Surely "growth" is always a good thing? Yet in recent years some thinkers have been challenging the consensus that economic growth is an unalloyed good. So, should governments no longer aim to foster economic growth and instead aim at something else? If so, what should that alternative be?
There are several forms of challenge to economic growth. One is that the quest for material advantage does not bring about genuine benefits. Perhaps relatedly, where governments pursue growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the result is disappointing. Material gains do not seem to lead automatically to greater levels of happiness. Does this mean that GDP is the wrong measurement, such that pursuing an increase in GDP is not going to lead to a better outcome? Should we then abandon GDP and aim to grow something else? Or does GDP remain a useful metric?
A second challenge is that economic growth comes at the expense of environmental sustainability. Scientists have been reporting environmental damage to land, rivers, oceans and the atmosphere (climate) for decades, yet their degradation and destruction has continued. Is this destruction due to the quest for GDP growth? Is it due to human nature? Or is it the economic system? Is the problem then capitalism and the solution to replace it with eco-socialism? Or is a reformed capitalism in fact the best available response to environmental problems? Would that reformed capitalism also seek economic growth or something else?
As we see, questions about growth automatically lead to discussions not only of what to measure and target, but also how to undertake economic analysis and what kind of economic system we should have. The course will therefore consider options such as ‘eco-socialism’ and whether capitalism can be reformed to provide sustainable prosperity.
This short course considers the arguments of thoughtful economists about the topic of economic growth, encouraging you to come to your own considered position on this major discussion point of our age.