My overriding concern is the insanity of continuous growth, as I have expressed several hundred times on this forum over the last 3 years.

Our ‘growth fetish’, as Clive Hamilton puts it, sits so fundamentally at the core of our psyche that it is virtually taboo to question it. And yet this continuous expansionism so blatantly flies in the face of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce consumption of all sorts of resources and to develop a sustainable society.

Gravely, the Rudd Government, and the 2020 Summit, continue to take us totally in the wrong direction by expressing desires not only to continue with never-ending expansionism, but to boost its rate.

http://business.smh.com.au/when-growth-turns-into-a-monster/20080506-2bky.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Many people on OLO share my concerns.

So what I want to know is whether there are actually any OLO respondents out there who support the notion of never-ending economic and population expansion in Australia and who truly think that this is what we need to achieve a better society.

Who supports a boost in immigration above the record high levels of the Howard government? Who supports the baby bonus and the increase in the birthrate that it has brought us?

Dear Ludwig....the people you most need to ask 'why growth' are.. SHAREHOLDERS..

i.e.. average people who want a return on their share investment.

Our current system demands growth, because people demand a return.

Only when people put bigger issues before a better return on their shares will things change.

Fortunately, there is a community which cherishes a value system which is quite different from this 'growth and profit at all costs'.. and it finds it's inspiration in little stories like this one:

"The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

PROBLEM... yes, such a shallow attitude has a 'reward'..and here it is:

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?"

That community is "The Biblical Church."

Ludwig, unless there is a world-wide effort to do the same thing, it is not feasible for Australia to try and slow down growth in population etc. because to remain internationally competitive you need to keep up. Our small population now compared to many other developed countries limits our producing power, sure you can get technology to make production more effecient per capita of population but manpower is still a vital component of a strong powerful economy. I have had this debate several times before, the first countries that need to seriously reconsider their present growth are third-world nations who have redecliously high and out-of-control population growth rates. I am not loyal to the power of Britain or America (like how people are loyal to the British monarch in Australia, or to the US alliance in Australia), I am loyal to a strong independant Australian nation that has the power to project itself globally as much as possible. We can spend billions if necessary on using energy that is clean for the environment, but we must not show a complete lack of consideration for the greatness of the nation of Australia by trying to restrain her ability to grow as a world player.

Dear Ludwig,

The following website may be of interest:

www.treasurer.gov.au/.../2008/017.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=DocType=-23k-

"Our small population now compared to many other developed countries limits our producing power, sure you can get technology to make production more effecient per capita of population but manpower is still a vital component of a strong powerful economy."

Don't you find it a little bit odd that although the size of Australia's population has dramatically outstripped those of successful manufacturing countries such as Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Israel, we are still supposedly not large enough to reap economies of scale?

Gee, could it be that innovation and productivity, not population growth, are the keys to long-term economic prosperity?

In truth, a larger population is of no economic benefit whatsoever and will only add to Australia's already chronic current account deficit.

aussie_eagle2512
Your comment
"because to remain internationally competitive"
is simply nonsense because we are not internationally competitive at all and have not been competitive for 30 odd years.
Our current prosperity is being borrowed and by increasing our population and the size of our so called
"economy" we simply have growth in our ability to share the interest burden. But our debt growth is exceeding the growth in our ability to pay and this must lead to collapse. This collapse appears to be very close as the global system reaches these limits.

But, I hear you say that only applies to other countries such as the US and their "sub prime" problems.
Two problems;

1. We have high risk lending too but we call it "no doc";
2. If this "globalisation" is true and it spreads prosperity surely it will also spread failure as "globalsation" spread collapse
in the 1890's and 1930's. Yes globalisation in spite of claims made by current "experts" is over 100 years old.

One thing that has been "growing" is this debt and it is easy to see that this is not good, but all growth is not sustainable.

Continual growth in any system natural or man made is simply not sustainable and must end in a catastrophic collapse. An example
of a natural systems is cancer in mammals which leads to death of the host. The only desirable growth is one that takes place between limits.

dresdener

Good point about those small successful countries.

In the past thirty odd years that we have been bludging on the rest of the world we have also had growth in the speed at which we have been dumbing down. In the 1950's we had an electronics and communication industry which was world competitive now we have no significant electronics industry and only token technological capability.

Yes we have a "minerals boom", but we also have a "debt boom" which is fast becoming a global bad debt induced collapse.

This notion that we succeed by growing will soon be seen for what it is hubris.

Good Luck.