I miss a clear definition of economic growth here, and the discussion strongly reminds me of the environmental resources focused critique of growth that has started with 1970′s Club of Rome—Limits to Growth, there might be value to examine the huge literature around that topic that has been produced ever since on such topics.
Market value can increase if we paint the grey houses pink, or indeed if we design good computer games, or if we find great drugs to constantly awe use in insanely great ways without downsides. Or maybe indeed if we can duplicate/simulate brains which derive lot of value, say, literally out of thin air—and if we decide to take into account their blissful state also in our growth measure.
If we all have our basic needs met, and are rich way beyond it, willingness to pay for some new services may become extremely huge; even for the least important services—merely as we have nothing to do with our wealth, and as we’re willing to pay so little on the margin for the traditional ‘basic’ goods who are (in my scenario assumed to be) abundant and cheaply produced.
So the quantitative long-run extent of “economic growth” then becomes a bit an arbitrary thing: economic growth potentially being huge, but the true extra value possibly being limited.
‘Economic growth’ may therefore be too intangible, too arbitrary a basis for discussing the nature of long-run fate of human (or what ever supersedes us) development.
Maybe we should revert back to directly discussing limits to increase in utility (as come comments here already do).
I miss a clear definition of economic growth here, and the discussion strongly reminds me of the environmental resources focused critique of growth that has started with 1970′s Club of Rome—Limits to Growth, there might be value to examine the huge literature around that topic that has been produced ever since on such topics.
Economic growth = increase in market value, is a typical definition.
Market value can increase if we paint the grey houses pink, or indeed if we design good computer games, or if we find great drugs to constantly awe use in insanely great ways without downsides. Or maybe indeed if we can duplicate/simulate brains which derive lot of value, say, literally out of thin air—and if we decide to take into account their blissful state also in our growth measure.
If we all have our basic needs met, and are rich way beyond it, willingness to pay for some new services may become extremely huge; even for the least important services—merely as we have nothing to do with our wealth, and as we’re willing to pay so little on the margin for the traditional ‘basic’ goods who are (in my scenario assumed to be) abundant and cheaply produced.
So the quantitative long-run extent of “economic growth” then becomes a bit an arbitrary thing: economic growth potentially being huge, but the true extra value possibly being limited.
‘Economic growth’ may therefore be too intangible, too arbitrary a basis for discussing the nature of long-run fate of human (or what ever supersedes us) development.
Maybe we should revert back to directly discussing limits to increase in utility (as come comments here already do).