Red Rag To A Bull

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This is going to drive pro-capitalists to drink lol. I have been reading up on alternative economics, looking at Herman Daly (whose work on Steady-state economics made more than a cameo appearance in both my Honours and PhD theses) who led me to a couple of seemingly outrageous theories, one of which is the concept of uneconomic growth, and the other a putative alternative solution to Steady-State, Degrowth, a mainly European project. Wiki defines this as: Uneconomic growth, in human development theory, welfare economics (the economics of social welfare), and some forms of ecological economics, is economic growth that reflects or creates a decline in the quality of life. The concept is attributed to the economist Herman Daly, though other theorists can also be credited for the incipient idea. The cost, or decline in well-being, associated with extended economic growth is argued to arise as a result of "the social and environmental sacrifices made necessary by that growing encroachment on the eco-system." In other words, "[u]neconomic growth occurs when increases in production come at an expense in resources and well-being that is worth more than the items made". e.g. If fossil fuel as used in motor vehicles is a major cause of environmental degradation and global warming, then the huge increase in car ownership in Chins, India, and Brazil means a further increase in environmental damage to the point that the short-term gain in economic progress will bring about a larger medium to long-term cost in damage to the enviornment which outweighs the economic gain by far. This, I am happy to say (not having seen it before I wrote the discussion post Limits To Growth) exactly reflects my own thoughts. I summed it up as the difference between Growth, an ideological construct, and growth, a natural and positive process. Degrowth is a much more drastic view of the same thing. It suggests we should actively work toward the destruction of wealth. Wiki: Degrowth is a political, economic, and social movement based on environmentalist, anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas. Degrowth thinkers and activists advocate for the downscaling of production and consumption — the contraction of economies — as overconsumption lies at the root of long term environmental issues and social inequalities. Key to the concept of degrowth is that reducing consumption does not require individual martyring and a decrease in well-being. Rather, 'degrowthists' aim to maximize happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means—sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community. This one has a lot of critics, and they have identified a few obvious problems, but degrowthists concede these problems and suggest there are simple solutions involving variable imposition of the process. Suzuki once suggested that growth should be limited to a maximum 3%, which he thought would be environmentally sustainable, especially in the face of possible technological advancements. This latter, in the example I gave above, might allow the rapid increae in car ownership through technological advances in sustainable energy sources. This "interest" is Changing the World, and I respectively suggest that here indeed is food for thought in that aim. Lash