Beyond Growth for Growth's Sake

“Economic growth sits at the root of all plans to tackle poverty. The two concepts – growth and poverty reduction – are treated as practically interchangeable. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which promise to eradicate poverty ‘in all its forms everywhere’ by 2030. The entire formula for success rests on economic growth; at least 7 per cent per annum in the least developed countries, and higher levels of economic productivity across the board. Goal 8 is entirely dedicated to this objective.”

“This feels intuitive and logical. If economic growth equals more money, and poverty equals a lack of money, then economic growth equals less poverty. And this is, of course, the prevailing logic for all human development. The idea that if you’re not growing you must be dying is writ large. Every country, every company, every individual must grow their material wealth over time; both the whole and every one of its parts must be on a constant growth curve.”

“Taken together, we might see this as a form of totalitarianism – the totalitarian imperative of growth.”

“Aggregate economic growth does not translate into less poverty, which is the stated objective of the SDGs.”

“We live in a world where 95 per cent of all income from growth goes to the richest 40 per cent, and the concept of trickle-down neoliberal economics has been shown, in the words of Alex Andreou in The Guardian last year, to be ‘the greatest broken promise of our lifetimes’.”

“Totalitarian growth is destroying us, in the most real and painful way. The consumption-driven mechanisms we use to achieve it, and the GDP measure we use to define it, have us locked on a path to ruin by actively encouraging us to treat finite natural resources as if they were infinite, and prioritise the growth of the money supply over everything else.”

“GDP doesn’t care about the environment or human suffering; they are irrelevant ‘externalities’”

“Totalitarian growth is a sacred cow in orthodox economics; both governments and corporations the world over use GDP and its private‑sector corollary, profit, as their prime directive. To challenge this is to challenge power, which is precisely what the SDGs fail to do.”