From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy

“This past week was the United States Society for Ecological Economics bi-annual conference (at American University near Washington DC). Herman Daly was honored for his many and longstanding contributions. He also gave an amazing speech which he has graciously allowed us to reproduce as a guest post on theoildrum. In it he outlines 10 prescriptions for changing the course of our current socio-economic system, along the lines of the steady state themes he has been writing about for decades.

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Well, let us not do that. Let us ignore the anathemas and instead think about what policies would be required to move to a steady-state economy. They are a bit radical by present standards, but not as insanely unrealistic as any of the three alternatives for validating continuous growth, just discussed.

1. Cap-auction-trade systems for basic resources.

2. Ecological tax reform

3. Limit the range of inequality in income distribution

4. Free up the length of the working day, week,

5. Re-regulate international commerce

6.Downgrade the IMF-WB-WTO

7. Move away from fractional reserve banking toward a system of 100% reserve requirements.

8. Stop treating the scarce as if it were non-scarce, but also stop treating the non-scarce as if it were scarce.

9. Stabilize population.

10. Reform national accounts

While these policies will appear radical to many, it is worth remembering that they are amenable to gradual application. One hundred percent reserves can be approached gradually, the range of distribution can be restricted gradually, caps can be adjusted gradually, etc. Also these measures are based on the conservative institutions of private property and decentralized market allocation. They simply recognize that private property loses its legitimacy if too unequally distributed, and that markets lose their legitimacy if prices do not tell the whole truth about opportunity costs. In addition, the macro-economy becomes an absurdity if its scale is structurally required to grow beyond the biophysical limits of the Earth. And well before reaching that radical physical limit we are encountering the conservative economic limit in which extra costs of growth become greater than the extra benefits, ushering in the era of uneconomic growth, so far unrecognized.”

Há por aí economistas criativos em Portugal?

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