IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v14y2021i10p497-d658633.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Questioning the Assumptions, Sustainability and Ethics of Endless Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Haydn Washington

    (Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre (ESSRC), School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences Building (D26) Kensington Campus, UNSW, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia)

Abstract

This article questions the assumptions, sustainability and ethics of endless economic growth on the basis of environmental science, ecological economics and ecological ethics. It considers the impossibility and unsustainability of endless physical growth on a finite planet. It considers the indicators of environmental degradation (all increasing) and argues that society’s addiction to endless growth is irresponsible. It discusses the key problem of denial, and how this blocks us from finding workable solutions. It discusses how in theory GDP could continue to grow modestly in the future if we adopted a steady-state economy where growth was not caused by an expanding population or resource use. However, this model is currently unpopular, with many advocating the green and circular economies that are partial solutions, and which justify ongoing growth through a fantasy of absolute decoupling. I discuss the need for society to change its anthropocentric worldview to one of ecocentrism. I then question whether the UN Sustainable Development Goals are actually ecologically sustainable. I discuss how, when we ignore the problems of an endlessly growing economy, we create significant risk to society. Rather than a focus only on ‘sustainable economic growth’, I suggest it is time to focus centrally on an ecologically sustainable economy and future.

Suggested Citation

  • Haydn Washington, 2021. "Questioning the Assumptions, Sustainability and Ethics of Endless Economic Growth," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:14:y:2021:i:10:p:497-:d:658633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/14/10/497/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/14/10/497/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Wiedmann & Manfred Lenzen & Lorenz T. Keyßer & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Scientists’ warning on affluence," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Clive L. Spash, 2011. "Social Ecological Economics: Understanding the Past to See the Future," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 340-375, April.
    3. Herman E. Daly, 2014. "From Uneconomic Growth to a Steady-State Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16030.
    4. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    5. James D Ward & Paul C Sutton & Adrian D Werner & Robert Costanza & Steve H Mohr & Craig T Simmons, 2016. "Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    6. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Larissa M. Batrancea & Mehmet Ali Balcı & Ömer Akgüller & Lucian Gaban, 2022. "What Drives Economic Growth across European Countries? A Multimodal Approach," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(19), pages 1-20, October.
    2. J. Joseph Speidel & Jane N. O’Sullivan, 2023. "Advancing the Welfare of People and the Planet with a Common Agenda for Reproductive Justice, Population, and the Environment," World, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-29, May.
    3. Teun Wolters, 2022. "Why is ecological sustainability so difficult to achieve? An in‐context discussion of conceptual barriers," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 2025-2039, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Spash, Clive L., 2017. "The Need for and Meaning of Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Discussion Papers 2017/02, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    2. Plumecocq, Gaël, 2014. "The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 457-468.
    3. Lundgren, Jakob, 2022. "Unity through disunity: Strengths, values, and tensions in the disciplinary discourse of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    4. Quentin Couix, 2019. "Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 1341-1378, November.
    5. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    6. Chirag Dhara & Vandana Singh, 2021. "The Elephant in the Room: Why Transformative Education Must Address the Problem of Endless Exponential Economic Growth," Papers 2101.07467, arXiv.org.
    7. Gendron, Corinne, 2014. "Beyond environmental and ecological economics: Proposal for an economic sociology of the environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 240-253.
    8. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.
    9. Sabrina Neugebauer & Silvia Forin & Matthias Finkbeiner, 2016. "From Life Cycle Costing to Economic Life Cycle Assessment—Introducing an Economic Impact Pathway," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-23, April.
    10. Spash, Clive L., 2019. "Time for a Paradigm Shift: From Economic Growth andPrice-Making Markets to Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Discussion Papers 2019/07, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    11. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    12. Kristian Kongshøj, 2023. "Social policy in a future of degrowth? Challenges for decommodification, commoning and public support," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Klauer, Bernd & Manstetten, Reiner & Petersen, Thomas & Schiller, Johannes, 2013. "The art of long-term thinking: A bridge between sustainability science and politics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 79-84.
    14. Spash, Clive L., 2019. "SEE Beyond Substantive Economics: Avoiding False Dichotomies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    15. Spash, Clive L., 2019. "Substantive Economics and Avoiding False Dichotomies in Advancing Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Discussion Papers 2019/05, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    16. Sconfienza, Umberto Mario, 2021. "The "new" environmental narratives and the resurgence of old debates," Global Cooperation Research Papers 27, University of Duisburg-Essen, Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21).
    17. Vandeventer, James Scott & Cattaneo, Claudio & Zografos, Christos, 2019. "A Degrowth Transition: Pathways for the Degrowth Niche to Replace the Capitalist-Growth Regime," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 272-286.
    18. Elena Jianu & Ramona Pîrvu & Gheorghe Axinte & Ovidiu Toma & Andrei Valentin Cojocaru & Flavia Murtaza, 2021. "EU Labor Market Inequalities and Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, March.
    19. Parvathi Jayaprakash & R. Radhakrishna Pillai, 2022. "The Role of ICT for Sustainable Development: A Cross-Country Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(1), pages 225-247, February.
    20. Kish, K. & Mallery, D. & Yahya Haage, G. & Melgar-Melgar, R. & Burke, M. & Orr, C. & Smolyar, N.L. & Sanniti, S. & Larson, J., 2021. "Fostering critical pluralism with systems theory, methods, and heuristics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:14:y:2021:i:10:p:497-:d:658633. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.