The steady-state economyand economic degrowth

Blake AlcottPhD candidate in ecological economicsblakeley@bluewin.ch www.blakealcott.org

AGM, Population MattersLondon, 15 October 2011

Beauty: the orphan of environmental policy

square metres? planning

George Monbiot (Guardian):“No one in their right mind disputes that England needs more homes, especially affordable homes. No one disputes that the planning system should deliver them.”

“The National Trust believes in growth as we all do.”NT Dir Gen Fiona Reynolds &

Dir of Conservation Peter Nixonin identical words

economic growth isaxiomatically good

for good reason

the growth coalition

“There is panic about growth. When we panic, we revert to type, and our true nature comes out.” Andy Atkins, Dir of FoE UK

proof: usually-critical NT & Monbiot – who by the way also categorically believes that population is not part of environmental problems

Recessionology in the Guardian alone:CBI Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directorsagreement between Terry Duddy (Home Retail Group) & Simon Jenkins (NT

Chairman – present planning doesn’t “impede growth”): give money to consumers, not the banks

Jonathan Freedland – “There was a growth-shaped hole in this speech... Cameron offered no plan to get Britain working again” & Jackie Ashley – “strategy for growth”, “pro-growth opposition”, supports planning reform for growth

*

*Ed Miliband > Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth

Tories Lib Dems Labour & everybody

*

UNELECTABLE2011:

“Green Growth”Green New Deal GroupLarry Elliott (Guardian),

Caroline Lucas (GP),Andrew Simms (nef),Tony Juniper (ex-FoE)]

Convenor Colin Hines: (Guardian Letter):

“increase economic activity”, “tackle this demand deficit”,

“kickstart the economy”

2011:“Strategies for Sustained Growth

and Inclusive Development”(Commission

on Growth and Development)Lord Browne, Robert Solow...

the only thing NOT on the Mainstream Menu isNo, Nil, Zero, No Growth

like atheism in the 18th century

OLD socialist HOPE: Guardian Letter 14 Sept:“No one has yet identified any growth potential that might solvethe social problems arising from the increasing disparity in incomes.”

some assertions

• We’re using up resources faster than nature replenishes them.– fossil fuels, copper..... non-renewables*– groundwater, trees, fish.... renewables

• We’re putting waste into nature, damaging health, climate and other species faster than...– heavy metals, unsightly plastics, GHGs....

• We’re squeezing more food out of the earth than it provides long-run.– soil degradation, soil erosion....

* no replenishment

‘development’ logic

built-up not built-up

developer,maybe a ‘sustainable’ one

political ‘planning’ fight

OK

= growth logic

logical assertions:nothing can grow forever;

no supply is unlimited

COMPROMISE

no limits to growth after all?

new deposits ofmetals, fossil fuels

more efficient use of limited resources

nuclear fusionwill desalinate water!

greenhouse skyscrapersfor edible plants

decrease consumption(population times affluence)

Let’s be optimistic.

copper, oil

• Each further gram of copper mined requires more energy than the one before.

• Tony Hayward: Kurdistan may be “the last big on-shore ‘easy’ oil province available for exploration by private companies anywhere in the world.”

• Lord Browne’s gas shale fracking near Blackpool; Alberta tar sands: ratio of energy won to energy invested is on average declining.

• best is Saudi oil 10:1

18 months!

Many watersheds using aquifers are in steady-state.Others must degrow: Ebro, Colorado, Jordan, North China

groundwater (aquifers)

# litres drawnor # cows

on alprationed

for centuries;these are

problems ofthe commons

“World’s declining rivers put 5 billion people at risk.” (Nature)

What should remain steady in a‘steady-state’ economy?

1) the amount of natural resources we yearly take from nature and 2) the amount of waste we put back into it

i.e., inputs into production and outputs from consumption, in biophysical terms, whose sum is called throughput

steady input amounts of water, biomass, animals; steady output amounts ofgases, unhealthy water, degraded soil...

and: metals, oil, coal, uranium... ooops!

“It is just as stupid to sit freezing on a finite pile of coal as it is to use it all up.”

THE NON-RENEWABLES PARADOX

throughput = input + output

global ecosystem

solar energy

heat

planetaryresources

economicsubsystem

high-gradefossil energy

materials,minerals

planetarysinks

low-gradeenergy

wastes,pollution

(The Limits to Growth: 30-Year Update)

‘waste’ : iron filings, tread-out steps,eroded paint, dead organisms,unfashionable clothes

= ecological economics

Steady State Economy SSE policy recommendations 

1. Stabilise population2. Cap-auction-trade basic resources3. Eco-tax reform4. No fractional reserve banking5. Reform national accounts (replace GDP)

(CASSE : Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy)

main tool to shrink to an SSE:physically-defined caps on resources:

litres of fossil fuel, number of fish, litres of aquifer water.

population doesn’t matter

• reducing population doesn’t help• consumption per person can simply go up, and

we’re back where we started• nevertheless, as David Attenborough says, all

problems would be simpler to solve if...• and rising consumption for the poor is good,• so lower population is good, but not necessarily

for the environmentMainly, caps on resource use are just too brutal.

We must protect ourselves by limiting our numbers.

history: the cowboy economy

• Kenneth Boulding, 1966– the cowboy economy vs Spaceship Earth– “What has posterity ever done for me?”

• Herman Daly, from 1968 on– ‘sustainable growth’ an oxymoron– we must live within nature’s limits

• Limits to Growth, 1972 (Club of Rome)• 1988: International Society for Ecological

Economics ISEE

earlier debateAdam Smith wrote: (1776)The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of society;the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy.

John Stuart Mill answered: (1871)There is room in the world for a great increase of population,

but... I confess I see very little reason for desiring it.[wilderness, solitude, beauty]

If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and populationwould extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

degrowth

If we are using up resources faster than they’re replenished,

or polluting faster than nature can clean things up,‘the economy’ – our ecological ‘footprint’ – is too big:It must shrink, or ‘degrow’

since 2004 décroissance, degrowth

ouch! What about jobs?What about material prosperity?What about poverty alleviation?

populationBarbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam:

“Fundamentally, you need two things for dealing with population – one is girls’ education, which gives them power, confidence and knowledge, and then there is easy access to contraception. Most women do not want more than about three to five children – that is from surveys right across the world.”

G2 2 Sept

George Monbiot: “Population growth is not [an environmental] problem.” Fred Pearce, Lynsey Hanley

VHEMT.org “May we live long and die out.” “Our movement hasn’t really caught on. People are breeding like there’s no tomorrow.” > Q & A

“population economics”

• ‘2000 Watt Society’, Zürich - 2000J/per second/person) If the population goes up 10%, the goal must be tightened to 1800W/person.

• playing lower consumption off against lower population won’t do: ‘walk and chew gum at the same time’

• having a baby• measure resources, decide on desired quality of life

human feedlot vs. quality of life• women’s health and rights and education: good per se• mortality declining as well as fertility (complacency)

questions to PM

quotas – e.g. one child per personis this something the majority can legitimately decide?is reproductive freedom absolute, not balanced by

reproductive responsibility?PM opposes ‘coercive’ policies, but every law is coercive

subsidies – ‘family-friendly’tax deductions per dependent childchild allowancesone-off birth premiumscheaper housing, child-care, etc.

tax child-bearing, pay for vasectomies, ban sperm banks?How serious are environmental and life-quality problems?

to read

• Kenneth Boulding, 1966.

‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’ online– "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite

world is either a madman or an economist."

• Herman Daly & Joshua Farley, 2004. Ecological Economics. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

• the journal Ecological Economics• CASSE www.steadystate.org• www.degrowth.net

THANK YOU. COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS?blakeley@bluewin.ch www.blakealcott.org

the ‘growth’ concept

• till 1970: plain ol’ economic growth• 1972: limits to growth, zero growth• 1973: sustainable growth• 1974: sustainable quantitative growth: that’s an oxymoron• 1977: OK then, qualitative growth• 1984: But GDP & resource use grow in lock-step• 1989: Let’s decouple growth and environmental damage! • 1998-2010: Sorry, it hasn’t happened.

‘steady-state’ also = steady rate of growth !

sustainable development(no, of course not growth!) 1980, 1987

grain production

Index:1950 = 100

400

300

200

100

01950 1970 1990 2010

total production

population

grainper person

difference between total & per personThe Limits to Growth: 30-Year Update

2 definitions

• Daly Beyond Growth p 31. Growth … refers to an increase in the physical scale of the matter/energy throughput that sustains the economic activities of production and consumption of commodities.

• Daly & Farley p 440 “The SSE is the economy viewed as a subsystem in dynamic equilibrium with the parent ecosystem/biosphere that sustains it.”

If population goes down, each can consume more P → A

If affluence goes down, population can increase A → P

If affluence goes up, there might be fewer births, but also fewer deaths... A → P

If I ‘do without’, ceteris paribus others can ‘do with’ A → A

If efficiency increases (if T goes down), more can be produced, and P-x-A (total consumption) can rise T → A & T → P

but: right-side interdependencies

the interdependencies graphically

Population

Impact

Technology

Affluence

DepletionPollution or

5) MEANS: AFFLUENCE CHANGES OF SOME AFFECT AFFLUENCE OF OTHERS;8) LIKEWISE FOR POPULATION; AND 9) LIKEWISE FOR TECHNOLOGY.

AT LEAST NINE SIMULTANEOUS EQUATIONSON THE RIGHT SIDE OF I=f(P,A,T)

1) A=f(P)

3) P=f(A)

2) T=f(P) 4) T=f(A)

5) A[ЄPx]=f(A[Є Py])

6) P=f(T) 7) A=f(T)

I = P x A x T

If natural-resource quotas (I) are not in place, rebounds will cancel out given reductions in P, A, and T. Thus I = f(P, A, T interdependency) (Alcott 2010, JCLPR)

But: I↓ → P ↓ is just too brutal, so P work is urgent.Extreme local resource scarcity, starvation: P priority.If P ↓, there is room for A ↑.Isn’t this what we want?