The Growth Paradigm

Whenever anyone talks about economic health today, the focus centers on growth. Our assumption is that well-functioning economies grow at certain rates -- usually about 3% per year. Any faster, and the economy "overheats," and causes inflation at least in some sectors; any slower, and unemployment rises.

But what does any of this mean? First, "the economy" usually refers to the Gross Domestic Product, or the total  value of all the goods traded within a national political entity. By such an estimation, the US economy is huge and the economy of Costa Rica is small.

Three elements here deserve some attention. For one thing, the GDP is an aggregate. All economic activity is considered equally, and it is measured by monetary value. Manufacturing, service, agriculture all count exactly the same. Second, any activity not measured by the exchange of cash -- like child rearing, for example -- is not counted, even though it may have serious economic value. Third, the calculation depends on political boundaries without regard for the economic coherence of those lines.

Furthermore, this ideal demands a constant, infinite, obsessive quest for more -- more goods, more services, more items, more expenditures, more innovation. As Marx famously noted, the bourgeois economy (which he saw as exactly equivalent to bourgeois society) must change constantly. No better illustration of this principle is needed than Apple's model of rolling out a new iPad (or whatever) once a year, thereby rendering all of its previous products (and their accessories) utterly obsolete. Buy the new iPad and you need new "apps" and covers and connectors. Fail to buy the new iPad and you miss out on ... the new iPad. Apple's model has made it fabulously profitable, but it has also made it an icon of the bourgeois principle of growth. We all wish we could transform as quickly as Steve Jobs allowed Apple to do.

Under these assumptions, it is perfectly reasonable to seek new resources all the time. We can't make more stuff without more stuff. As things are done at the moment, the crucial resource is petroleum, but even many of those who see themselves as "green" would only change the crucial resource rather than changing the assumption that we need more resources. The debate is not over more or less (less is anathema) but between more of one thing and more of something else.