I don't disagree with your statement that 'Growth works.' It certainly does what it intends; creates jobs, increases output of the shiny things (and useful things as well) , and ameliorates age old problems of survival. Life grows, that is what it does. It has an arc: seed, seedling, shoot, plant, fruit, compost. Provided that the nutrients are there, and the water, this arc will play out in any garden. My contention is that we are at the cusp of the fruit/compost period for this civilization. Growth, as Saint Donella Meadows has shown us, has Limits. We are now hitting many of those limits in this unique moment of time in the planets history.
Growth as an economic strategy is fine when the resources are abundant. It works well when there is new lands to settle, new resources to discover, virgin forests to exploit, ores and oil to be had with a high EROEI etc.
It has worked quite well over the last 200 years, no doubt about that. I will set aside the intended consequences of income disparity, oppression, and environmental destruction for now and try to stick to the economics of it.
The question we face today is that Growth is no longer possible, so why are we continuing to focus on that as a viable economic paradigm? It is quite clear that Growth, in your terms, is impossible for most of the worlds people. In fact, growth now is a cancer, eating into our natural capital. Earth Overshoot Day is now....September 25 http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/ . How do you promise Growth to the Chinese and Indians and Brazilians in the face of that reality?
As much as we all want to keep our comfortable life, the fact is that the only demonstrably sustainable lifestyle is , sorry ... hunter/gatherer. And as we well know with 7 billion humans, huge megalopilis enclaves, and already exploited natural resources, this is no longer an option for most of the planet. Defining Sustainability is like nailing jelly to a tree ... or like rubbing a rabbits foot. It is hard to get it right, but makes us feel good by saying the word. Like you, I have not yet found an economics designed around sustainability. And actually, I don't expect to find one that will provide the same level of comfort as the current growth model.
Subsistence living, scraping out your food and materials from your own plot of land, is portrayed as a horrible thing by you, and yet, hasn't it always been thus for most of the humans? And is it such a horror? Is it horrible to dig the soil, plant the seeds, harvest the fruit, manage the productivity of the soil, preserve your food, make necessary items from your own materials? Hard work, yes, but a horrible life? I dont agree with that. My own experience in just dipping my toe into gardening and soil building has shown it to be a 'spiritual experience' if I may use the term (mutters some pedantic reference to James and Varieties of ...here...)
It is quite a difficult problem in the macro sense. Capitalism, growth, this current economy with all its wonders ....I would love this to continue!! (with many mods to the capitalism and social justice part) But the hard fact is...it can not. There is simply not enough stuff here. For me, I take a good programmers approach: divide and conquer. I take one aspect of the problem about sustainability such as : It is not sustainable to fly lettuce from Chile to Calfornia, and I grow my own lettuce. I take the next problem : It is not sustainable to clear cut trees to make packaging that gets throw in a landfill after ONE use. I reduce buying packaged goods, I buy in bulk, and the packages I do use, I save and use as sheet mulch, eventually returning them to the soil here. The ultimate goal would be that I no longer purchase any packaged goods, but this seems like a Herculean task here in this current economy.
Localization of human needs seems the most likely candidate for sustainability. Small communities providing the light manufacturing, food production, and specialties for the local population. The down side of this is that the large corporations that have taken over all aspects human production, will need to go away. And that sir, is the political problem, not that people are afraid of hard work. The rivers of money that pollute our politics will always be spent on preserving the status quo of Growth and corporate hegemony over the basics of life. Until we agree that sweat is revolutionary, that individual effort and skill are the weapons of the revolution, the status quo will prevail. Gandhi, India, spinning wheels, and British cotton being the poster child on this idea.
No easy answers, and certainly no macro answers from this seat. I just see the data, see the storm clouds out there, and realize that I can only walk my own talk, and hope it does not get too sporty on the social scene. Because, as Mr. Lallo points out, humans are violent, and hungry humans are randomly violent. I do expect that social unrest, meaning people killing each other for food, may be in our future. No, Rodney, unfortunately we can't all get along.
But we get along better on a full stomach which is why returning to an agrarian state of mind in the physical world, while maintaining a high level of mental endeavour in the virtual seems to me to be the proper course. 1860 with laptops. I hope the society decides to preserve our connectivity, preserve our computing prowess and ability to manufacture these systems and maintain these networks, and allow the sprawl and freeways to revert to small roads and smaller houses, with gardens surrounding each, and community power being generated from each rooftop. And then I woke up.
Peace, freeBSD , and Compost,
Thom
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