Well through most of history our (Canada’s) population was growing, so we needed economic growth to keep pace with population growth (a red queen’s race). This growth would be necessary whether we had a capitalist system or not, because it represents all the stuff we need for a modern life (food, housing, clothing, medicine, appliances, transportation, energy, entertainment, etc).
This is still true if you look at the global population and compare standards of living between countries. You can’t really say “we got all we need, now we can stop” when a large percentage of the world’s population is still lacking almost everything on the “modern life stuff list” above (living on food aid, donated clothing and medicine, in ramshackle housing, cooking with solid fuels such as wood or dung).
Explain again why the line always has to keep going up an an ever steeper angle?
Maybe the capitalist fiction of infinite growth doesn’t need to be public policy.
Well through most of history our (Canada’s) population was growing, so we needed economic growth to keep pace with population growth (a red queen’s race). This growth would be necessary whether we had a capitalist system or not, because it represents all the stuff we need for a modern life (food, housing, clothing, medicine, appliances, transportation, energy, entertainment, etc).
This is still true if you look at the global population and compare standards of living between countries. You can’t really say “we got all we need, now we can stop” when a large percentage of the world’s population is still lacking almost everything on the “modern life stuff list” above (living on food aid, donated clothing and medicine, in ramshackle housing, cooking with solid fuels such as wood or dung).