The question I ask when I hear "we shouldn't grow past where we are now" is - would this person make this claim just as well 20 years ago? 100? 1000?
What if we decided "we have grown too much" right before the invention of the internet? What if we did it right before the invention of household appliances that liberated women throughout the world to do something else with their time? What if we did it before urbanization? Before agriculture?
If we're honest, we look back on all the progress that happened before us, with gratitude. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the fact that we have a warm place to sleep, reliable food sources, ability to connect with loved ones no matter where we are - these aren't things we wish never existed (yes, I realize not everyone has these things but more people have them than ever before.)
So I look at it like that, and then I ask - if we keep growing, challenging ourselves, experimenting, etc - will the people living in 100 and 1000 years thank us for it? The pessimists say "no", but history seems to show that "yes" - the trajectory of the world has been in the right direction for human safety, comfort and happiness.
By any measure - infant mortality, safety from war, education, access to culture, etc - we're the luckiest generation yet and there's no reason to stop working to give our children more of the same.
Of course we need to be smart about how we do it - look for sustainable and clever ways to grow that benefit more people - no question there. But to STOP growth is to betray our future.
I don't see where LeGuin's argument is anything like "we shouldn't grow past where we are now".
She's arguing (rather imprecisely, since she's not an economist) against a narrow version of uncontrolled economic growth that maximizes shareholder value and raw economic output.
And the objections she voices - growing inequality, environmental externalities, etc - are well-discussed within the field of economics itself.
And while humans _are_ generally more well-fed, sheltered, educated, etc. right now than during past times, there are very serious problems on the horizon, due to increasing population, climate change due to burning hydrocarbons, and other factors deeply entangled with human economic activity.
I think this is conflating growth with technological advancement. One can grow without technical advance (e.g. farming on more land produces more, feeds more, uses more, etc) or advance technically without growth (using your examples, we can reduce infant mortality and have the same amount of children, defend ourselves better, etc without needing to necessarily use more, generate more stuff)
To the extreme, I sometimes wonder what would happen if we invent replicators. It would obviously be great for the average person, but it would undoubtedly wreck the economy :)
Reminds me of Family Guy's Amish prayer where the period between 1815 and 1835 was just the right amount of technology for God's approval. Not too little, not too much.
Where does society draw the line? It was okay to grow to this point (or 20 years ago or whenever the arbitrary dividing line was), but now we need to stop? Why not 100 years from now or 500? Maybe if we stop now we won't get to a post scarcity world where aging has been cured. Maybe we won't terraform Mars. Who knows what might be possible.
Or more simply, do we stop growing and make life harder on the developing world? Or is it okay for them to grow to this arbitrary point and then stop with us? What if the solution to climate change comes about from technological progress due to economic growth over the next 30-50 years?
The Amish do not simply reject all technology past a particular date. Instead, they collectively decide on whether their community will use any particular new technology, based on whether they believe it will best serve the needs of the community.
Yes, by any measure - infant mortality, safety from war, education, access to culture, etc - we have never been better but all evidence suggests that our lifestyles are not sustainable.
IPCC says that there will be an environmental collapse in the next years if we do not change and green Growth is not enough [1].
It’s like if we are in a modern, comfortable and fast car. We can argue that we have never been better but it’s not the case if there is no road ahead of us.
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Yeah I hear you - but my question is, could someone make the same argument at any previous times? In the past there was ozone layer problems, peak oil worries, global cooling, etc. I think you could always have said "no it's gonna get really bad now" if you ignore human history of evolving its way past problems that loom at it.
In my experience, our growth has motivated a lot of these things.
What if we decided "we have grown too much" right before the invention of the internet? What if we did it right before the invention of household appliances that liberated women throughout the world to do something else with their time? What if we did it before urbanization? Before agriculture?
If we're honest, we look back on all the progress that happened before us, with gratitude. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the fact that we have a warm place to sleep, reliable food sources, ability to connect with loved ones no matter where we are - these aren't things we wish never existed (yes, I realize not everyone has these things but more people have them than ever before.)
So I look at it like that, and then I ask - if we keep growing, challenging ourselves, experimenting, etc - will the people living in 100 and 1000 years thank us for it? The pessimists say "no", but history seems to show that "yes" - the trajectory of the world has been in the right direction for human safety, comfort and happiness.
By any measure - infant mortality, safety from war, education, access to culture, etc - we're the luckiest generation yet and there's no reason to stop working to give our children more of the same.
Of course we need to be smart about how we do it - look for sustainable and clever ways to grow that benefit more people - no question there. But to STOP growth is to betray our future.