[caramelcustard]

Encouraging stagnation among the easily impressionable English-speaking audiences of the economically successful nations i see. Good luck convincing certain Asian countries that they should stop their growth in the name of the "steady-state economy" just because. It's amusing how he goes from "...You can do fantastic computations now with a small material base in the computer..." to criticizing the concept of GDP ("We really don’t know that the standard is going up.") contradicting himself so quickly. The standard doesn't go up, but i sure like me my computer!

"...Does growth, as currently practiced and measured, really increase wealth? Is it making us richer in any aggregate sense, or might it be increasing costs faster than benefits and making us poorer?..." increasing costs of what exactly? Manufacturing? Materials? Servicing? Marketing? Privately held assets? State corporation stocks? The cost of a pint at your local bar?

The interviewer isn't any better. "... to accept the idea of having “enough” and that constraining the ability to pursue “more” is a good thing. Those ideas are basically anathema to modern Western society ..." completely CLUELESS take that implies that the ideas of striving for wealth, growth, luxurious consumption and people wanting things are exclusive to Western countries, but then you read about "Making ecological room" and it becomes clear what is the exact point of all that fancy talk.

But back to the economist: "My duty is to do the best I can and put out some ideas. Whether the seed that I plant is going to grow is not up to me." wink-wink

With all due respect to academia, i don't think that ignoring the harsh reality of how people behave, attempting to lightly enforce a feeling of guilt upon the society thanks to which the academia has the privelege to just "...put out some ideas" is responsible at all. I sure hope that this is just a one off case of a bad interview.