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Extremely interesting take, with a lot of good stuff to think about. I'm unclear about the claim that less economic growth would be better, though, and the author seems very committed to it. I wasn't able to find the article they reference as explaining how less growth is what we really need (J.W. Forrester, World Dynamics, Portland OR, Productivity Press, 1971), and it comes from almost 50 years ago, which might as well be another economic era altogether. Does anyone know what the arguments are, what assumptions they require, and whether they still apply today? My understanding is that "less growth is better" is a distinctly minority take amongst modern economists, but the rest of this article seems very intelligently laid out, so I'd like to dig deeper. I've always thought that for any dial we have, there's always an optimal setting, whether it's tax rates, growth rates, birth rates, etc., and blindly pushing one way or the other (like both political parties tend to do) is not helpful, or at the very least merely indicates different value systems. |