Economic Growth Versus the Steady State in the 21st Century

By Martin Hahn

A steady economy is an economy consisting of a constant stock of physical wealth and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow. The term typically refer to the national economy of a particular country, but it is also applicable to the economic system of a city, a region or the entire world. Since the 1970s, the concept of a steady-state economy has been associated mainly with the work of leading ecological economist Shumacher. The concept of a steady state includes the ecological analysis of natural resource flows through the economy. The daily concept of a steady-state economy is based on the vision that an economy is based on the vision that man's economy is an open subsystem embedded in a finite natural environment of scarce resources and fragile ecosystems.

The economy is maintained by importing natural resources from the input end and exporting valueless waste and pollution at the output end in a constant and irreversible flow. Any subsystem of a finite non-growing system must itself at some point also becoming non-growing and start maintaining itself in a steady-state as far as possible.

In the early 2010s, reviewers sympathetic towards daily concept of a steady-state economy have passed the concurrent judgement that although his concept remains beyond what is politically feasible at present. The following issues have raised concerns:

1. OVERPOPULATION: The world population is expected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050 and continue growing thereafter. This unprecedented number of people stresses natural resources and wild life habitats everywhere, increases pollution levels, and worsens human living conditions.

2. POLLUTION &GLOBAL WARMING: Air pollution emanating from motor vehicles and industrial plants is damaging public health and increasing mortality rates. The concentration of carbon dioxide and other green houses gases in the atmosphere is the apparent source of global warming.

3 DEPLETION OF NON-RENEWABLE MINERALS: Non-renewable mineral reserves are likely to become ever more costly to extract in the near future and will reach depletion at the same point. The era of relatively peaceful economic expansion has prevailed globally since world war II may be interrupted by unexpected supply shocks or peaking depletion paths of oil and other minerals.

4. NET DEPLETION OF RENEWABLE RESOURCES:Non-renewable mineral resources are currently extracted at high and unsustainable rates from the earth crust. The use of renewable resources in excess of their replenishment rates is undermining ecological stability worldwide.

5.LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: The destructive impact on human activity on habitats worldwide is accelerating the extinction of rare species, thereby substantially reducing earths biodiversity. The natural nitrogen cycle is heavily loaded by industrial nitrogen fixation and use, thereby disrupting most known types of ecosystems. The accumulating plastic debris in the oceans decimates is caused by global warming.

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