The
Steady-State
Economy
The real – and only –
‘Alternative’
Development
‘Growth’= more ‘throughput’
More people
More things
Conventional development
Ideology of
conventional development
The more, the bigger, the faster, the higher, the newer…
the better!
“You can’t freeze change!”
“You’re an elitist…
trying to stop ordinary people getting what they need”
“No-growth is stagnation”
“You can’t stop progress”
Former president of Botswana on
the Kalahari bushmen:
'How can you have a hunter-gatherer living in
the age of computers? If the bushman wants to
survive he must change, otherwise, like the
dodo, he will perish’.
"To get rich is glorious."
former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping
‘Growth’ & people pressure
The world's biggest family?:
Ziona Chana with his 39 wives, 94
children & 33 grandchildren.
They live in a 100-room mansion. His
wives take it in turns to share his bed.
It takes 30 whole chickens just to make
dinner.
Development delusions:
‘Trickle Down’
Sao Paolo, Brazil
Development delusions: ‘More jobs!’
Development delusions: “It’s the economy, stupid”
Conventional
“development”
thinking,
Monetarist
to
Marxist,
depreciates
real
wealth
of
nations
Reality check
People are economic transformers
not wealth creators
Real ‘wealth of nations’:
• Physical space
• Atmospheric balances
• UV filtering
• Purification of air
• Potable water
• Regulation of water cycle
• Water storage
• Photosynthesis
• Fertile soil
• Vegetative resources
• Pollination
• Mineral resources
• Waste decomposition
• Nutrient recycling
• Stable climate
• Checks & balances against extremes
‘Mother Earth’
Ecology
Society
Economy
Solar ‘driver’
‘techno-develpment’ often creates
more problems than it solves.
Technology can make some difference
but the potential of ‘alternatives’ is frequently exaggerated
‘Alternative’ is frequently not ‘appropriate’
As of 2011
New rhetoric of Growthism
“Weightless economy”
“Information society”
“Business at the speed of
thought”
“We-Think”
“Sustainable
Development”
“Green growth”
‘Limits
to
conventional
development’
Success can conceal
growing risk of
failure…
Progress
can become
regress
Richard Wilson
“Age of the Anthropocene”
Overdevelopment: new course needed
Dream of Growth
versus Limits:
* Earth’s Geology:
Limits to ‘sources’, ‘sinks’ & suitable sites
* Entropy:
Limits to
energy conversions & material usage
* Ecology:
Unsustainable disruption of
Earth’s life-support systems
Earth’s finitude
Entropy
Ecology
Does production for social need remove
‘limits’ barriers?
?
Both, however, run up similar bills
in nature’s accounts
Excessive ‘footprint’
– Nature bites back
‘Affluenza’
(+ deepening inequalities)
Overconsumption
Too many People
Technological blowback
“Things Bite Back”
Crisis of conventional development:
Quantity versus Quality
Declining
quality of life…
On-going physical growth
at some point erodes:
‘Dignity’… Privacy… Personal
Space… Tranquility…
Choice… Democracy…
Human rights… Job
opportunities… Education &
health and social care facilities…
Leisure options……
Price of Over-development
Tokyo Water Park,
whose slogan reads …
Price of Over-development
Growth: ‘cure’ that will kill
Air pollution
Biodevastation
Climate
change
Acidification
Growing shortages of key
minerals
Overflowing
landfills
Toxic &
radioactive
contamination
Peaks in
various fuel
Growing water
& other
shortages
resources
Growing food
shortages
Housing shortages
Explosive growth
of slum cities
Congestion
Inequality &
discrimination
Civil wars &
terrorism
Democratic deficit
Overfishing
Water
pollution
Austerity & declining
‘social wage’
Competition for
land
Unemployment
‘Lonely crowd’
Decreasing quality
of life
Crumbling education,
health & other services
‘Affluenza’
Urban disorders
Growth,
Overshoot &
danger of
collapse
Growth > Overshoot
More slices of the planet
taken by people
the less for ‘non-people’
Limits-to-growth cannot be cheated!
The issue is about finding an optimum:
it is not about rejecting all change
The steady-state economy
Real progress:
better use
of a sustainable level
of throughput of
space, energy & matter
The sustainable economy will be much
slower & smaller than Industrialism
Key measures
• Population in balance
with carrying capacity at all levels
• Steady stock of artefacts
i.e. physical goods & services
(inc. dependent animals!)
in sustainable equilibrium with ‘sources’ and ‘sinks’
• ‘Conserver’ technology,
focussing on reduction of resource ‘inputs’
rather than outputs (‘end-of-pipe’ pollution control etc.)
Tax resources, not labour
• Ecological land use planning: “design with nature”
Some other policies
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Renting & borrowing not owning
Full cost pricing
End to ‘corporate welfare’ & ‘perverse subsidies’
End to debt-based money supply
Break up of over-big firms; public ownership of key utilities
‘Green licenses’ for businesses?
Ceilings on land ownership?; land trusts / covenants;
site value taxation?
• Time management (e.g. seasons / daylight hours)
• Limits to differentials within society, nationally and globally
Basic income schemes/citizens dividends as transitional tool