Development and Growth
are not the same

This is a critically important point!

The Question of Direction is sometimes boiled down to the choice between the goals of 'sustainability' and 'growth'. Such a simplified expression can easily be misunderstood because each of these words is trying to represent an entire world view. The necessary meaning requires more details.

In the economic context growth is often confused with development. For the purpose of the ideas presented in these pages,

"Growth" means getting materially bigger, increasing the throughput of material and/or energy flowing through the system.

"Development," on the other hand, means increasing the amount of service derived from a consistent, or reduced, amount of materials and energy.

Both growth and development can make the GDP or GNP grow. The confusion is apparent in the idea that development can make the GDP 'grow'.

"Growth" is quantitative. "Development" is qualitative. A society that intends to exist for seven generations can always develop, but it will eventually have to stop growing.

Human activity on Earth already consumes 40% of all the land based products of photosynthesis. (25% if the productivity of the oceans is included.) Whether 40 or 25%, it does not include the massive subsidy of energy captured by past photosynthesis and deposited in fossil fuels. For this reason, some say that the human economy already draws more from the Earth than can be sustained over the long term. There is no room to grow.

The impossibility of continuing to "grow" materially is one of the reasons we support the sustainability option and invite you to join in calling for a review of our country's underlying economic goal.

Choosing sustainability would not mean that we could not develop, however. Human creativity is forever responsive to meeting our needs. We could get a lot more service from the volumes of matter and energy that we presently use. Much of today's waste comes from cultivating desire for things that are soon obsolete, making way for more consumption to achieve the GDP growth that the present system requires.

Could GDP continue to grow by development alone?

While there is a huge amount of value that people can get from non-material activities, it is generally difficult to make money from them. It is hard to put a pay gate on the exchange of "things" without material form. In addition, because little or no material is required, such things can be reproduced with little or no expense, lending them to abundance, which, is a recipe for low price or even free exchange.

Such abundance is good for people and for sustainability, but low prices don't help a growth based economy and free exchange is the content of nightmares for those dedicated to GDP growth.

There is some cause for hope in that the amount of value derived from a given volume of materials and energy has increased in recent years. The trend is to be applauded and encouraged. It speaks of the right direction. Unfortunately, the trend has barely slowed the expansion of material throughput and gives little reason to believe that it could bring growth to a halt while maintaining perpetual economic expansion. The attention that this incremental change receives seems to be more of a smoke screen, deflecting scrutiny away from the growth ideology, than a viable solution.

We are pressing material limits and have the opportunity to choose how to deal with it. Do we want to continue to grow, or do we want to set out on the path to sustainability?