NOVEMBER’S LESSONS

• Lindsey Grant
• November 3, 2010
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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NOVEMBER’S LESSONS
An NPG Forum Paper
by Lindsey Grant
November 2010

On the surface, November’s mid-term elections offered very little comfort to those of us who recognize that perpetual growth is not an available solution to the nation’s problems.1 Amid the furious partisanship that seems to have taken over the country, there was bipartisan agreement that the object of policy is to return to robust growth, and nobody questioned that assumption. Yet beneath the rhetoric, there were signs that Washington is beginning to feel the national malaise about whether we can indeed go back to our earlier model of growth. On the specific issue of mass immigration, the successes of the Tea Party and its allies – whatever one may think about some of the policies they propose – suggest that public anger is likely to lead to a less permissive government stance and therefore to slower population growth, even though population policy itself is not yet back on the table.

Scientists have long recognized the population problem, and most of the world’s national scientific societies have warned against continued growth. Our national leadership toyed briefly with those thoughts 40 years ago, but has since recoiled from them.2 The rich love growth, and the economists who serve them think that they can continue to generate that growth, using Keynesian money management techniques. Growth is enshrined in U.S. policy.

There are a few “steady state” economists who warn that the Keynesian growth model operates within and is limited by the environment in which it operates, that the expanding circle of growth will stop when it reaches those limits, and that the world is at a critical point with the arrival of Peak Oil, the prospect of declining energy, and the climate change bequeathed to us by the fossil fuel era.

The faith in growth is now pitted against that steady state paradigm but does not admit its legitimacy. Politicians of all stripes – and not just Americans – call for more growth to escape the present economic doldrums. (The group picture of the recent G20 meeting showed the leaders standing under a banner that said “Share Growth Beyond Crisis”, and all but one of them appeared to be saluting.) It is the “happy days will be here again” syndrome.

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