The Infinite Desire for Growth

The author is Director of the Economics Department at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, so this book has been translated from French. As such, it draws on French as well as English and US sources, something one rarely finds the other way round. It is a stimulating book of wide scope drawing on a range of disciplines. He starts from the premise that economic growth and the hope of better things to come embodied in the Enlightenment idea of progress is the religion of the modern world. He then traces our history and key turning points in our development including agriculture, persisting hierarchies, the invention of money, the industrial and scientific revolutions, and the emergence of autonomy and free expression. Along the way, he contrasts Western with contemporary Chinese empires, observing that Western powers were in a state of permanent war and rivalry in building empires and exploiting resources. Our economic development has permitted a population explosion, but we are in the process of going through a demographic transition to stable levels thanks to the education of women and influential examples widely seen on TV.

Questions around labour, productivity, automation and wages are very current, especially since 2008. Here the author takes a rather longer view, showing how middle-class incomes have been stagnating over the last 40 years, and pointing out growth may be underestimated due to the widespread provision of free services over the Internet. Ecologically, we have entered the Anthropocene era but still with our old mentality of separate nation states and their interests. The author takes the view, which I share, that humanity is not yet up to the task of solving global ecological issues and that sufficiently far-reaching collective action is unlikely solely through evoking risks to the planet. We therefore need to rethink progress and look for successful social models such as Denmark. The key issue here is what the author calls the extraordinary malleability of human desire in the light of the Easterlin paradox: first, that wealth does not correlate well with happiness, and secondly, that while a higher salary is obviously desirable, 'yet once we have reached that target, it is never enough' due to habituation and comparing ourselves with others. Our needs are relative, and we don't want to fall behind our neighbours. Moreover, even while the planet strains under the collective human impact, millions more people aspire to Western lifestyles, for which we would need the resources of four planets.

In view of this situation, one has to ask how likely it is that the author's desirable recommendation of a transition from quantity to quality will occur. This is all very well in advanced countries, but even here people are unwilling to give up what they already have. However, there is increasing support for moves away from GDP towards a focus on well-being. He thinks that attitudes are transformed 'when individual aspirations and social needs converge towards the same goal' (p. 152), which entails a new sense of community and solidarity, moving from individual and social levels to that of the species and the planet. Ecological thinkers have already arrived there, but most economists and politicians lag behind - hence the race between education and catastrophe. This book is a thoughtful wake-up call that helpfully contributes to our education and potential transformation.