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Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

nytimes.com

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Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#101

Post by PeterisP »

rr888 wrote: post #96
eatsyourtacos wrote: post #8

Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…

> The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. Not really, half retired Americans live off Social Security alone, and another big chunk I'm guessing a quarter rely on it. Many others have property, business or keep working. I'm guessing its about 10-20% of Americans really have enough 401k savings to live o…

I don't know much about details of the USA Social Security model, however from what I recall doesn't it effectively require continued economic growth to plausibly be able to pay out what it should without significantly raising the starting age to decrease the number of years it pays out?

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#102

Post by convolvatron »

orev wrote: post #93
mrharrison wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's obvious. Growth and innovation go hand and hand. A tug of war between capitalism and socialism is essential for a healthy society that can solve exciting problems via markets. It's not perfect, but the growth model keeps society agile, with many options via startups and market competition. It gives us the toolbelt to solve complex problems quickly. It's challenging to start up industries and mainta…

False Dilemma fallacy: capitalism vs socialism

I don't know any socialists that want to completely disassemble capitalism. I do know several capitalists that want to completely disassemble socialism, or at least greviously wound it at any opportunity.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#103

Post by bergenty »

caramelcustard wrote: post #95
eatsyourtacos wrote: post #8

Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…

"Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise." which implies that the interviewer and the economist are acting in good faith and are not financially motivated to push certain ideas. "The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime." ah so trade and supply/deman…

What are you smoking? The rich pay capital gains which is way, way less than the average person is paying.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#104

Post by paganel »

TheCowboy wrote: post #68
pm90 wrote: post #24

The pandemic made it clear that elites are ok with mass death and debilitation. It may not be a conspiracy, but people in power simply don’t care. So the logical conclusion is that a lot of the most vulnerable people are going to perish, the hardier ones will hobble by in filthy conditions like what you see in old age homes today (but there will be a gun around if they wanna quickly end their misery). Structural chan…

I really wish posters on HN would be forced to specify who they are talking about when they say "the elites" because it's often so vague as to be meaningless grandstanding and allows people to engage in goalpost shifting. No one can even have a meaningful interaction with this comment. It's also trivial to come up with 'elites' who were not okay with mass death and debilitation.

> who they are talking about when they say "the elites" b

Not the OP but I understand as "the elites" the people who hold the reins of power in the West (I don't know that much about the Chinese or Indian elites, to be honest). That would be multi-billionaires, some national-level politicians, the higher-ups of some supra-state entities (things like the World Bank, the IMF, even the European Union), some recognisable "artists" who are used mostly for propaganda material (think Hollywood actors like Matthew McConaughey, Di Caprio and the like) and last but definitely not least, members of the defence and security apparatus (even though I have lately started having my doubts about anyone higher-up at the Pentagon or at NATO actually thinking for himself). Ah, I had forgotten, also some media people, too many to name, the most recent that comes to mind is this marvellous Guardian journo named Simon Tisdall that just this weekend had proposed that the West should attack Russia [1] so that we'd all get, well, blasted by nuclear strikes. But the journos are mostly tools, truth be told.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/17/putin-...

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#105

Post by convolvatron »

whimsicalism wrote: post #59
api wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space migration is possible but would it matter? You could build a big Mars settlement and that would have its own economy but how much would that add growth to Earth? Transit times are long and the cost to move goods is high for fundamental physical reasons, leaving intangibles as the only thing that could trade in really high volume. I doubt an increase in software or media from Mars could compensate for limits to…

It seems like services, information, tech are all huge contributors to modern growth beyond just "raw physical" goods. Seems like it could have a substantial impact on Earth, especially when you consider innovations. Imagine having high billions-trillions of people and millions working on a given innovation or line of research or whatever.

if we cared about higher levels of innovation or research, we don't need to have a trillion babies. we just need to educate the ones we have already, and give them the opportunity to do that kind of work.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#106

Post by throwawaymaths »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #8

Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…

> This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting to guarantee financial security of elders and offload the risk to the individual.

The growth obsession phenomenon also happens in countries which demonstrably put more effort into caring about the elderly and the poor. They still get left behind, albeit at marginally lower rates than in a country like the US.

It's the juiced economic statistics and obsession paper growth that's the core problem, not necessarily "rich people have influence"

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#107

Post by nicodjimenez »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #69
nicodjimenez wrote: post #20

The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually death. This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries. I say our obsession with _not_ growing must end!

Where do you see an obsession with not growing in the world? Some rhetoric? Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs.

> Because there are a fuck ton of actions and power on the side of increasing gdp at all costs.

Like what? The most basic thing you can do to help GDP growth is try to promote families and childbirth, and keep energy prices low. Right now birth rates are plummeting and oil & gas industry has become politicized, and people see the result at the gas pump.

If there's some big heroic effort to actually grow the economy in a real way I'm not seeing it. You see what happened to the last guy that tried to do that. It did not go well for him.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#108

Post by borroka »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #20

The only real alternative to growth is decline and eventually death. This is true for companies, individuals, and even countries. I say our obsession with _not_ growing must end!

The comparison between an artificial system (an economy) and a natural system (the growth of individuals) is as valid as that between the neurons in our brains and the "neurons" in the neural network, that is, it is wrong. Senescence and then death do not result from failure to grow, and this is empirically found in any organism. Most fish continue to grow after sexual maturity (indeterminate growth), but still die from natural causes, from the accumulation of damage in their biological systems.

In the course of the organism's life, energy is allocated to different functions; after sexual maturity, in most species energy is spent in directions other than growth, because it is reproduction that determines species' persistence.

It may be interesting to note that in aquaculture, salmon are selected for late sexual maturity so that they can spend more time growing and thus be more valuable to the aquaculturist, who can see their resources going to tissues that can be sold (e.g., meat) and not to tissues (e.g., gonads) that cannot be sold.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#110

Post by pydry »

Uehreka wrote: post #92
TheCowboy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish posters on HN would be forced to specify who they are talking about when they say "the elites" because it's often so vague as to be meaningless grandstanding and allows people to engage in goalpost shifting. No one can even have a meaningful interaction with this comment. It's also trivial to come up with 'elites' who were not okay with mass death and debilitation.

Yeah, elites really feel like a sort of “Schroedinger’s enemy”. If people oppose the argument you can claim that they’re standing up for billionaires who don’t care about them and don’t need their support. If the reception is friendly it might turn out that the “elites” are actually middle class college activists who are “elite” because they went to college. Like, some people’s definitions are so warped that a millio…

Elite pretty much means anyone with political and economic power. Politicians, billionaires, lobbyists, CEOs, etc. It's not a particularly fuzzy honorific.

Of course they dont like all the negative attention so sometimes they will try to designate elites as "anybody with a college degree" as one of many means of rhetorically disguising their power. For example, the economist does here:

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/10/22/c...

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