Getting Over the Growth-Is-Good Myth

[BridgeTheGap]

Some fallacies die long, slow, hard deaths, and it appears that’s what’s happening with the happy, comforting, brainless mantra “Growth is good.” The ongoing global economic recession and looming environmental catastrophe have finally caused a significant number of people to question just how we think we’re going to economically grow forever on a crowded planet with finite resources.

British economist Tim Jackson, author of the 2009 book Prosperity Without Growth, explains in a Q&A with OnEarth executive editor George Black that this previously unmentionable notion is gaining currency even among some forward-thinking business leaders:

You say in your book that “questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists, and revolutionaries.” Is that more true or less true now than when you wrote it in 2009?

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Wild-Green/Getting-Over-the-Growth-Is-Good-Myth.aspx#ixzz1g3nlsWSR

[applegrove]

1. Growth is good. It makes for money which then should be shared through the tax system. Growth is

at the same time bad, bad for the environment where corporations do not pay for the distress their businesses cause. Growth is bad if it is cannibalism where it is just a transfer of wealth, from the middle class to the rich, with no new good or service created.