To Grow or Not to Grow

It's not a question.

I’m a big fan of the Overton Window concept. Basically, it’s the idea that there’s a range of policy positions — could also apply to everyday life ideas — that make up the range of socially acceptable but debatable points. Beyond the edges of the “window” you get into territory that the vast majority of people won’t accept. It’s too radical or too dangerous or immoral.¹

Some people today might think we’re so politically polarized that there are two windows with little or no overlap, or even a large gap between them, so that people from opposing camps can’t even talk to one another, let alone “agree to disagree.” What’s acceptable to you is completely unacceptable to me, almost by definition. I’ve experienced this personally, and it’s extremely unpleasant, completely demoralizing, especially to someone like me who likes to talk about stuff I’m learning or thinking about.

I’m optimistic about Substack in this regard because here you’ll find lots of diversity and lots of reasonably constructive discussion within a long, wide, full window — like a whole wall of bright floor-to-ceiling panes, or a broad set of side-by-side patio doors that can be opened to let in a fresh breeze. The Substack Window is especially panoramic when it comes to problems of growth or progress, be it economic, ecological, energy, technological, political, social or cultural, and so on.

Early on, for Anthropocene-interested readers, I recommended following the Breakthrough Institute (website), which now has their own publication on Substack, Breakthrough Journal.² A recent conference marking their 20th anniversary featured retrospective talks on how the Institute was founded and how far they’ve come. Suffice to say, Breakthrough is a proponent of ecomodernism, which is not (as they see themselves) any form of “environmentalism.” It’s not that Breakthrough isn’t concerned about the environment; it’s that their outlook on the problems involved and proposed methods for solutions, for energy, carbon, and climate; for agriculture and biodiversity conservation in land use; are focused on technological innovation and science, on spatial intensification and concentration of human activities, on decoupling humans from nature, and on leaving wild nature alone as much as possible (land sparing).

This is quite opposite from the romantic (I call it “romantic”) regenerative movement, or “back to nature” movement, which sees the answer in the deep re-coupling of humans back into nature. The idea is that whatever they do, humans should leave nature better than they found it through restoration, regeneration, and incorporating healthy, natural methods of farming and land use, whether permaculture, biomimicry, traditional farming, etc. This all sounds lovely to me (seriously!), except I worry a lot about problems of scale. How are you going to achieve that kind of re-coupling for 8 billion humans on the planet? The romantic view ends up being incredibly individualistic and elitist. “We the happy, regenerating few…”³

From the Breakthrough conference as reported, I found this talk especially thought-provoking (posted by

Roger Pielke Jr.

at

The Honest Broker

):

The Environmental Trinity

The “trinity” in question is 1) the history of decarbonization in energy source or fuel (shifting from carbon to hydrogen); 2) the history of dematerialization (using far less material resources to make things); and 3) the phenomenon of land-sparing. The point, I take it, is that we have made tremendous progress historically on all three (or in some cases, we should have made progress, if it weren’t for “environmentalist” — aka now “climatist” — meddling!). It’s possible, indeed altogether beneficial for both humans and the environment itself, to grow technologically and economically, if only we can get the politics right. Similar good discussions come from Hannah Ritchie and Michael Magoon.

But again, all this optimism is in quite stark opposition — think diverging, if not already divergent Overton windows — to people who push de-growth, which is a different sort of movement. (For the basics, see Introduction to Degrowth - by Erin Remblance.) Let’s throw over capitalism, consumerism, classical liberal economic theory, and markets altogether, in order to save the planet. Or let’s at least completely rethink and reformulate the current system, with all its faults. Maybe it’s a return to a modified Hobbes or a “metabolic” Marx (!), or maybe it’s something completely new, like Doughnut Economics. De-growth is mainstream for climatism (Greta, Naomi) and representative of green progressive (left) politics.

It’s ironic that progressivism — note the ism — as politics is far from advocating material or economic progress, i.e. growth. The progressive political agenda today is focused rather on social and identity politics, pushing for change with respect to race, gender, sexuality, etc., perhaps “intersectionally” correlated with environmental injustices. In the past it was geared more to relief of poverty, women’s rights, civil rights. Unregulated capitalism or growth (“for the rich”) is denounced. — And yet, it’s important to acknowledge exceptions amongst progressive economists, for example

Brad DeLong

or (?)

Noah Smith

, whose nuanced takes won’t condone the complete throwing over of conventional economic theory or systems any time soon. They are political progressives still presumably in the pro-growth camp.

In short, the landscape is confusing! I love the fact that the Window is wide, and long, and diverse — with lots of overlap and conversations going on in all directions — even when there’s still some frustrated demonizing of the opposition, trying to push people beyond the threshold of acceptability. A big wide-open window nevertheless makes it hard to figure out who is saying what exactly. Who is assuming what, valuing what, proposing what?⁴

Here’s my quick seven-point primer on what to keep track of. The bottom line is: to grow or not to grow? It’s not a question.

But that’s also not the end of the story.

1. We can’t not have economic growth as long as the human population is growing or the human population is not living at some acceptable material standard of living (however you define that). I’m with the SDGs and the call for sustainable development at least this much. But, as world population growth levels off, and as standards of living increase (“billions are lifted out of poverty”), the need for continued economic growth levels off proportionally as well, especially when there are large human and MOTH (more-than-human) costs involved. I’m with the de-growth (or a de-emphasize growth) movement to that extent. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet, however much Climate has become The Emergency.

2. Regarding material prosperity, beyond whatever that acceptable standard of living is, I ultimately disagree that material abundance is the Most Important Thing. I don’t believe in economic growth for its own sake. At some point, other deeply humanistic concerns come into play, the non-material. Plus: MOTH concerns. That places me in opposition to highly motivated pure capitalists, for whom money-making and wealth accumulation is the most important thing.⁵

3. There is and isn’t a tradeoff between economic growth and environmental concerns (which are not just about climate!). It all depends on how you do it. And no, government control and regulation is not the easy or obvious answer.⁶ Economic growth can be achieved without overly destructive environmental practices, although historically, empirically, this has often not been the case. History contains a lot of lessons. It should not always be followed. The biggest industries in question are of course: energy, food, and resource-intensive manufacturing of all the Stuff we humans need (and want). These are all technology-heavy problems. They are also behavioral problems. What do we really need? What do we really want?

4. Part of the technological answer to responsible material well-being is to make the economy circular. Aim to put back everything that’s taken out of the earth, or at the very least: pay for it, with the proceeds going to restoration. Minimize the extraction of virgin resources (“dematerialize,” as in the Ausubel “trinity” argument above). Stop the waste, or radically reduce it, and again: pay for it, with the proceeds going to clean-up. Design energy, food, and manufacturing systems afresh to close the circle. Innovate and proliferate good technologies.

5. Part of the behavioral answer is to be good humans and support — with votes and dollars, with production and consumption, with social, political, and cultural activities — circular economic renovation, which should be good for capitalism as well. Whether through ecomodernism (intensification, applicable at scale) or through regeneration (for elites who have a lot of wealth and political power, who can afford to and need/want to feel good about human-nature symbioses): Support Circular.

6. A final part of the answer is to keep an eye not only on material well-being (growth, progress), not only on deeper humanistic well-being, but also on problems of justice, including for the planet (MOTH). Phase 1 of that is to care about the absolute situation of the poor, the underrepresented, the bottom, whether 20% or 50% or the 99%. How are the worst off doing? If the top 1% (or 20% or 50%) are delivering more to others than to themselves, have used legitimate means to get to where they are (not mere technically “legal” means), and have paid the full true costs of their economic activity before taking profits, let them enjoy their wealth, however disproportionate it is! If, on the other hand, some (or all) of the 1% (or 20 or 50%) are corrupt, rigging the system and ossifying it, not delivering more to others than to themselves and their cronies, operating by dubious means, shifting costs and burdens onto exploitable others, a just shake-up and comeuppance is in order. Political economy won’t be damaged in that case; it will improve.

7. Phase 2 of justice is to care about relative situations, inequality as such. After securing basic rights (natural, legal), after securing basic freedoms — these are rock bottoms, foundations and floors, that support every living thing above — and given all the foregoing points, I think we could leave Phase 2 for later. Even if I were amongst the worst off, I think I would be okay with that.⁷

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

1. An important property of Overton windows is that they move over time. What’s beyond the pale may move inside, and what was one thought normal or acceptable moves out beyond the pale.

2. Early Pose Ponder post here: Breakthrough?

3. Think of it this way. Wouldn’t it be great for all US citizens to reconnect with and enjoy nature in their national parks? Yes! But… what would happen if literally every US citizen actually went out to visit a national park for a week every year? What kind of nature experience would anyone have?

Of course, wherever it does work, we should pay attention and adopt traditional methods. In any given locale, with any given local people or indigenous community, healthy integrative farming or fishing or ecological practices that sustain people and environment should of course be used.

4. Other Substacks helpful to sort out these kinds of questions include Sustain What and Taming Complexity.

5. There’s lots of research and data collection being done today on measuring human well-being beyond GDP. The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is probably the most prominent advocate.

6. Why? Because: Hayek’s warning about the dangers of messing with markets. However bad it is, you can make it worse. Again, see my quick take on Capitalism’s Pros and Cons. I’m actually agnostic about proposed intervention. However, the burden of proof on any policy proposal to intervene (apart from setting better ground rules for markets to operate at all, or to help them operate better by incorporating true costs, etc.) should be 1) to show that things will improve over doing nothing (even if doing nothing, problems still remain). 2) There should also be a trial period and limited term implementation, so that rollback is possible for whatever doesn’t work or stops working as intended. Those are both, politically speaking, heavy burdens.

7. Not to go all Rawlsian (i.e. trying to say what I would theoretically agree to, given some hypothetical originary situation ignorant of outcomes), I do think the biggest problem of inequality is true injustice (the corrupt and self-serving misbehavior of the rich), along with absolute need (desperation on the part of the poor). Solve true injustice and absolute need first.

Re: phase 2 justice and progressive politics, I’ll hazard to say that, given basic rights and freedoms, those rock bottom floors, the agenda shouldn’t be about ensuring classic “equality of opportunity.” There is never equality, either of opportunity or of outcome. Each person is unique, with deprivations and blessings. I do believe it’s class-based thinking and group-identity comparisons that breed deep-seated and entrenched inequalities in the first place, and class- or group-based resentments in return, over whatever biological or material or cultural differences are at stake. We should stop that. Stop aggregating real people (and other beings) into abstract group-identities and tribes. See whole people, as such, in their own whole contexts.