…historically the left were supportive of growth and mass prosperity, but today ‘most self-proclaimed radicals emphasise the need to impose limits on consumption and economic growth’. In the preface, Ben-Ami aligns himself with the radical Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, who wrote: ‘We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance… We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume.’ As the book’s cheeky title, Ferraris for All, suggests, he wants to raise mass living standards, at a time when many respond to inequality by calling for a levelling downwards.
Ben-Ami’s discussion of how ‘progressives’ abandoned progress highlights the fact that ‘left’ and ‘right’ can be misleading categories today. In the past, when the desirability of growth was a shared assumption, the right-left debate was over the system that best delivered growth – capitalism versus communism, or free-market versus state-directed capitalism. Today many prefer to fight old wars and bang on with these same arguments. But, as Ben-Ami’s book makes clear, those who do so miss that the world has changed. There is now a more fundamental debate to be had and won – not over how best to grow, but over whether growth is desirable at all.
So even though anti-growth may not be the whole problem we have today, it is a large part of it. I think if the Democrats continue along this track, blunting growth at every turn, it will lead to a big Republican takeover, which I do not want to see as the Republicans are much more likely to blow up the world.
‘Is the world in danger of running out of finite resources? Does economic activity threaten to create runaway climate change? Could the world survive if China enjoyed developed-country living standards? Is greater prosperity really making us happier? Are we caught in a rut of rampant consumerism? Does economic growth create dangerous inequalities? Did the excessive greed engendered by economic growth lead to the downturn that emerged in 2008?’
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p>There is no way anyone could answer those questions any way except Yes, Yes, No, No, Yes, Yes, and Yes.
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p>Growth is not desirable, or possible anymore. FDR and JFK lived during the Oil Century, and oil, not ingenuity or hard work or daring to dream, caused economic growth and raised living standards. That’s over now. We need to enter a period of controlled contraction, or else we will enter a period of uncontrolled contraction.
You’ve previously identified yourself as a Socialist so it sounds like you back up the premise of the diary. Most of the rest of us, however, favor stimulus PRECISELY to encourage growth, including the New Deal of FDR, the granddaddy of all stimuli. I’m not sure whether the diarist confuses the definition of left, possibly intentionally thus lumping us all together, or openly arguing with success, since Democratic policies in recent years, both Clinton and Obama, have shown to turn the economy around. I cannot accept that there are limits on growth. American ingenuity applied the right way can certainly find ways to grow the economy, enhance opportunity and prosperity for everyone, while at the same time alleviating the concerns that make you say we can and should no longer grow.
A consumption tax is a fundamentally right-wing idea, and Cute has expressed support for it. Sales/consumption taxes are horribly regressive, and last time I checked, tax policies that favor the rich are not something socialists advocate.
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p>In response to the questions, SeaScraper and Cute are both oversimplifying things.
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p>’Is the world in danger of running out of finite resources?
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p>In some cases. Oil, for example. But oil can be replaced by other fuels. Wind and solar are completely renewable.
Most of the other supposedly finite resources we’re running out of aren’t really accurate. Malthusians have been claiming we’ll run out of food any day now since at least 1798 and so far they’ve consistently been wrong because agriculture has improved.
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p>Does economic activity threaten to create runaway climate change?
It does as long as we rely on fossil fuels to power that economic activity. But once we stop relying on fossil fuels, not so much.
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p>Could the world survive if China enjoyed developed-country living standards?
Yes. Malthus was an idiot 212 years ago and remains an idiot today.
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p>Is greater prosperity really making us happier?
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p>Yes. Money has diminishing marginal returns, like most things in life. So going from $5k/year to $10k makes you a lot happier than going from $100k to $105k. But happiness studies show that rich people are happier, even if only by a little bit. This does, however, provide a good utilitarian argument for egalitarian tax policies, because you maximize aggregate happiness by taking that $5000 from the rich person and giving the poor one $5k worth of welfare.
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p>Are we caught in a rut of rampant consumerism?
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p>I’m not, and anyone who doesn’t want to be doesn’t have to be. But if some people are happiest that way, I see no reason to disturb them so long as Malthus remains wrong. Their consumerism grows the economy and lets more people afford to satisfy their basic needs.
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p>Does economic growth create dangerous inequalities?
Only if it makes the poor worse off in absolute terms. If you go from making twice as much as me to 100 times as much, but my income doubles, I’m better off even though your wealth is increasing faster.
Overall growth that makes the poor worse off in absolute terms is rare, but if it happens you can fix it with a progressive tax policy.
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p> Did the excessive greed engendered by economic growth lead to the downturn that emerged in 2008?’
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p>Greed isn’t engendered by economic growth. You’re reversing cause and effect. Greed did cause the downturn, but it also caused the prior growth. The key is to create proper regulation so you can have teh growth with no or more limited downturns.
what he means by growth.
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p>Does he mean “Drill, baby, drill” growth at any cost growth?
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p>I’m a progressive, but I don’t see away around the growth of the GDP, right now, as a way to get people employed. But that’s the here and now.
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p>I’ve always been intrigued by Buckminster Fuller’s ideas, particularly the idea that society would benefit from focusing on improving living more than developing weapons and working more cooperatively, rather than competitively. But I don’t see an easy way to put this stuff into practice.
Mark, maybe you would be interested in listening to this short radio interview of Paul Bloom, the noted psychologist. He expresses surprise that capitalism leads to a reduction in tribalism and competition. However us capitalists have known this all along.
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p>http://www.radioopensource.org…
I suppose if we divide into exactly two teams, the folks on the right-hand side of the divide can point to some radical green folks and say, look, your team is against growth.
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p>That’s not so careful. There are parts of the popular left that are quite pro-growth. (Do we think labor, say, is against growth?) Certainly, lots of left wing technocrats and government types are pro-growth.
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p>So I’m not sure what this diary says. That if you oversimplify everything into precisely two teams, you can more easily accuse one team of being anti-growth? Is that useful? Do we care?
Thinking about this a bit more, I find this accusation troubling.
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p>We find ourselves in an era of regulatory capture. Few regulatory agencies of government can be trusted to do the jobs with which they are entrusted. In my view, this is because Congressional Republicans and Republican Presidents favor regulatory capture and Democrat office holders too often turn a blind eye to it.
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p>Democrats really, really need to reverse this. Every attempt to do so will be met by conservative cries that liberals are “anti-growth”. And yes, drugs can be more profitable if they don’t have to be safe or effective and, no, that’s not a kind of growth we want.
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p>The nature of our economy is that it requires growth. (That’s how we deal with national debt: our economy gets bigger faster than it does.) There really are environmental questions as whether that’s sustainable in the long run. Perhaps the green radicals are right. The question is certainly worth asking rather than reducing it to a war of invective.
You are right that there is rampant faux populism on the right, coming from those at the top of the pyramid, who want to tighten their hold on the US financial system. These people are already tied into the US government through their friends, but somehow still talk like free-marketers.
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p>However the mainstream left has a lot of problems with growth. One example is the real hostility to many aspects of suburban life you find in otherwise “sensible” lefties. So geographic growth is not supported on the left.
Who the h. are you talking about?
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p>Does Senator Al Franken hate the suburbs? How about Rep. Barney Frank? Does Rep. Delahunt hate the suburbs? What about Howard Dean? Does Organizing for America have a campaign against suburbs? MoveOn.org?
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p>This is just tribal thinking. It doesn’t even require facts or polling or analysis. Just a happy pile of stereotypes.
Oops, sorry, got caught up in the “spirit” of Republican argument.
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p>KBusch, don’t you live in Medford? I could swear I read that was a suburb. Or do you have to live in a house that would make Liberace blush to qualify? I get so confused on these conservative litmus tests.
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p>
I live downtown where all the proper liberals live.
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p>In my spare time, I get on the commuter rail with my spray paint and plaster the suburbs with suburb-hating graffiti — and Seascraper can quote me on that!
Look I could do this with any subject.
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p>May 24, 2008 … You’re right, suburbs are the “problem” (when optimizing for low-gas … Spending oodles of tax dollars on highways led to the suburbs. …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/11671/
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p>Sep 20, 2006 … “My opinion is that to extend tax breaks to seniors in order to keep them overhoused and isolated in the suburbs is not necessarily the …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4048
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p>Apr 15, 2010 … Middle aged to old white people from the suburbs who like “tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts” and want to “hang ’em high”, and aren’t concerned …
bluemassgroup.com/…/federal-lawsuit-filed-against-patrick-administration-by-childrens-rights
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p>May 16, 2010 … Instead of building parking lots in the outer suburbs, build better mass … Frankly I think most growth in commuting is suburb to suburb. …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/…/deval-200million-more-for-developers
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p>… this is happening as new infrastructure demands are being created due to the ongoing shifts in our population from core cities into far-flung suburbs. …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/8396/
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p>Even a Springfield-based chain won’t put a store in where there are nearly 40000 people in a 1-mile radius, choosing instead to target the wealthier suburbs …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/1677/
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p>Apr 30, 2009 … People do get consumed and scared and run to the suburbs duck for cover… and 99% of the time these things are way overblown. …
http://www.bluemassgroup.com/…/massachusetts-state-senate-oks-martial-law-to-combat-swine-flu
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p>Apr 14, 2010 … The cars were filled with Tea Partiers returning to the suburbs. I loved the irony of watching all these Tea Partiers traveling home via the …
bluemassgroup.com/diary/19509/largest-rally-in-our-states-history-lol
of random, unsourced data occasionally proving your point and occasionally beside it.
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p>Next up. I get to prove that Republicans are racists and anti-science. I can use exactly the same methodology. This’ll be FUN!!!
if anything, it’s an argument that liberals support more growth in urban areas — infill, growth upwards, etc.
If your recommendation is to restrict movement to cheaper suburbs, and concentrate growth in more expensive areas to develop, there is possibly merit in it, however it still proves my point that in this area the sensible left fears the kind of growth people naturally choose.
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p>We could repeat this exercise with population growth and other subjects. I believe that the original premise, that the mainstream left is suspicious of growth, still stands.
I’ve claimed earlier that conservatives show little interest in policy.
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p>Whatever it is, the question of whether “the Left” “hates” suburbs is certainly not how academics think. Furthermore, dividing the world into things we like and things we hate resonates more with junior high than serious discussions of geographic economics, transportation planning, resource utilization, housing markets, and social well-being.
term Far Left people who are philosophically–and I mean that in all senses of the word–against development as we now know it.
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p>Vandana Shiva, for example, is an eco-feminist, not that I know much about that. Jeremy Rifkin might be another person who challenges “growth.”
aren’t interested in growing the wealth of those who have much; perhaps we’re merely interested in improving the quality of life of those who suffer from a dimmer situation. Maybe that means increasing their personal wealth, maybe that means improving the public infrastructure around them, maybe that means more access to better health care, schools, libraries, and public safety.
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p>Growth for the sake of it isn’t useful. Growth to improve quality of life is useful — and for me, the question is: what are our public policies which ensure that the growth doesn’t harm others substantially, and how to we ensure that those who are suffering benefit from the improved quality of life.
The original post really needs revision, it articulated that FDR and JFK were prudent progressives while opining, without any substantial evidence, that President Obama and his economic advisers are listening to some obscure radical environmentalist who is against growth as a philosophical precept. I don’t see how they are connected, in fact I think many of Obama’s policies, particularly a targeted middle class tax cut and an economic stimulus policy directly echo JFK and FDR’s responses to economic crises in their times. If anything we can attack the Obama administration for not doing enough to more assertively defend government investment, particularly regarding infrastructure and health care, from baseless far right attacks. Even Adam Smith and Fredrick Hayek (whose brilliance is now overshadowed by his connection to that idiot Beck) conceded that government, and not the invisible hand, was needed in those sectors to ensure they functioned properly. Without roads and without healthy workers how can you possible have a successful market economy? And they were both economists who concluded that the market alone could not secure these initial investments by itself. Similarly they favored the very kinds of regulation that the Democrats are now supporting on Wall Street that protect shareholders and investors from fraudulent bankers and are the key to averting future bailouts.
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p>So I don’t see anything that President Obama has done that is not in accordance with a desire to preserve and strengthen the market economy. Arguably the only areas where he has thwarted market forces were the bailouts of the banks and the big three, and one can make a compelling case that this was to prevent a recession from sliding into a depression. If anything Obama stands to the economic right of FDR and JFK who were far more willing to have the government intervene economically.