Monday, January 19, 2009

Pro-Growth Propaganda: The Making of

Here's an enlightening excerpt from Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, written by Ernst Friedrich Schumacher and first published in 1973:

Can such a system conceivably deal with the problems we are now having to face? The answer is self-evident: greed and envy demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, and this type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment. We must therefore study the essential nature of the private enterprise system and the possibilities of evolving an alternative system which might fit the new situation.

8 comments:

akagugo said...

Ahem, SR Sir, would you be already familiar with this kind of 'degrowth' literature inspired by Serge Latouche and Tim Jackson?

Parceque Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), président de l'American Economic Association dit: « Celui qui
croit que la croissance peut être infinie dans un monde fini est soit un fou, soit un économiste. »

SR said...

While I may appear to sympathise with advocates of degrowth I actually do not subscribe to any form of binary (either/or) and TINA approach. What matters is an economic expansion that proves to be sustainable, inclusive and non-inflationary. How to achieve that is where I feel we should devote our energies? For instance, a context may call for more pro-market policies, another may beg for more pro-social measures. Yin/Yang stuff all the way indeed. I am afraid this is not achievable with a mindset bent on fetishism - whether ideological or political. I wish to recommend Edgar Morin's La Voie should you not have come across it yet. The (real)world is getting more and more complex, we reduce it to fit our whims and fantasies at our own risk and peril. Having said that I find Kenneth Boulding bang on.

akagugo said...

Ah, thank you very much for the new reading materials.
And your refusal of a binary categorisation of real life situations summarises nicely what I also try to practice in real life... Merci!

comrade said...

Thats y I keep saying, long live communism

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@SR
Pa bizin gaspiye zot lenerzi. Deza PM so somey penkor kase pu aret fer nu paye sa bann pri kuran exorbitan la.

Inn fini fer travay la. Nek pran sa fer inpe port a port.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@Comrade
Ideolozi se enn lot form relizion sa. A etre konsome en prive avek so "Bondye".

akagugo said...

Wai. Dilo suiv canal, ek dans suiv canal ideolozi avek blinkers sans poz kestion, nou perdi sanss trouve bann opportunité ek adapté ar nouvo situation. Nou bizin capave trace nou prop simé sans bizin rentt dans bann kaless-kassé - fodé ziss prend la-peine ignore bann ki content faire tapaz pou célébré zott-mem, ek écoute common-sense rationel.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Wi. Akoz samem enlightened trial-and-error pu tuzur dominn flawless planning. Google so perpetual beta baze lor premyer lapros alor ki Microsoft -- nun deza koz lor la -- baze plis lor deziem lapros (avek enn gro doz command-and-control).