How Economic Growth has Become Anti-Life

[polly7]

By Vandana Shiva

Source: The Guardian

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Limitless growth is the fantasy of economists, businesses and politicians. It is seen as a measure of progress. As a result, gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves.

The concept of growth was put forward as a measure to mobilise resources during the second world war. GDP is based on creating an artificial and fictitious boundary, assuming that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce. In effect, “growth” measures the conversion of nature into cash, and commons into commodities.

Thus nature’s amazing cycles of renewal of water and nutrients are defined into nonproduction. The peasants of the world, who provide 72% of the food, do not produce; women who farm or do most of the housework do not fit this paradigm of growth either. A living forest does not contribute to growth, but when trees are cut down and sold as timber, we have growth. Healthy societies and communities do not contribute to growth, but disease creates growth through, for example, the sale of patented medicine.

Water available as a commons shared freely and protected by all provides for all. However, it does not create growth. But when Coca-Cola sets up a plant, mines the water and fills plastic bottles with it, the economy grows. But this growth is based on creating poverty – both for nature and local communities. Water extracted beyond nature’s capacity to renew and recharge creates a water famine. Women are forced to walk longer distances looking for drinking water. In the village of Plachimada in Kerala, when the walk for water became 10 kms, local tribal woman Mayilamma said enough is enough. We cannot walk further; the Coca-Cola plant must shut down. The movement that the women started eventually led to the closure of the plant.

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Full article: http://www.zcommunications.org/how-economic-growth-has-become-anti-life-by-vandana-shiva.html

[JEFF9K]

1. Bhutan is on the right track with Gross National Happiness.

[4dsc]

2. Yet most people are still in denial

Great read but too bad it will be ignored by the masses. Most are still trying to climb that corporate ladder or keep up with the Jones. Sustainability is not something they wish to work for in their lives. What fun it that?

[blkmusclmachine]

3. .

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[AdHocSolver]

4. A better label for what is described is the commercialization of all of life's activities.

My dictionary defines commercialize as "to exploit for profit" and uses as an example "commercialize Christmas".

Corporations talk about their activities as "adding value" and "improving" the economy by increasing GDP.

However, in reality, they are wasting natural resources for profit, and ruining the environment at the same time.

For example, not very many years ago, people would buy a water bottle for a few dollars, and fill it with water from a water faucet for a few pennies. They could reuse that water bottle hundreds of times. This was environmentally friendly as well as a cost saving practice.

Then a "brilliant" marketer got the idea of putting water (often merely tap water) in plastic bottles, maybe adding some artificial coloring and flavoring, and selling it for a lot more than the cost of the contents and the container.

Besides separating people from a lot of their money (the cost of buying a new bottle each time they want some portable water), such a product is highly wasteful of natural resources, principally oil, and causes considerable environmental pollution.

The capitalist who profits from this waste claims that this is good for the economy because it increases GDP. However, when people with limited income are forced to spend limited resources in such a wasteful manner, the society as a whole suffers as in the example cited in the original post.

The epitome of capitalist thinking was expressed by one of my economics professors when he stated that natural disasters were considered good for the economy because it forced people to spend money to replace their losses.