Just quickly, I have to correct this statement by FrogBlog:
In other words if we continue to grow at 3 percent per year every year, as economists would have us do, in 100 years time we will be using and consuming 19 times more than we currently do
No, no we wouldn’t. Remember a little while ago I wrote about technology.
- It allows us to create more output with the same input of the resource,
- It allows us to access more of the input,
- It allows us to speed up the process of creating output from input,
- It creates new outputs that can be created with the input,
- It creates substitutes for the input.
As a result, even if we assume the worst case scenario that we cannot substitute and that there is no new technology we can discover that will get us access to more resources, technology can help by allowing us to make more with the same level of inputs. Economists target a level of “growth” (when economists have to talk about growth – rather than societies welfare) that they feel relates to growth in resources (such as population) and technology – this does not seem like an unsustainable goal to me.
This is a fundamental part of the “productivity” growth that economists ALWAYS talk about. For some reason Frog Blog seems to believe that technology only performs the third role – and as a result we are spinning towards economic oblivion. If that is the case – then let the price signal do the work. Prices will rise to ensure that we allocate resources appropriately over time as long as society is given information surrounding the scarcity of resources (except in the case of externalities).
I’m not disagreeing the resources are scarce, that is the very issue that economics studies. However, I am disagreeing with the way Frog Blog uses this scarcity to argue for its own, barely related, agenda.