Are you content with sufficiency? Or do you have a need to possess more – to be richer? The colonial economic theories of previous centuries relied on accessing more and more raw resources; and on the consumer demand to stoke the boiler of growing commercial activity. The world of today is very different – not in economic theory, but in the capacity of the planet to provide.
It is arithmetic. The population of the world in 1900 was estimated at 1.7 billion. In 1950 – after two World Wars, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, several civil wars and pogroms – the world population had still grown to 2.5 billion. By 2011, it had reached 7 billion, with the projection that it will reach 8 billion by 2025.
Despite Paul Erlich flagging the problem in 1968 and Dick Smith in 2011, group think finds the media, political leaders and economists ignoring the elephant in the room.
A fundamental premise of science is that every theory should be checked and rechecked before it may be accepted, albeit tentatively. Check this out – and then check out the current mantras and models of economic growth.
Food for thought.
Jim Reay Novels & Short Stories 