Economists Please

[Rollo]

So the future of success is built on growth. But that includes population growth. So we are destroying the planet. How do we have successful economy with no population growth!
ring in everyone

We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population... increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before.
- Thomas Malthus - An essay on the principle of population. (1798)

Malthus also suggested (and this can be proven experimentally) that if a colony of organisms, say bacteria, rats, algae, (Easter Island???) exhausts its supply of resources, then it will experience a collapse in population. If we're going to replicate the experiment with people on the planet, we're doing a fair job, it's just that the time frame is longer.
The problem is that people have a capacity for unlimited wants which can not hope to be supplied with limited resources.

How do we have successful economy with no population growth? We could always limit population growth, or perhaps increase the technological quality of the goods and services being consumed; in that respect I completely echo Ioan's sentiments.

[Rudy Tamasz]

As well, why do we need growth? To cover the huge debts that politicians and economists managed to create?!

I guess capitalism only works when it keeps expanding. If you try to artificially maintain an economy on the same level of reproduction, it will be immediately destroyed by competitors. Stagnant economies only could exist in a relative isolation, which is no longer the case.

Yes, this life is rat racing. You have to keep running just to stay where you are.

[BDunnell]

I only buy what I really need, call me a minimalist

Is that really true, though? Do you really buy only the very cheapest items that meet your needs? Can any of us really make that claim?

[schmenke]

We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population... increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before.
- Thomas Malthus - An essay on the principle of population. (1798)

Malthus also suggested (and this can be proven experimentally) that if a colony of organisms, say bacteria, rats, algae, (Easter Island???) exhausts its supply of resources, then it will experience a collapse in population. If we're going to replicate the experiment with people on the planet, we're doing a fair job, it's just that the time frame is longer.
The problem is that people have a capacity for unlimited wants which can not hope to be supplied with limited resources.

How do we have successful economy with no population growth? We could always limit population growth, or perhaps increase the technological quality of the goods and services being consumed; in that respect I completely echo Ioan's sentiments.

Small Is Beautiful

[donKey jote]

As Billy's missus said to Starter...

[anthonyvop]

So the future of success is built on growth. But that includes population growth. So we are destroying the planet. How do we have successful economy with no population growth!
ring in everyone

What is the problem with Population growth?

[Mark]

The problem is when resource provision does not grow in step. Malthus tells us that it cannot.

[Rollo]

There was also Calhoun's "rat utopia" experiment in the late 1960s. Four breeding pairs were given unlimited nesting material, food and water but only given a nine-foot square of space, and within 3 years the rat population in "rat utopia" went from 8 to 600 to zero.
For some reason, rat society in rat utopia eventually broke down completely with social orders being abandoned, children being abandoned, rats attacking each other and males refusing to breed. Even under perfect provisions, when space is an issue, extinction was still the result.

There are 6 billion of us now (7 billion if you're watching the repeat and 16 billion if you're watching the repeats on Dave); eventually the amount of usable arable land necessary to keep human populations adequately fed is going to run out. Experimentally I don't know if humans follow the same social rules as rats, but there's certainly interesting parallels.

[ioan]

Is that really true, though? Do you really buy only the very cheapest items that meet your needs? Can any of us really make that claim?

Not always the cheapest items, however only the items that I really need.
I buy stuff based on their price/quality, usually quite expensive stuff but only what is really needed.
For example I have no TV, just a laptop with a USB TV tuner (which might become obsolete now that i do not watch F1 anymore.

[ioan]

I guess capitalism only works when it keeps expanding. If you try to artificially maintain an economy on the same level of reproduction, it will be immediately destroyed by competitors. Stagnant economies only could exist in a relative isolation, which is no longer the case.

Yes, this life is rat racing. You have to keep running just to stay where you are.

Say, if the world economy is kept at the same level, who are the competitors who'd destroy it?

Anyway, without a change the future looks bleak, both for capitalism and for us.