Maurie J. Cohen

Contributor

On Thursday March 4, Maurie Cohen, Associate Professor from the Environmental Policy Studies at NJIT will participate in a Research Café in the Campus Center Faculty Dining area at 4:30 PM (come earlier for refreshments). The title of his talk is: Is it futile to pursue economic growth?  Read what Professor Cohen has to say about this revolutionary idea.

Turn on any cable news channel and wait patiently for a few minutes. Chances are that before you act on the urge to change the channel the talking heads on the screen will bombard you with a dose of infotainment about economic growth.

The discussion will invariably center on the latest fluctuations or projections concerning the gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP is the meter that economists and others use to assess conditions in the economy. Is GDP increasing? How fast is GDP growing? Is GDP growing fast enough? When is GDP growth going to slow down? What country has the fastest rate of GDP growth? As a society, we have become obsessed with this statistical measure, and during the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse a growing number of people are starting to ask why this is the case.

How can it be that a statistical value has come to be the alpha and omega of contemporary life? More importantly, why do we regard any downward movement in this number as a portent of pending catastrophe?

In slightly simplified terms, GDP is the total monetary value of goods and services produced by an economy (generally assessed over an interval of one year). The notion of taking such measurements on a regular basis achieved prominence during World War II, when the federal government needed to quantify the output of consumer and military goods.

Over the intervening half century, GDP has taken on a life of its own and it has come to be viewed as tantamount to standard of living and quality of life. When the size of the overall economy is contracting we are prone to think that our lives are in shambles, but when it grows our despair fades away. Regardless of what kinds of goods are produced—from televisions to pogo sticks—we are all deemed to be doing better if there are more of them. When you stop to think about it, the fact that our wellbeing is predicated on how much material throughput moves through the economy seems downright bizarre.

In the first instance, there are numerous flaws in how GDP is measured. A tanker accident that requires the mobilization of hundreds of workers to scrub down oily beaches is deemed, in GDP terms, to be a positive and uplifting event because paychecks are disbursed and equipment is purchased. Indeed, the more oil that spills the better.

A car crash is similarly regarded as providing a boost because of the flow of repair work, replacement parts, and possible medical bills that it generates. It is possible to go on at much greater length about these defects, but if that were the limit of the problem, it would at least be more readily remediable. Unfortunately, we face a dilemma that is much larger than mere statistical reporting.

As the economist Herman Daly is fond of noting, the economy is geared for growth. In fact, it is geared for limitless growth. In other words, when should we terminate our pursuit of economic growth and move on to more edifying pursuits? Can you think of any other system (a cancerous tumor perhaps) that is so resolutely committed to growth seemingly without end?

We have consumed our way to the ends of the earth and the onset of problems like climate change, global water scarcity, natural resource depletion, and endocrine disruption are the telltale signs of the planet (and our own bodies) informing us that we are reaching the end of this pathological experiment.

Let me caution that this discussion is not the rant of a madman on the lunatic fringe intent on crashing everything that we cherish in the world. Mainstream media publications like The New York Times have begun to report that we may be entering a new period of societal evolution—the post-growth era. No less than the Harvard Business Review has also considered this possibility. In Europe, new political parties have formed in recent years to plan for the prospect of a post-growth society.

Is it really the case, as some commentators angrily contend, that it is dangerous to talk about such ideas? Does merely pulling back the curtain jeopardize our future? An alternate view is that in these recessionary times there is considerable utility in exploring one whether the sky will really fall down if growth ceases to come in the three and four percent annual increments to which we have become accustomed. After all, nothing lasts forever.

This thought experiment will be the focus of discussion at the next Research Café scheduled for Thursday, March 4 at 4:30pm. For further questions about the café contact: Jay Kappraff , x 3490, kappraff@adm.njit.edu.