[uhuruity]

As someone with a graduate degree in economics: often when people think about 'growth' in a negative light, they're imagining an ever increasing use of resources to produce more output. But the desirable type of growth (in the economic discipline) is generally Total Factor Productivity growth: (very) roughly speaking, being able to produce more output with the same input. This is basically akin to technological progress. As a forum of tech aficionados, I cannot see how this would repel anyone here?

[pdonis]

> (very) roughly speaking, being able to produce more output with the same input

It's not just physical output, though. Ultimately the purpose of all of this economic activity is to meet human needs or wants. But outside of basic subsistence, most human needs and wants can be highly variable in how much physical output can satisfy them. For example, humans have a need/want for movies and music. It used to require a lot more physical output to satisfy those needs (having factories to make tapes, CDs, DVDs) than it does now (pushing bits over the Internet). The real benefit of technological process is not just getting more physical output with the same input; it's figuring out how to satisfy more (in some cases much more) of people's needs and wants without increasing physical output.

[chobeat]

The current production system is driven by the need for growth. What you're describing was true maybe until a century ago, until the 1929 crisis. After that it was clear that demand had to be artificially stimulated to meet the needs of the production side. First it was war, then mass consumerism. Desires are not natural, they are induced and in the same way they are induced (socially, culturally, politically), they can be removed, usually with a higher level of happiness for the people involved.

[uhuruity]

Right, I agree completely. By 'output' I suppose I meant goods and services that provide utility to humans.

[orwin]

People here also can calculate Pearson's coefficient between GDP and energy usage and understand by themselves that this is bullshit and that energy efficiency is less than minor in the grand scheme of things.

And those who did not brush up their math know about the theorical max efficiency of Carnot engines and can evaluate without calculation how much growth must be driven by efficiency increase and how much is driven by energy use increase. I mean, we did increase oil production by roughly 2-3 percent per year. If Carnot engines efficiency had risen as much as growth in the last 50 years, we would have those infinite energy motors...

And there is probably a lot of other way to reach that conclusion without thinking about it. I don't understand why people don't just think about it.

[djenendik]

Are you aware of any physical process that operates in that way?

[uhuruity]

Do you mean, any instance of a technological advancement that has allowed the production of some good or service with less input than would have been required before the advancement? How about computers + the internet? We have access to communications and knowledge access services with input costs far lower than the equivalent services would have cost before these inventions. Or, the invention of the refrigerator? Keeping food cold costs much less than it would have before the fridge was invented.

[chobeat]

under capitalism, this simply doesn't happen. More efficiency due to automation or other factors always result in constant hours worked, resources exploited more efficiently, humans squeezed harder and less worker's autonomy.

Any reduction in the work time was won by unions and as soon as they were destroyed, we got stuck with the 40 hours workweek.

Your narrative worked maybe one century ago: now the world is on fucking fire and everybody is in therapy. Nobody believes this stuff anymore.

[dionidium]

This pretty clearly isn't true. You could simply work fewer hours and live a 1920s lifestyle, if that's what you want. You won't have good healthcare (neither did people in 1920), you probably won't go to college (just like most people in 1920), you won't be able to buy lots of fancy and complicated consumer goods (exactly like people in 1920), you won't own a laptop (just like every single human being in 1920), or live in an apartment with AC (like almost everyone in 1920), and you won't drive a car (like the average person in 1920), or own a lot of nice clothes (like most people in 1920) and so on and so on.

This option is available to you and to everyone else, but hardly anybody chooses it. People pursue full-time employment because of all the enormous benefits, but absolutely nobody is making you do it.

[uhuruity]

I am not making a point on whether workers work harder now than they did before. But at the same time, there are clearly ways in which we have had technological advancements that produce goods and services with less input (where 'input' includes natural resources, human labor, etc) than would have been required before these advancements. I used this example in another reply, but (just off the top of my head) computers + internet have allowed abundant knowledge lookup and communication for far less input cost than the services would have required previously.

Generalizing here, there is 'growth due to making people work harder' and 'growth due to inventing stuff that lets us do new things' and whatever your views are on each of these, I think most anti-growth articles ignore the latter.

[skybrian]

You're misunderstanding the argument. Hours worked can remain the same while production and wealth increase. There are many jobs this isn't true of, but there are enough where it is true that that it can drive up housing costs. (A few rich people wouldn't be enough to do that, so there have to be lots of people.)

A better counter to this argument is that national averages are misleading and irrelevant for many people.

[colinmhayes]

You’re not even disputing the parents point. More output with the same input doesn’t mean people are working less. It means they’re working the same amount…