Copyright © 2010 Joseph George Caldwell. All rights reserved. Posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org. May be copied or reposted for non-commercial use, with attribution to author and website. (14 December 2010; updated 15 December 2010)
This note is an extract from Miscellany53.
Growth-based economics is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. It is the root cause of the human-caused sixth mass species extinction now in progress. Growth-based economics, debt-based money and interest. Within a few hundred years, it can destroy a planetary ecosystem.
What a system! It is perhaps the greatest system ever conceived for building things. Greed is an incredible motivator for most people, both slaves and masters. Slaves under threat of death do not work nearly as hard or creatively as “free” men (economic slaves) who are allowed to retain a substantial portion of the product of their work. The only problem is that this system is not stable. It can only grow, until it runs out of some critical resource, such as space, energy, or water. When it ceases to grow, it collapses. Exponential-growth (geometric-growth) systems are like explosions, and explosions do not last very long (the “Big Bang” being a possible exception). The essential resource of the current global economic system is fossil-fuel energy. As this energy source depletes, the system will “crash and burn.” (Actually, it will crash and burn even if some other alternative energy source were found to replace fossil fuels, since the large human numbers and industrial activity enabled by massive energy availability is causing the destruction of the biosphere in which we live – the Sixth Mass Species Extinction.)
The current system of growth-based economics is about to collapse. We are passing “Hubbert’s Peak” on “Hubbert’s Curve” – the point where global oil production is peaking. Yet the politicians cry only for continued growth. On television this morning (14 December 2010), President Obama was quoted as saying, with respect to the pending bill to extend the “Bush” tax cuts, “The country needs this bill to make the economy grow.” Grow, grow, grow. That is all politicians and economists care about (with the exception of a few “steady-state” economists such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (author of The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Harvard University Press, 1971, 1999)), Herman E. Daly (author of Beyond Growth (Beacon Press, 1996)) and John B. Cobb, Jr. (with Daly, author of For the Common Good (Beacon Press, 1989, 1994))). I recently read two interesting books about the current Great Recession – Joseph E. Stiglitz’ Free Fall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy (W. W. Norton, 2010) and Paul Krugman’s The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (W. W. Norton, 2009, 1999). These books – particularly Stiglitz’ – were quite interesting (I will summarize them in a later Miscellany), but all they are concerned with is economic growth. Growth-based economics has a stranglehold on the planet. It would have worked fine for a short time, to accomplish great materialist strides, but it is like a heroin addiction that the world can’t shake, even though it is quickly destroying the planet’s ecosystem. It will soon collapse (and I don’t mean in ten or twenty years – I mean within the next few years).
FndID(1)
FndTitle(Growth-Based Economics Is the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction)
FndDescription(Growth-Based Economics Is the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction (an extract from Miscellany53))
FndKeywords(growth-based economics; steady-state economics; weapon of mass destruction; planetary managment; biospheric destruction; nicholas georgescu-roegen; herman daly; john cobb; entropy law; eonomic growth; environmental destruction)