When ‘Growth’ Is Not a Good Goal
Wherever you look, nations are trying to grow. American officials are once again at odds over how to rein in the federal deficit without slowing growth. In Europe, Greece has allowed mining projects, which could allow the economy to expand at a steep cost to the environment. And developing nations are striving to build up their economies in an effort to lift billions of people out of poverty. But is there a point at which nations should no longer strive to grow? What would be a better goal?
* be at odds = 상충하다; (~와) 다투어, 불화하여/ rein in ~ = ~의 고삐를 죄다(억제하다)/ federal deficit = 연방 재정적자/ strive = 분투하다
국가다 더 이상 성장하지 말아야 하는 시점이 있나요? 무엇이 더 나은 목표일까요?
1. Measure Gross National Happiness
National economic product is not a good proxy for progress. Look to factors like psychological well-being, community vitality and environmental quality.
2. Only Growth Can Sustain Us
Economic growth raises standards of living for rich and poor countries alike. The more growth, the better.
3. Unchecked Growth Is a Path to Poverty
Human population numbers and economic activity must stop growing. Our goal should be sustainability.
4. Progress for Whom?
The expansion of capital demands sacrifices. But those who make the sacrifices and those who progress are not the same set of people.
Sample Essay
Progress for Whom?
From the right to the left, there seems to be a consensus that there is nothing outside of capital. It is the only force, we are told, that can deliver us from poverty and want. It is the god whose appetite must be ceaselessly sated, for it to perform its miracles. The obsession with economic growth comes tied to this consensus, as the expansion of capital becomes the marker of “progress.” And progress, economists tell us, demands sacrifices -- for instance, in the dispossession of farmers for industry or the abolition of subsidies on cooking gas (in India) for the benefit of corporations.
However, those who make the sacrifices and those who progress are not the same set of people. Mass dispossession of peasants and artisans – as in India and China – to fuel an abstract idea of growth, is actually leading to increasing misery as these people lose control over their own lives. Because we know that full employment is impossible, people thus dispossessed become the detritus of urban landscapes. On the other hand, if governments leave people alone, they create their livelihoods with great ingenuity. Studies show that such entrepreneurship of ordinary people creates wealth that circulates outside the control of capital.
The so-called informal economies of developing countries were able to escape the financial crisis precisely because they are not fully integrated into circuits of global capital. But most governments try to control and regulate, even prohibit, such entrepreneurship, while zealously deregulating at the top. They need to redefine their idea of progress by working around these economies rather than making populations hostage to corporations.
In the dominant capitalist view, nature figured in as a mere provider of resources for the economy. It was a subset of the economy. We have lately begun to understand that in fact the economy is a subset of nature, whose resources are limited. This recognition alone calls for a complete reversal of our understanding.