Herman Daly: From Un-economic Growth to the Steady-State Economy.
Stilwell, Frank
Herman Daly
From Un-economic Growth to the Steady-State Economy
Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2014, 2014, 253pp.
Herman Daly is a guru of the movement for a Steady-State Economy
(SSE). He has been writing about SSE for more than forty years, and this
volume contains a selection of his best essays, 33 in all, with subject
matter ranging from basic SSE concepts to the ethical foundations of SSE
and its implications for population, employment, taxation and various
other aspects of economic policy.
The first ten of the essays are substantial in length and academic
character, while the rest are shorter magazine-style pieces on specific
topics. One can approach the book as one would a smorgasbord lunch,
sampling dishes according to personal taste, rather than sitting down to
a meal of Daly's bigger books such as Steady-State Economics, For
the Common Good, Beyond Growth or Ecological Economics.
Environmentally concerned citizens who share Daly's viewpoint
often quote the iconoclastic economist Kenneth Boulding's wry
comment that anyone who regards endless growth as possible on a planet
with finite resources is either a fool or an economist. Well, Daly is an
economist too, but he recognized the imperative of charting a new
direction for a no-growth economy very early in his distinguished public
career. It is not difficult to discern the influence on his thinking of
the Club of Rome's 1972 blockbuster report The Limits to Growth.
Daly is also concerned to dispel myths about what a SSE entails.
Zero growth would still require substantial economic activity, providing
for human needs, investing in the replacement of depreciated capital and
seeking more efficient and sustainable products and processes. And zero
economic growth wouldn't mean no further human progress, of course.
On the contrary, as John Stuart Mill argued in the 19th century, a
steady-state would be an admirable basis for social progress. Once
reasonably comfortable living standards have been established for all,
we could then redirect our energies from mundane work into more
ultimately fulfilling personal, social, scientific and cultural
pursuits. The prospect of genuine progress beyond unsustainable
consumerism beckons.
Of course, plenty of scope remains for debate about the principles
and practicalities of committing, as a society, to a SSE. Moving to a
stable population is one of the more contentious aspects. From a
political economic perspective, whether SSE is compatible with
capitalism's inherent profit-seeking, capital-accumulating
character is also necessarily a big issue. And the politics of getting
from the unsustainable present to the desired future is a huge question.
Daly's essays on these matters are worth reading not just for their
clarity about the principles of SSE but as windows into what motivates a
growing social movement to be concerned. Readers interested in
connecting with that worldwide movement could contact the Centre for a
Steady State Economy at http//:www. steady-state. org
