The problem with economic growth...

by Richard Douthwaite

If any aspect of green economics makes the average person deeply unhappy, it is its claim that we have to halt economic growth. This is understandable. After all, who doesn't find the idea of a higher income attractive? Moreover, most of us believe that economic growth is responsible for the comfortable lives the majority of people in industrialised countries enjoy today and, for the minority who aren't so fortunate, we find it heartening to be able to tell ourselves that the extra resources generated by the next few years' expansion should bring them up to a reasonable level too, provided the gains are properly allocated. This means that there's no need for us to give anything up to make the poor better off, a wonderful notion as it stops us feeling guilty about our affluent life-style. And as for the Third World, surely it's obvious that growth is necessary to raise living conditions there too?
The easiest way of handling these appealing pro-growth arguments is not to try to untangle the strands of truth, falsehood and self-interest they contain. Rather it is to tell ourselves and anyone else who will listen, that while growth seems desirable, not all growth is good. Just as the wrong form of uncontrolled human growth, cancer, can be damaging and even fatal, so can the wrong sort of economic growth. Unfortunately, the wrong sort of economic growth is the type we've largely been getting for at least twenty years. Why? Simply because if a largely unregulated market is left to decide which sectors of the economy are to expand and how they will do so, it's impossible to ensure that good growth comes about.

http://www.feasta.org/growth.htm