Uneconomic Growth - The Limits To Growth

The Limits To Growth

The "limits to growth" debate has some roots in Malthusianism. Much of the debate in recent times was prompted by the 1972 Club of Rome study Limits to Growth, which considers the ecological impact of growth and wealth creation. Many of the activities required for economic growth use non-renewable resources. Many researchers feel these sustained environmental effects can have an effect on the whole ecosystem. They argue that the accumulated effects on the ecosystem put a theoretical limit on growth. Some draw on archaeology to cite examples of cultures they say have disappeared because they grew beyond the ability of their ecosystems to support them. The argument is that the limits to growth will eventually make growth in resource consumption impossible.

Others are more optimistic and believe that, although localized environmental effects may occur, large-scale ecological effects are minor. The optimists suggest that if these global-scale ecological effects exist, human ingenuity will find ways of adapting to them.

The rate or type of economic growth may have important consequences for the environment (the climate and natural capital of ecologies). Concerns about possible negative effects of growth on the environment and society led some to advocate lower levels of growth, from which comes the idea of uneconomic growth, and Green parties which argue that economies are part of a global society and a global ecology and cannot outstrip their natural growth without damaging them.

Canadian scientist David Suzuki argued in the 1990s that ecologies can only sustain typically about 1.5–3% new growth per year, and thus any requirement for greater returns from agriculture or forestry will necessarily cannibalize the natural capital of soil or forest. Some think this argument can be applied even to more developed economies.