Yep. World resources are limited. At some point, further growth will become impossible. So, somehow, the world needs to adjust to a situation where there is net zero growth (or even prolonged contraction). The problem is that - so far, or so far as I know - no nation has ever managed to maintain confidence while the economy is stagnant, let alone contracting.
Perhaps an economist here will come along and correct me in my assumption about future growth and/or how confidence might maintained with a contracting economy - I (genuinely) do hope so!
This is the million dollar question though isn´t it?! We have an entire global financial system built on the idea that all economies should be striving towards continual growth all the time. Stagnancy is considered a failure - meanwhile contraction is considered disasterous.
It is clear as day that not all of the world can grow to the point where we are now in the West - at least along our current lines of development. The planet simply cannot handle it. The planet cannot handle where we are at right now - with only a fraction of the global population having the amount of stuff that we do. Yet simultaneously we can´t just expect the rest of the world to stay poor so we can continue to live grossly wasteful consumerist lifestyles in the Western world.
I don´t buy the idea that we need to have continual growth to live decent and meaningful lives. Tepid is right when he says that up until now lack of growth has meant things get worse for the average person. But that is because up until only 80 or so years ago there were many people in the West still living in actual squalor. And even the superwealthy didn´t use half as much resources as we use now.
But we´re now at a stage where, for some significant segments of the population, not owning a massive flatscreen TV and Land Rover is considered a failure - meanwhile there are people elsewhere in the world who are still living in squalor (in fact there people in the very same country regressing to conditions not far off it). And that is not even mentioning all the billionaires and their obscene levels of consumerist wealth.
Changing mindsets in the West towards what makes for a good lifestyle is one thing. But changing en entire global economic system based entirely on the idea of the need for growth, when many people in the developing world are looking on at what we have in the West, is a different thing entirely.
