Episode 277 of RevolutionZ examines the concept economic growth from a few angles to hopefully provide some insights for further thought--and then spins off into a very tenuously related personal birthday greeting about staying young offered on my 77th birthday.
Episode 277 of RevolutionZ examines the concept economic growth from a few angles to hopefully provide some insights for further thought--and then spins off into a very tenuously related personal birthday greeting about staying young offered on my 77th birthday.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 277th consecutive episode. The first segment is about what is growth, who should seek it, who should reject it. The second segment is very different and maybe a little similar. I'm preparing this episode on my 77th birthday, so the second segment is a kind of birthday message to people much younger than myself. In a way, I suppose it's about growth too, but almost backwards. So let's get started. First segment first.
Speaker 1:There is, and there has been of late, quite a discussion about something that people call growth. Some say, or they seem to say, growth is bad. Others say, or they seem to say, growth is good. Some say, or seem to say, growth is essential for sensible economy. Others say, or seem to say, growth will destroy sensible economy. So different people have different perceptions, biases or myths in mind about something they call growth. They can't all be right, can they? But hold on a second. What the hell is growth? When referring to the economy, what do these many varied people refer to? What do they mean when they use the word growth? Is growth one thing, two things, even three? How many things is growth?
Speaker 1:Suppose we call this coming January 1st time zero, and then, a year later, we call January 1st time 1, another year time 2, and so on. Now how do we know whether there has been growth, which in all variants I am pretty sure means some increase in something in some period of time? What do we look at to determine if there was growth from, say, time 0 to time 1 or 2 or time 10? And so on? In short, what constitutes economic growth? This may seem like a trivial question, but is it? Take a minute or however long you like, to see if you can answer the question. What is economic growth? What is the thing whose increase from time one to time two would constitute growth? Here are some possible answers different people might propose.
Speaker 1:Take the total productive output of your society, weigh it at time zero and then weigh it again at time one and so on to see if it weighs more each new year. With this approach, to generate more output by weight would constitute growth. But you might quite reasonably and even derisively think why weight? Do we give a damn how much our national product weighs? Do we want to keep our eye on that indicator? Do we want to say there would have been more growth last year if we had switched some effort from tending the sick or educating the young to piling up gas-guzzling SUVs or even just more mountains of cement. Well, honestly, I hope we can all agree there is no remotely good reason to highlight weight per se. Perhaps take the total productive output at time zero, but measure it by worth to the population, and then, at time one, do so again and so on, to see if it is more with each new year. With this approach, more worth of output would constitute growth. You might again quite reasonably think or I guess you might not. I don't know, it depends but if you do what, if the population went up, then what is growing? What do we want to keep our eyes on? Okay, so you might instead compare total output by worth, but do it per person working to create it. Or another option you might measure the total output by worth, but per population as a whole, which is per capita. Then more by worth per worker or per person would constitute growth.
Speaker 1:It's starting to get a little complicated, but let's simplify in what may be a universally acceptable way. Dump the idea of weighing it all. Weight is irrelevant. We care about worth, not weight, and this is because we want our word, our concept, the thing we are keeping track of growth to be about what we care about and what we want to pay attention to. But since we want everyone to eat, sleep and be merry, not just those who work, let's do worth per capita. So at this point it may seem like this isn't so tough. After all, we already have a definition for growth. View the output of the economy year to year and compare its worth per capita for the different periods. If it goes up, then there has been growth.
Speaker 1:But again, wait a minute, how do we know society's outputs worth? First, what counts as worth? How about benefits for people of the product, minus cost to people of the product's creation? The reason to subtract cost our newly added step is straightforward. If we use five pencils to produce two pencils, we got minus three pencils, not plus two pencils. Likewise, if we use lithium, say. Likewise, if we use lithium, say. Or how about human well-being to produce household energy or other stuff that increases human well-being, then we need to subtract the cost from the output's worth to get the actual worth of the economy's yearly productive output, to see if that has grown. This might seem hell. It ought to seem pretty obvious. Why would anyone say, much less ignore any costs or, for that matter, any benefits? Well, here are a few reasons why people do just that.
Speaker 1:The automobile industry, or whatever other industry you might choose to consider, uses energy, human labor, steel, rubber and so on to produce vehicles. What is the positive output and what should we subtract to determine worth of the year's activity? The positive output is presumably the vehicles. What is the cost to subtract? We used up steel, rubber, human labor, etc. We also generated some other productive output than just the vehicles, including pollution and broken hearts, smashed souls and severed limbs of workers. And, for that matter, to complete the picture, using the vehicles provides transport and, for ease of thought, let's call that a positive. But it also generates traffic deaths and more pollution, a cost that we should account for. It turns out, if we want to think about growth regarding worth of output, we now have an advisory, but we also have now changed our focus quite a bit. We're not only counting, as a way to discern growth, the part of what's produced and of how it is produced and of its consumption that is beneficial, minus the part that is used up or harmful. But how can we say anything concrete about either part In our economy.
Speaker 1:Markets assign prices If these prices accurately measure all costs and benefits prices. If these prices accurately measure all costs and benefits, we could add up the total price of all units of stuff to get the price of the whole pile of stuff and then take that per capita Bingo Except wait a second. Do those prices actually reveal what we mean by worth? Do prices actually account for negative worth of what we used and the bad consequences that came out of our activity Via the clash and jangle of market competition where bargaining power rules? Do prices of what goes into output and prices of output itself and prices of output's consumption's effects take appropriate account of the full personal, social and ecological consequences of producing and consuming stuff? I hope you will agree they don't.
Speaker 1:The benefits and the costs of collective goods are relatively under-accounted. Those of private goods are relatively over-accounted. Goods with negative implications for ecology or for social relations are under-accounted. Goods with positive implications for ecology or social relations are under-accounted. Why are the market prices miscounted? It's because market prices don't actually measure costs and benefits but instead measure what direct buyers not peripheral individuals who are affected and direct sellers again not those who aren't directly involved were able to buy for and sell for what price they were able to get for what they offered or pay for what they wanted, and which, in turn, depends overwhelmingly on people's bargaining power, not on the mechanism that accurately accounts for the real personal, social and ecological effects on workers of producing what they produce, or on residents near workplaces, or on direct consumers, or on those who didn't buy, but who are affected by consumers consuming what they did buy. In addition, choices of how to produce and of how much to produce, and of what to consume are made overwhelmingly by owners who operate in a context of competition and profit-seeking and by consumers who operate in socially restrictive contexts, all without accurate prices.
Speaker 1:So what is economic growth? It's a word, a concept. It's meant to refer to a change in something economic from one time to the next. But what is the something that it is measuring? Consider some examples. During the British imperial control of India, it's estimated by some economists that about a billion pounds worth of stuff in pounds, as measured in those days, moved from India to England yearly. However, at the same time, it is estimated that the cost of maintaining the imperial relation between England and India was about two billion pounds yearly. So why the hell would England pursue such a policy? To answer, one has to look at where the billion that came back to England wound up and where the two billion that it cost England to maintain that extraction came from. Answer the billion that went to England from India went to British owners as profits. The two billion that was spent to maintain the relationship came from British taxpayers. So what grew? The wealth of the rich, and at whose loss? The rest of the population of England and, of course, india.
Speaker 1:Now consider the US and the world today. Consider another example, the auto industry mentioned earlier. Broadly speaking, the picture is clear enough. The owners and less so, but still significantly some highly paid employees do fantastically, or at least really really well. Most employees and the pollution-breathing population not so much Take into account additional ecological effects like global warming and the social and personal health effects and the effects on social relations among people inside and outside the auto plants. And again, we have a lot of folks with not much that grows after. We account for pain, danger, ill health, nervous tension, hate and so on. And we have owners and, to a lesser but significant extent, empowered employees, who I call coordinator class, whose income, influence, etc. Grows year to year. Liposuction, to take another example, is overvalued, with the rich bidding up the price and, for that matter, given the incredible inequality of bargaining power among different constituencies, the will of the rich counts far, far more than that of the poor.
Speaker 1:Regarding all aspects of production and consumption, it turns out that if we judge output by market prices, we get an incredibly warped accounting and then very seriously warped behavior. So it comes down to this If we want the word growth to measure something that bears on human well-being and development in all its dimensions, what should it measure? What do we care about that we want to keep track of how? About a comparison from time to time, of the total value per capita of the output of production, where value somehow takes into account the implications or consequences of both production and consumption on individuals and groups, regarding the well-being and the development of people and the environment they live in, and for social relations bearing on future outcomes, with the well-being or cost that people enjoy or bear counting just as much for each person as for every other person. That is perhaps not precisely perfect, but maybe that definition is useful to clarify what is growth and who should want it.
Speaker 1:Now comes a worldly wrinkle that often gets overlooked. It is a kind of intellectual con game. Suppose we talk about a society in which the economy properly and equitably accounts for true personal, social and environmental costs and benefits. In that case, defined as above, growth is about the net gain in good stuff. It counts violations of equity and self-management and ecological balance and social and personal well-being as negatives. It counts good stuff of all those types as good. It tallies the net result.
Speaker 1:Now, if we grow the economy, it means that, having taken everything into account, we are going to have more good stuff. So we should all be for that. On the other hand, in our actual economy things are quite different. There is not proper accounting of costs and benefits. Growth can be not just less good, but even a net bad. Growth in our economy can yield more negatives than positives, but with the negatives not counting or undercounted and the positives overcounting and inequitably allotted. With our proposed definition, there are various ways to maintain or increase desirable growth from time one to two to time two Produce more good stuff with less offsetting costs, or produce the same amount of good stuff per capita but less bad stuff and apportion it fairly. If, however, one is quite content with grotesque outcomes for others, then produce more value of what some get, even at the expense of producing less that others get and however much bad stuff that others suffer. The con game is to cause people to think that growth means more good stuff for them when it is overwhelmingly more good stuff for someone else and more loss, often, for them. So we need to be careful when we talk about growth. It's something to think about. And now we have a second segment.
Speaker 1:I just turned 77. I got many congratulatory methods. I found them a bit sad, but not because I am undeniably well onto the downslope. Years go by, the slope changes that's the way life goes. Changes that's the way life goes. It also wasn't because so many messages were from people I did not know, by way of some kind of reflexive feature of Facebook. Happy birthday, many more Thanks from someone I've never heard of, never met, never will, who knows nothing about me, and vice versa. No, what upset me was that the well-wishing seemed to set a too low bar for offering congratulations. Okay, I got to 77. I grew in years having lived. Is that a big deal? Should that be congratulated? Che died was murdered at 39. So why am I alive, I can hear folks say but you are no Che, and that is certainly true, and it is of course a big part of why I'm alive and Che is not Che Guevara, that is Indeed. That and related observations about the nature of living in a world that is viciously inhospitable to most people's lives, explains why I am alive now at 77, and millions upon millions, upon millions aren't Also not exactly grist for congratulations.
Speaker 1:When I became 75, I got a present in the mail. It was a t-shirt with a message on it. I am not much for being an ambulatory advertisement, and so I've never before worn a mini billboard, but I wore that. It was a brilliant present. Its message was, quote if you haven't grown up by age 75, you don't have to. I liked that. Different views from different angles, I suppose, but from my perch the phrase artistically and cleverly blazoned on my then new shirt meant if you still haven't grown up in the sense of grow up, damn it, don't bother.
Speaker 1:I have tried not to, and it is because I don't think the reason I haven't grown up at age 75, and now 77, is some genetic error or a personal inadequacy, or even some act of will on my part. I think instead that back when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I became what I think the word adult ought to mean but usually doesn't, that is, I became an adult who was stuck. Young Situations and invocations produced that in me. I didn't have to work at it, it just flowed into me. What stopped me from growing up was my coming of age amidst so many people battling against war, racism and every manner of injustice, and doing so in a community bound by a new ethos of solidarity and collectivity and guided by careful critical thinking. I was 20 in 1967.
Speaker 1:What can I say In my head? I think I am still stuck at 20, and I'm not alone. There are others like me in that respect, also stuck due to their own prior circumstances, and we are not clinging, I think, to glory days like a ball player who lives forever in a fantasy of still playing ball. We know it isn't still the 60s. No, we are stuck at 20, because, despite muscles, nerves and veins atrophying, misfiring and clogging, we are still fundamentally like we were back when. We are still moved by pain and suffering wherever it abides. We are still moved by desire for and belief in attaining better wherever it surfaces. It is still a low bar, I think, and little cause for congratulation. Regrettably, though, I have to admit that this type of non-adulthood is a condition that the machinations of our social situations tirelessly work to extinguish. Okay, so for that reason, I guess maybe a tiny congratulation is due those who don't become adults in the hard stardust quo worshiping, ignore others and enrich self-world in which we live.
Speaker 1:So my birthday message is if you want to avoid being an atomistic adult, if you want to avoid being pushed and pulled by vile lies and conforming pressures, think like logic matters. Think like evidence matters. Think like what we choose to address and how we try to communicate what we learn matters. Think like consequences beyond you and your family and friends matter. Do that not only to understand what is, but also to win what ought to be. Feel like you matter. Feel like they matter. Feel like everyone fucking matters. To feel the opposite of that is to grow up. We ought not grow up.
Speaker 1:When I became 64, it was a little bit traumatic. You may laugh, but it was because of the song when I'm 64. Give it a listen and you may understand why it weighed on me as that birthday approach. 75 and now 77 are different. It is just impossible to comprehend. I am the age old folks are. How can that be? That's the 60s in my mind talking I think. Maybe it is not even healthy in some respects. But even stuck at 20, here is the truth of the Beatles lyric that is lost to many listeners due to the song's somewhat jovial rollicking melody.
Speaker 1:Fair warning Aging is no picnic. Aging is in many respects a real downer. My father used to periodically quote a favorite poem. The key line was Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be. He died of Alzheimer's. Cancer got my mother and brother. Dementia got my partner. If you get lucky, just your body wastes away. If luck betrays you, your mind decays too. Those are the facts.
Speaker 1:So here is some unrequested advice from someone 13 years beyond 64. Forget about age. Address what you can affect. It holds for health, it holds for the world around us. Don't ever be fooled into thinking the finishing end is at hand. There is no point. Have confidence. Confidence matters a whole lot in everything, and where confidence may matter most for everyone is in changing the world. Have confidence not that you alone can change the world, not that your friend or you or your mentor alone can do so, not that anyone alone can do so, but that we all can do so together.
Speaker 1:Selfies have nothing to do with winning a better world. Greed is not the highest achievement of humanity. Anonymous likes are ludicrous Care. That was what the circumstances of my early years taught me, when selfies didn't even exist. It is a simple, obvious insight that grown-up teachers, grown-up politicians, grown-up owners and grown-up lawyers nearly all try to stamp and stomp you into munition to make you feel like them, to make you be like them. And despite all that, collective desire and confidence keeps resurfacing. Are you literally young, good, going forward? Don't mistake taking orders, following others' agendas, spouting others' words, fitting fucking in for being adult. Don't become part of an old folks home at the college.
Speaker 1:The key to not becoming grown up, at least as I hear the words, is to believe in the power of people. It is to believe in the power of you and me and everyone who tries to collectively contribute to the one pursuit that undeniably matters above all other pursuits Not earning more, more and more, not winning the next argument and then the next, and then the next, at least in the mirror of your own mind. Not even planting the next flower or bestowing the next sincere good wishes or gift on a friend or loved one. What matters above all else, until we succeed at it, is to conceive and attain new institutions, new habits, new lives, before the world of mass-produced, buttoned-down adult grown-ups ends us all. What matters is getting us all to another world.
Speaker 1:Mother Jones said it this way no matter what the fight, don't be ladylike. God Almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies. Don't grow up, stay forever young, and I will heed my t-shirt. I will try not to grow up in my remaining time too. Sure, time goes by. We grow in the number of years we have lived, but stay young, that's not good growth, and I hope you have many happy, healthy and collectively productive birthdays to come. And if you are old already, well, okay, get young again. And please note that is not the same as go work out and modify your diet. And that said, this is Michael Albert signing off for Revolution Z Until next time.