The future of economic growth is one of the decisive questions of the twenty-first century. Alarmed by declining growth rates in industrialized countries, climate change, and rising socio-economic inequalities, among other challenges, more and more people demand to look for alternatives beyond growth. However, so far these current debates about sustainability, post-growth or degrowth lack a thorough historical perspective.
This edited volume brings together original contributions on different aspects of the history of economic growth as a central and near-ubiquitous tenet of developmental strategies. The book addresses the origins and evolution of the growth paradigm from the seventeenth century up to the present day and also looks at sustainable development, sustainable growth, and degrowth as examples of alternative developmental models. By focusing on the mixed legacy of growth, both as a major source of expanded life expectancies and increased comfort, and as a destructive force harming personal livelihoods and threatening entire societies in the future, the editors seek to provide historical depth to the ongoing discussion on suitable principles of present and future global development.
History of the Future of Economic Growth is aimed at students and academics in environmental, social, economic and international history, political science, environmental studies, and economics, as well as those interested in ongoing discussions about growth, sustainable development, degrowth, and, more generally, the future.
Author(s): Borowy, Iris | Schmelzer, Matthias
Publisher: Abingdon, Oxon ; Routledge
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 214
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: the end of economic growth in long-term perspective
External limits: resources, climate change, and land
Internal limits: stagnation, prosperity, and equality
Beyond growth? Historical perspectives and ongoing debates
Notes
Bibliography
1. Seventeenth-century origins of the growth paradigm
From Mesopotamia to the Maghreb
Clockwork rhythms
Gardening Eden, planting Empire
Conclusion
Notes
References
2. Growth unlimited: the idea of infinite growth from fossil capitalism to green capitalism
The limits of the organic economy
The infinite planet of the geologist
The dematerialization of the economic discipline
The unequal ecology of the “Growth Paradigm”
The economicization of the world
Conclusion
Notes
References
3. The end of gold? Monetary metals studied at the planetary and human scale during the classical gold standard era
Global cameralistics: Suess intervenes in international gold standard debates
Peak gold: framing the earth socially
Suess’s global mineral appraisals under scrutiny: the history and future of gold mining
Commodity money: shifting values of materiality
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
4. Gross domestic problem: how the politics of GDP shaped society and the world
The dawn of GDP: from the Great Depression to the Second World War
The evolution of GDP as a global standard
The gross domestic “problem”
The struggle to dethrone GDP
A post GDP world?
References
5. Development and economic growth: an intellectual history
Development and growth: a brief history
The development, growth, and modernization of the “Third World”
Development and growth: the reckoning
A century of development and growth
Notes
Bibliography
6. Economic growth and health: evidence, uncertainties, and connections over time and place
The historical record of economic growth and health: the bare numbers
How did economic growth affect population health (in the short run)? The historical debate
How did economic growth affect population health (in the long run)?
How did economic growth affect population health (across time and space)?
Tentative conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
7. An incompatible couple: a critical history of economic growth and sustainable development
Historiography of the growth question within sustainable development
Key texts
Contexts
Conclusion: the thing about growth
Notes
Bibliography
8. Sustainable degrowth: historical roots of the search for alternatives to growth in three regions
Critiques of growth and the steady state economy: the debate in English-speaking countries
Décroissance: the debate in Southern European countries
Postgrowth: the debate in German-speaking countries
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
