What's a viable alternative to economic growth?

Question

If the rule of the free market is to charge whatever the market will bear, are we as consumers and workers not stupid to strain harder and work longer to be able to pay prices which will be jacked up due to the fact that we can spend more money through that?

And:

Would it therefore not be better to turn the tables and refuse to work longer and earn more, simply demand more time for ourselves, and thereby send prices and working times plummeting?

All we would need to do is sit it out until prices go down due to lack of demand. And yes, that might be called a recession, but where does the straining end? Humans need to sleep. And there are only 24 hours in a day. Eternal, exponential growth, I've always thought, is simply a mathematical impossibility - or not?

Wouldn't it be wise of us to slow down before we crash? What are your views? Can this be done?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there is no viable alternative to economic growth. Even today, there are still hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who do not have access to safe drinking water, indoor plumbing, and sufficient nutrition. In other words, the world's problem is not that it has too much income; indeed, it has too little...

This said, the question needs to be clarified. Are we talking about absolute growth or per-capita growth?

Absolute growth definitely has limits; at some point, the whole Earth will be covered with human housing and fields, if the population keeps increasing. The expectations of ever-increasing population, however, are not realistic; we see population growth slowing throughout the world as countries undergo demographic transition. Chances are, the world's population will stabilize at 12-15 billion around 2100.

Per capita growth, however, is a completely different matter; it depends primarily on the amount of physical capital available to the average worker. Since physical capital tends to accumulate over time (not so much in quantity, but in quality; old machines are replaced with new, more productive ones), there is no reason to believe that per capita growth has any inherent limits...

Answer 2

Instead of considering it as an answer, please consider it more as a comment and thought.

Your point of view is correct theoretically, however, impossible to achieve practically.

What you are talking requires that all employed personnel should unanimously agree to slow down the pace of work, which if achieved can drastically improve the lifestyle of everyone, in terms of the times that people have for themselves. Fortunately, or unfortunately, many may not agree to implement this.

In order to assume that this can take place, many questions arise such as:

1) How many people are living from paycheck to paycheck? Would they be willing to take up this risk?

2) What is the guarantee that everyone will follow and those who follow will stick to it throughout?

3) Also, in a number of fields the manpower is not constant. For instance many in India and China are contributing to the US work force (out sourcing and immigration), who are living to work long hours for a better future of their families.

Since US is not a closed system, we need to start looking at much broader ways for the goverment to earn (rather than heavy taxation). This may not drive the costs down, but definitely impact the overall salary you get in hand, thus reducing the need for earning more by working more.

Another thing that can be done at a personal level is to be able to create personal revenue streams (over a period of few years) which eliminiate the existing system of trading time for dollars and somehow gives more long term financial rewards.

Answer 3

"Would it therefore not be better to turn the tables and refuse to work longer and earn more, simply demand more time for ourselves, and thereby send prices and working times plummeting?"


This is actually an attribute of a lot of 3rd world countries.

In the US, if you get a raise, you tend to work the same amount of hours and make more income.

In many developing nations, if people get a raise, they will scale their hours back until they were making the same income as before.


To answer your question: If you want to see the "alternative" to economic growth, go ahead and plan a flight to Africa.

Answer 4

Interesting question and statement. I agree with your theory, that if we reduced our consumption, the market will correct itself lower because supply will outstrip demand. But that would only work if every person on this globe was equal. Consider that there are lots of poor people in 2nd and 3rd world countries in development who are hungry to consume resources... they will not participate in this kind of economic experiment. Take oil for example.. even if Americans reduced their consumption by half.. this still would not curb the demand in China or elsewhere. The crash that you mention is the day we run out of our resources.

Answer 5

I think the elephant in the room is being overlooked:

The government just passed a $2.7 TRILLION budget.

That number is incomprehensible.

Each dollar was taken from workers. In fact, workers work until mid-July just to pay for this budget.

Perhaps this area should be explored. Perhaps it explains much of the "strain."

Answer 6

perhaps wise, but the "game" goes to those who play it effectively. Assuming that the win conditions are more stuff (think USA here...) then people strive to create and consume more. Of course, non-replaceable resources get used up much faster this way. If large fractions of producers stop working then you have less stuff to buy and consume.