Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#201

Post by Bjartr » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #137

Bjartr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a given that this will show up as GDP growth, even accounting for approximation error? If I make widget X twice as efficiently and buy fewer resources, isn't that a GDP loss? Or is there an assumption that I would make twice as many widgets and purchase the same resources AND be able to sell twice as many?

The idea is roughly that the remaining resources (that purchasers save by paying half as much, and you save due to being more efficient) would be used to produce something else that previously didn't exist, so the total amount of "stuff"/"product" produced would be greater. Now, you might wonder if X was saved, but then X was spent on something else, doesn't GDP remain the same? No, because GDP is supposed to capture…

Aha, thanks for the explanation, it's just what I was looking for. I thought GDP was more blunt than that.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#202

Post by machiaweliczny » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

esjeon wrote: post #109

"Growth" is surely a good way to ease domestic pressure, but I believe it's not the only option. What we need is more "optimization", not corporate-wide, but society-wide. The idea is still vague even to myself, so let me give a concrete example: self-driving car. While CV/AI-based self-driving cars certainly can drive, it should still acquire most critical information, like signals, crossroads, lanes, obstacles, etc…

100% agree - Most likely data interoperation/protocols need to be enforced by government as there is no economic incentive to do so otherwise.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#203

Post by scottlocklin » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #149

raducu wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are being disingenuousby saying 200 years. Except medical advances and science, I'd be all willing to trade ALL the economic "growth" in the first world of the last 20 years if we could also revert wars, climate change and destruction of habbitat for the last 20 years. Oh, and by "growth" I mean the insane asset price inflation and concentration wealth, strengthening of the military-industrial complex, mo…

Do you also mean AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing, etc? Also - I agree that growth in the first world came at the expense of the middle class - but in much of the rest of the world, it didn't. I was _massively_ poorer 20 years ago (and not just me, most of my country, really). And it's not a singular thing - AFAIK a lot of people came out of poverty in those last 20 years. In east asia & paci…

Has there been some enormous breakthrough in any of these things "AI, space flight, genome research, evolution of computing" in the last 20 years? Pretty sure there hasn't been! I mean, Pentiums are faster I guess! Not as different as people seem to think though. Otherwise; nothingburgers for anybody's real world experience. Space flight has arguably gotten worse in the West over the last 20.

Environment has gotten obviously shittier since then; looks like a good trade to me!

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#204

Post by ben_w » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

anotherone18 wrote: post #181

merpnderp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1% growth difference over 100 years is the difference between the per capita income of the US vs Mexico. So yes, unless you arbitrarily limit the entire globe to some level of prosperity like a novel about a disutopian world ruled by an evil anti-science theocracy, people are going to look at countries growing faster than them and wonder why they have to slum it like peasants without their flying cars and vacations o…

Source for the 1%? World bank data seems to differ: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locat...

I believe OP is saying the difference is equal to, not that the difference is caused by.

USA GDP PPP per capita in 2018 according to the IMF: $62606

Mexico, ditto: $20602

20602×1.01^100 = 55724.6

The difference is closer to 1.1177% compounded over a century, but I wouldn’t quibble over the extra digits when most news reports of economic growth are rounded to the nearest 0.25%.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#205

Post by BlueTemplar » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

fhood wrote: post #178

mathattack wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just an arms race. Growth funds everything, including social programs and saving the environment. Granted some growth (productivity driven) is better than others (resource driven.) For better or worse we can’t fund solutions to the world’s problems with austerity.

Also isn't growth a natural result of human progress? As science and technology move forwards they allow for more productivity per person and thus drive growth right? Or is that an overly simplistic notion?

Yes, but the whole issue is how we are running out of mineral/natural/ecological resources. And at an exponential speed.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#206

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

weeksie wrote: post #136

The one fundamental reason why growth is so important is that without growth, the economy becomes a zero sum game. In order for you to get more money you must take it from someone else since there is only a fixed amount. A low growth world is one where we plunder each others' wealth, not one were the incentives are aligned with building new industry. That's why productivity increases are so important. Without them, i…

As bilekas was saying, the one fundamental reason why growth must not be so important is that it cannot continue ad infinitum, thus we will have to learn and cope with that.

While you state an important point, the issue of growth having to stop (sooner or later) cannot be ignored.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#207

Post by BlueTemplar » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #116

b0rsuk wrote: post #28

Growth is an international arms race. I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. This is similar to the situation Africans were during Industrial Revolution. Europeans needed a lot of workers for fact…

That seems cynical and zero sum to me. By and large the wealthier countries aren’t fighting wars (especially among themselves); in any case they have too much to lose by doing so. The larger economics are reversing to the mean, and smaller economies are patchily catching up. Just as wealthier people (in aggregate) have fewer kids, wealthier countries these days have less reason to right wars. Costa Rica abolished its…

Mutually Assured Destruction certainly changed things... at least for the countries that managed to get in the club !

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#208

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

bawana wrote: post #193

Prosperity without growth. Only possible if money has a half life. This slow devaluation of money over time would allow stable prices, growth and more granular control of the economy. This kind of money could be electronic and only minted by the fed as FED-COIN. The blockchain would be essential in tracking and controlling each fedcoin. An interesting solution might be for the fed to give fed coin to people as a UBI(…

> Of course once the fedcoin is spent(undergoes a transaction) it’s value would freeze.

I don't get the "of course"...

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#209

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #190

harimau777 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US certainly has a shortage of desirable land (e.g. land in Manhattan and San Francisco). Even if the details of which land has more demand than supply changes over time, I don't think that changes the fact that at any given time there is a shortage.

I dont think that's correct to look at as shortage of land - Having more physical land does not solve the problem. You could put SanFrancisco on an infinite flat earth, and house prices would hardly budge.

It most definitely would, as it would change the scenery, weather, and overall desirability of living there.

Re: Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?

#210

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #156

mark_l_watson wrote: post #133

I talk about the effects of limiting GDP-style growth on our lifestyle with my wife. We burn a lot of carbon and use a lot of resources traveling, but on the other hand in our day to day life we tend to buy food in bulk at health food stores, try very hard to avoid using plastic, share one fuel efficient car, etc. Our take is that, for the sake of our grandchildren's generation and generations beyond that, that we wo…

This view ignores the insurmountable truth that humans want more, and if that means their neighbors get less, so be it. I'm not saying it should our shouldn't be like this, just that it is. You're thinking collectively while your neighbor defects and thinks about themselves first.

You can have more than other people without tangibly owning more. Books like The Millionaire Next Door cover this. These millionaires don't own more physical resources, but have brokerage accounts that aren't subject to conspicuous consumption. They may also own a home or car, but it's not a mansion or anything more than a standard commuter vehicle.