Discussion
I'm all in favour of initiatives to promote a sustainable economy which involves reduced inequality and sharply reducing our dangerous emissions.
However does the objective of zero growth help us achieve this objective? I'm far from convinced that it does. To put the issue in simple terms, there are 2 kinds of contribution to GNP just as there are 2 contributors to GNP growth - goods and bads. No one wants more pollution and prisons but these bads both increase overall GNP.
Will preventing the sum of goods and bads from growing ensure that there are no more bads than there are now ? I don't see any reason why this should be so. For an example of a good form of growth, how about growth in the production of wind generators and solar panels? If these were more expensive than coal burning in a pollution-neutral tax/subsidy environment then the replacement of a gigawatt of coal burning by a gigawatt of wind energy represents a form of economic growth I don't think you would want to prevent. If true then your support of zero growth is not an absolute.
For another example of a good growth, how about increasing educational opportunities for distance learners using the Internet, which raises educational standards without needing oil burning transport? How about having much higher standards and quality in public transport so that people can get around quickly, conveniently and safely without needing cars ? Localising production so that the things we eat and use can be manufactured, distributed and recycled/reused in a more energy efficient manner and improving home insulation standards are all examples of good forms of growth which in my view need to be encouraged.
REPLY FROM KEN MEYERCORD
I think you are confusing growth with progress. If we replace fossil fuel burning vehicles with something cleaner that results in the same amount of transport being accomplished, that, to me, is not growth but progress, something we at Zero Growth are certainly not opposed to. More people, more cars, more schools even, that is growth. Better cars, better schools, and perhaps better people, that is progress. Even were we to implement a zero growth world, growth in certain sectors of that world, and declines in others, would not only occur but be desirable, and you offer some good examples.
I wish I could be as concrete in suggesting how a zero growth world might function. But the concept is so far removed from the world as we know it - ever-growing and growth-addicted - and my own conception of a world of zero growth so raw and unformed that I am unable to respond in kind. That must sound like a cop out, but at this stage in the movement's development I believe it is legitimate. The cardinal task now is to question growth and its reputed salubrious effects, as Richard Douthwaite has done so thoroughly and convincingly in his book, "The Growth Illusion".
Remember that Zero Growth is first and foremost a mentality, an ethos as we like to call it, a way of looking at the world and our place in it. It is based on the realization that we live in a finite world and that in such a world growth - especially on the order of what mankind has experienced over the last two centuries - is not necessarily a good thing. We hope people will replace an a priori faith in growth as a cure-all and a blessing with a belief in "ecostasis", living in a balanced relationship with the environment, both in time and in space. Once that old faith is shattered, the new world of balance and continuity will be shaped through the crucible of ideas put forth by people such as yourself, who we know from your correspondence shares our ultimate goal if not our strategy for arriving at it.