Saturday, July 11, 2009

Is Economic Growth Good or Bad? NY Times columnist response...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/media/06askthetimes.html

Is Economic Growth Good or Bad?

Q. I am interested in your opinion concerning whether economic growth, which is universally hailed as a good thing, is sustainable into the infinite future. Also, is capitalism possible without treating the earth as an infinite resource and, at the same time, an infinite garbage dump? I have heard it said from businessmen that a business must grow or die. As the earth slowly but surely runs out of resources, how can businesses continue to grow? Must not the human race eventually stabilize its population at some number that reflects the ability of the sun and the earth to continuously renew those resources that the human race depends on? Will not that fact bring about the end of mining the earth for anything? How many people can the earth sustain in such a circumstance? Are there any politicians out there addressing these questions?

— Richard Cahall, Bend, Ore.

Nicholas Kristof: I’m a huge believer in the power of economic growth. Sure, it leads to pollution, climate change and other problems. But it also means that parents send their children to school and get them vaccinated, and then in turn birth rates drop. In addition, one of the great risk factors for civil wars and ethnic clashes — the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen — is economic stagnation. In 1998, when Indonesia’s economy collapsed, I saw mobs drag naked, headless corpses through the streets of East Java; that anarchy and drift to savagery was a consequence of the economic problems.

So, sure, we need smarter economic growth, and we have to be on the lookout for externalities, like economic growth that is based on poisoning the earth, water and air. But growth itself is a good thing, and almost anybody who has seen the brutal consequences of global poverty accepts that.

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