I often get asked whether I think fair trade is a bad idea, and my
response is usually "it's much better to buy fair trade than to buy
unfair trade - but if you care about farmers, ask them what they want." In general, I'm not favorably inclined toward green consumerism.
Guiding the global economy now is apparently in the
hands of the G20. In September, at their meeting in Pittsburgh (their
third in a year), the G20 leaders adopted what they called a "Framework
for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth."
The framework is
cast as "a process for economic co-operation and coordination to help
ensure that post-crisis policies avoid a return to dangerous imbalances
that undermine long-term economic growth."
Economic growth is supposed to deliver
prosperity. Higher incomes should mean better choices, richer lives, an
improved quality of life for us all. That at least is the conventional
wisdom. But things haven't always turned out that way.
Growth
has delivered its benefits, at best, unequally. A fifth of the world's
population earns just 2 per cent of global income. Inequality is higher
in the OECD nations than it was 20 years ago. Far from improving the
lives of those who most needed it, growth let much of the world's
population down. Wealth trickled up to the lucky few.
A year ago, the panic was at full bore. October 2008 was the month in which the economic collapse seized the nation by the throat. After weeks in which Congress could not get a grip on the emergency (remember the frantic John McCain suspending his presidential campaign to ride to the rescue in Washington?), the $700 billion bailout bill was passed. Even so, the stock markets went into their steepest declines in decades, the gross domestic product registered its first drop in almost 20 years, and jobs fell off a cliff.
PITTSBURGH - The G-20 Summit that opens today is unlikely to
achieve much when it comes to restructuring the global economic
order. That's good news for workers, farmers, consumers and
citizens.
What's good about inaction on the part of the leaders of the
world's wealthiest nations? While there is no question that a
radical restructuring is needed, it must be the right
restructuring.
BUCHAREST - Serge Latouche, professor emeritus of economic science at the University of
Paris-Sud, is one of the main proponents of "the society of de-growth".
He calls for "abandoning the objective of growth for growth's sake, an insane
objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment." The need for a
'de-growth' society stems from the certainty, he says, that the earth's
resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth which is the
essence of capitalism and modernity.
The following excerpts are from Herman Daly's interview with ecological economist Tom Green:
Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate, the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.
It is ironic that homo sapiens, we big-brained and clever species, can
trace almost every tragedy and failing to one generic cause: a failure
of imagination.
We seem to be an idiot savant species --
stunningly clever at so many things, capable of greatness, creativity
and sacrifice for others, melding genius and love when we are at our
best, and greed and hate at our worst.
