI grew at about the same rate in the UK, USA, and Germany until the early 1970’s, after that point GPI levelled off or declined, while GDP kept growing. If the GPI is a better indicator of what is really happening, this tells us that, although the economy was growing, things were getting worse, socially, environmentally and in other ways too. Comparisons between the GPI and GDP tell us that, after a certain point in the development of any economy, the pursuit of economic growth causes at least as many problems as it purports to solve.
In economically developed countries, promoting economic growth in the hope that it will ultimately enable us to solve our problems is rather like using petrol to try to put out a fire.
Of course it is true that when people do not have their basic needs met, there is clearly a case to be made for growth. Economic development is undoubtedly required in those parts of the world where there is inadequate water, food, shelter, and healthcare and education. However, once these basic needs are met, the desirability of more growth becomes increasingly questionable, especially when it is associated with forms of “development” that usually mean disrupting the sustainable patterns of centuries. We make the mistake of thinking that because some people have less money or material wealth, they are worse off. Happiness is not necessarily synonymous with having more. More is not always better. Indeed, after a certain stage of development has been reached, economic growth is rarely synonymous with human development. On the contrary, it is closely associated with the many problems of our times, and with pressures to work longer and harder and to spend more. This begs the question: will this process – of having to work harder, and having to become more competitive – ever stop, or will it go on until the end of time as we keep trying to overtake each other in order to get ahead? That is a dismal prospect. Is it not time to make well-being and genuine human development the central purposes of society? And is it not time to acknowledge that these desirable goals may be in fundamental conflict with the goals of economic growth and ever increasing competitiveness?
Previous article by Chris Thomson:
- Navigating the Transition
- Are We Still Evolving? The Future of Human Evolution
-
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“It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that perpetual economic growth has become the central purpose of the world, a world that cannot tolerate any more of it.”
Not so much tolerate but, as there is only so much fat you can stuff down the throat of a goose before it chokes to death on it. Money growth is based on debt growth, we’ve reached the roof on that with nowhere else to go. It is 100% guaranteed to collapse under it’s own bloated weight. Each successive ‘government’ doesn’t want it to collapse on their watch, so they keep lying and slapping more sticking plasters on their system, but we have so many sticking plasters nothing of the original remains.
The solution is kill the too big to fail privately owned banks that have been given sole right to print more money. It’s actually a simple and easy solution. Kill the banks.
Way to go, you must be a liberal socialist, you brow beat people with your lies. China consumes more energy than America.
That’s because China produces the worlds goods, unlike America that produces nothing much apart from weapons of mass destruction for their constant warmongering.