Less Is More: Rogue Economists Champion Prosperity without Growth

[FarCenter]

For years, economists have posited that prosperity requires growth, with environmental damage as the regrettable but unavoidable consequence. A growing number of critics are now challenging this equation, though, calling for a radical revamping of the economic system.
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Economists have largely disregarded the environmental consequences of growth. For them, the key benchmark of prosperity is gross domestic product (GDP), the sum of all products and services produced in a given country. However, GDP does not factor in the overexploitation of resources, the destruction of biological diversity, air pollution, noise, the expansion of impervious surfaces known as soil sealing, and the poisoning of groundwater.

But for many people, a wealth model built on chronic growth is no longer a desirable goal. They are deciding to opt out of this model by establishing "repair cafés" or "transition towns," communities that try to run things differently at the local level. But doubts about the growth dogma are even beginning to creep into politics. For instance, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), recently argued that Western countries should "espouse limiting economic growth" at home.

But can there be prosperity without growth and growth without environmental damage? How can jobs be preserved in a stagnating or even a shrinking economy? How can a government service its debts in such an economy, especially as the population shrinks?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/critics-propose-economy-with-less-growth-and-environmental-damage-a-897550.html

[liberal N proud]

1. We could build a growing economy on protecting the environment?

The economist who tell companies what to do, keep telling them there is no value in doing that.