The argument against economic growth falls apart

Time and time again we have heard the mantra of the anti-growth Nazis: economic growth means using more resources which in turn means more environmental destruction. This argument has been presented for so long now it has been accepted by the environmentalist community as gospel.

Now it turns out that it isn't true.

A careful look at the material use in Britain reveals that the British people consume the same amount of "stuff" today that they did in 1989, when the economy was three times smaller. In other words, in Britain at least, the connection between resource usage and growth has been decoupled. And yes, even when you take into account the fact that a lot of stuff these days is made in China and elsewhere, total UK consumption of resources has been falling for more than a decade now.

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Goodall discovered the Material Flow Accounts while writing a research paper examining the UK's consumption of resources. The pattern he stumbled upon caught him by surprise: time and time again, Brits seemed to be consuming fewer resources and producing less waste. What really surprised him was that consumption appears to have started dropping in the first years of the new millennium, when the economy was still rapidly growing. In 2001, Goodall says, the UK's consumption of paper and cardboard finally started to decline. This was followed, in 2002, by a fall in our use of primary energy: the raw heat and power generated by all fossil fuels and other energy sources. The following year, 2003, saw the start of a decline in the amount of household waste (including recycling) generated by each person in the country – a downward trend that before long could also be observed in the commercial and construction waste sectors.

In 2004, our purchases of new cars started to fall – as did our consumption of water. The next year, 2005, saw our household energy consumption starting to slump (notwithstanding an uptick last year due to the cold winter). And in 2006 we seem to have got bored with roads and railways, with a decline in the average distance travelled on private and public transport. All of this while GDP – and population – went up. Other consumption categories have been falling for much longer, Goodall points out. Despite concerns about the increasing intensity and industrialisation of our farming, the amount of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium fertilisers being applied to British fields has been falling since the 1980s. Our consumption of cement reached a peak at a similar time.

Even our intake of food is falling. Although obesity is on the rise, the total number of calories consumed by Brits has been on a downward slope for around half a century, driven by the fact that, compared with previous generations, we do less exercise now and live in warmer homes. Perhaps more remarkably, our intake of meat – the food most regularly highlighted as an environmental concern – seems to have been falling since 2003.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/31/consumption-of-goods-falling

They are an odd duck, much like Singapore. A country that has transitioned to producing little-to-nothing materially would be expected to have a lower material consumption (although they don't really).

Also note that consumerism (as public policy) started just after WWII but the article doesn't look at consumption patterns that far back.

My take-away from this is that his country's environmentalists are in the thrall of anti-growth thinking, and the writer in unintentionally crediting them with keeping their consumption flat.

It clearly says that material consumption in the UK is dropping even when you include materials that are consumed by outside economies in the production of goods destined for Britain.

Nice way to start and try to "energize" discussion, but of course, you are just "projecting"... ;)

Your conclusions are based on the mantra that economy (literally 'household management') and economic growth has something to do with the purely symbolic fetish of power called 'money'. GDP measures only that symbolic fetish of power, nothing more, and is not really meaningful measure in any way - except as measure of our collective lunacy.

Mindless consumerism creates mindless amount of waste, and it is good news that UK is cutting consumption and waste. Yes we can - and must. Consumerist economy cannot grow - measured in "stuff" or calories or energy units - and this article only proves that in UK it has already stopped growing, that "anti-growth nazis" aka basic science and common sense are right and mammon-fetish worshiping cultists are wrong. Overall good news but bad news to the increasing number of Brits who go hungry and homeless because of the artificial scarcity created by money-worshiping cult.

If the Holy Number of the money-worshiping cult (no, it's not economy and never was in the true meaning of the word) is now three times bigger than it was when consumerist economy was at same level measured in some physical unit, that only proves how disconnected the money-worshiping cult is from economy. And not only disconnected but contrary and harmful to wise household management on planetary scale, on this planet that is our common home.

As usual. :thumbsup:

Consumerist economy cannot grow - measured in "stuff" or calories or energy units - and this article only proves that in UK it has already stopped growing, that "anti-growth nazis" aka basic science and common sense are right and mammon-fetish worshiping cultists are wrong.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. What is your basis for saying that the UK economy has "already stopped growing"? I'm not sure, but it seems to me that you are claiming that the only thing that matters in an economy are things that have a physical unit associated to them: calories, energy units, or "stuff". If this is actually what you are claiming, I would strongly disagree. I would define an economy as the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a particular area (stolen from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy). Using such a definition, it is easy to see how an economy can "grow" without consuming more "stuff".

On edit: Since you seem to have a problem with the idea of money, I'll define my terms without using it. Let's divide everything in the economy to two categories: things people need and things people want. I will define things people need as anything that, if you did have it, you will die. The things you want is everything else. The things you need are things like food, clothing, shelter, medical care, etc--and just the bare minimum of those things. For example, I would not say a person "needs" a 2000 square foot house. A person can survive just fine with something a lot smaller.

Using these definitions, I'll define what I mean by growth. Let's say that one year the average person spends 20 hours a week working to acquire the things they need, and then the following year the average person spends only 16 hours a week working to acquire the things they need. Under these circumstances (if you assume a 40 hour work week) the economy can be said to have grown by 10%.

Fair enough?

"Using these definitions, I'll define what I mean by growth. Let's say that one year the average person spends 20 hours a week working to acquire the things they need, and then the following year the average person spends only 16 hours a week working to acquire the things they need. Under these circumstances (if you assume a 40 hour work week) the economy can be said to have grown by 10%."

I have a real life example, friend I've mentioned many times. He's not part of the monetary economy and does not contribute to GDP, he's self-sufficient, lives sustainably and works only 20 hours for all the material things he needs. Rest of the time he teaches, writes and plays music (not for money but just because he likes to) contributing thus to common good.

Compared to "working poor" American who needs two or three demeaning shitty jobs just to earn enough money to be able to buy basic minimum and has no free time, but contributes to GDP, which example is economic growth? I'm baffled.

Any example of growth requires a comparison of two different points in time. You are not doing that in either example.

that both examples could be taken as different points in time.

Is time development from first example to second example economic growth under your definition?

Is time development from second example to first example economic growth under your definition?

Do other people value the work performed by your friend more or less than the people in your second example? If he is a particularly good teacher and musician then moving from the second example to the first is growth.

his teaching and music is not "work" - he does not do that to acquire the things he needs. As said, he works 4 hours per day (gardening, gathering, etc.) to satisfy all material needs without need to buy or sell anything.

Also, in your definition you didn't say anything about value in the eyes of other people or how that should be measured.

Do you now wish to change your definition or answer my question based on your old definition?

perhaps I may try to offer some assistance. Let's say an average person dependent from money needs to work 6-12 hours per day to get enough money to get the amount of money he needs for buying what he can't produce himself (including paying of his mortage to bank, as roof on head is counted as necessity. Of course the so called surplus of his labor is enjoyed by the parasitical classes who don't actually do productive work but only move money and take interest and earn many times more money than the productive worker. Under current money-worshipping definition the money moving non-productive classes contribute most to the GDP and economic growth.

But under your definition of satisfying basic needs with less work hours is economic growth, so if average people would follow the example of my friend working only 4 hours instead of staying in the money worshiping cult and working 6-12 hours, that would be economic growth. What you are saying is that if average workers abandon modern wage slavery and go back to ways of life of "primitive" tribes, that is economic growth. Congratulations!

for your good work and skillful thinking, link to an essay written by my friend Lasse Nordlund with whom you agree, called "Foundations of Our Life": http://design.antigov.org/txt/Lasse_Nordlund.htm

Enjoy!

There is something almost comical about reading about the virtues of engaging in subsidence farming...on a computer connected to the internet.

In any case, that entire paper can be summed up this way: Lasse Nordlund prefers to spend his time doing X instead of Y. That's his choice, and I am glad both he and I live in a society where he is free to make that choice. I'm also glad I live in a society where he is free to publish a paper that encourages people to live that way. I doubt he will find many takers, but that doesn't really matter. He is living the way he wants to and loves it. I'm happy for him.

...because apparently I didn't convey my idea of what constitutes work adequately. See my other post (#17).

Under your definition his teaching and music is not "work" - he does not do that to acquire the things he needs. As said, he works 4 hours per day (gardening, gathering, etc.) to satisfy all material needs without need to buy or sell anything.

I'm not sure where you got that idea. Work can be done to acquire the things you need, or work can be done to acquire the things you want. I never said that activities designed to acquire the things you want were not "work". Work is any activity that produces things that other people want.

Also, in your definition you didn't say anything about value in the eyes of other people or how that should be measured.

I left it open to you to pick. The relative value that something has to society can be measured in a variety of ways. You can look at how much money people are willing to spend to acquire something, but I know you don't like that idea. You could also look at how much time people are willing to spend to acquire something. Sometimes you can just simply look at what choices they make. For example, let's say that there are two free events going on: a puppet show and a Mozart concert. If a thousand people show up to hear Mozart but only a dozen show up to watch the puppet show, it is fair to say that that particular group of people value Mozart concerts more than Puppet shows. I'll leave it up to you how to decide what metric is best in this case.

Do you now wish to change your definition or answer my question based on your old definition?

No. I'd like you to answer my question now that I've clarified the concepts of work and value.

Under your definition those were not work for things that he needs. Just left out that when writing in haste, logic remains the same.

Is time development from first example to second example economic growth under your definition?

No.

Is time development from second example to first example economic growth under your definition?

Yes.

This was fun, we played well. :)

But you know, this isn't really new information, right. This study might be another bit of the knowledge base, but there is a lot of work on the topic at the UN under the heading of "sustainable development".

Where we disagree is your labeling of all environmentalists with the face of an ignorant few. Those I know are well aware of the realities of life.

You want to throw that all away?? :mad:

You may well be correct that the consumption-growth link is not as strong as often claimed, but this simple collection of descriptive statistics does nothing to support your grandiose conclusion. There's no analysis of the data. No trend analysis. No correlation analysis. No significance testing. A complete omission of other factors, such as household income and CPI, that may influence consumption. A simplistic mapping of consumption of certain products against GDP is basically meaningless.

Here's the paper upon which the article is based. As you can see it superficial at bets:
http://www.carboncommentary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Peak_Stuff_17.10.11.pdf

I wonder how a similar comparison would fare if done on a country such as China or India.

...I imagine they would look very different from Britain.