Sustainability History Project

Patrick Emerson wrote a reply in the Oregonian on Aug. 8, 2010, in response to Jack Hart’s OpEd on the “fallacy of growth,” titled “Economic growth: The planet’s poor need sustainable expansion.”

Emerson has three primary crititiques of Hart’s assertion that growth is a fallacy:

1) “Hart’s views reveal a wealthy-country bias about what growth means and fail to appreciate the perspective of poor countries.”

2) “His characterization of growth is also inaccurate and perpetuates a common misconception about economic growth — that it necessarily means resource depletion.”

3) “Finally, his anti-growth agenda would leave the world more imperiled: Economic growth represents the world’s best hope to meet the challenges of the future.”

Emerson provides examples supporting his three contentions that show how Hart’s definition of “growth” is overly simplified. With this over-simplification, Hart is then able to characterize growth, in general, as fallacious. However, with an over-simplified definition of growth, Hart has actually engaged in a fallacy himself — the “straw man” fallacy, whereby a contrasting point of view is misrepresented so that it can be refuted more readily.

In contrast to Hart, Emerson sees “sustainable growth” as a solution to poverty and inequality:

Developing countries present a key challenge to a sustainable future because their growth often comes at a high environmental cost. When more than one in every 10 children dies in infancy, it is hard to prioritize the environment. It behooves the developed world, then, to create the proper incentives — through carbon taxes, technology transfers, grants and aid — so the poor countries of the world can achieve growth through sustainable practices.

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Jack Hart wrote a thought-provoking piece in today’s Oregonian outlining what he identifies as our culture’s misguided commitment to the “fallacy of growth.”[1] Hart finds that, in the short term, “growth supports families, relieves social pressures . . . pays for amenities . . . [and] offers opportunities for entrepreneurs . . .” However, he asserts that growth has long-term negative consequences that outweigh the short-term benefits: “growth is also an addiction. And, like most addictions, it threatens to destroy us.”

Hart doesn’t see “sustainable growth” as a viable option, either:

Hardly anyone, it appears, stops to think that ‘sustainable growth’ is an oxymoron. Combine constant economic growth with a constantly growing human population, place them on a finite world with finite resources, and you have a recipe for unsustainability.

Providing alternatives to the “fallacy of growth” are “a small but growing contingent of “steady-state” economists and activists is arguing that humanity needs to find a better way.” These include:

** E. F. Schumacher‘s Small Is Beautiful (1973) which “made the case for reasonable consumption combined with fulfilling work and community life.”
** Kenneth Boulding‘s “Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth” (1966) that “argued for truly sustainable consumption.”
** Herman Daly‘s idea of “steady-state economics.”
** New Economics Foundation (UK) “Happy Planet Index.”
** New Economics Institute (MA).
** Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (VA).
** De-Growth Vancouver (BC).

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[1] Jack Hart, “The fallacy of growth in a finite world,”Oregonian, Aug. 1, 2010.
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