Comment 18007

By statius (registered) | Posted February 05, 2008 at 12:49:01

"Sadly, we are already seeing the effects of our 'grow at all costs' mentality: The Alberta Premier walking out of the Premiers Summit because he didn't want to reign in the Oil Sands Industry; or Premier Dalton McGuinty telling us to buy more fridges to keep the economy humming."

The economic growth encouraged by McGuinty and Stelmach is hardly "growth for the sake of growth" alone. It is, rather, growth for the accumulation and preservation of their own political capital.

That being said, a less cyncial observer than myself might point out that economic growth of some degree is necessary to preserve the material quality of life of a perpetually - though one hopes not exponentially - growing population base. The question then becomes whether our expectations re material quality of life are worth preserving.

As for your remark that "What seems to be missing from our current economic equation is the understanding that most industries are still unsustainable - that is, they consume more than they produce" - this isn't true in basic economic terms, at least for a majority of industries. Most industries produce vastly more value than they consume. That is why they exist. There are obviously exceptions (most notably, subsidized industries like agriculture in land poor first world nations). Your argument of efficiency is not really tenable unless you make assumptions of inherent value which are not amenable to economic analysis.

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