Hacker News Reader

> The claim that economic growth relies on consumer confidence (high levels of consumption) is also pretty suspect and relies a lot on how you define 'growth' - what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human population and fixed levels of demand for goods and services, anyway?

on a micro level, most people would prefer for their QOL to increase over time. I was happy to live like a college student when I was in college, but I wouldn't be happy to live that way as a 35 yo. this can't happen for everyone without some amount of growth.

you rightly call out that people often spend money on temporary kicks that don't actually improve their QOL. but if you take a more intentional approach to spending, there are lots of opportunities to exchange money for less stress or more free time. for example, not everyone can afford an in-unit washer/dryer, but it sure is nice to have one.

and then on a macro level, there is the unfortunate reality that we are a tribal species, constantly locked in a prisoner's dilemma with the other tribes. the more tribes onboard to the "steady state" model, the greater the incentive to defect and outgrow/dominate the others.

>Mindless consumption is nothing but a disease

Take a moment, when you leave your house next, and find anything upon your travels/commute/walk, man-made, which is trying to NOT get you to spend (time/attention/money).

Our entire civilization is built around programming consumerism, and lauding profiting from the inability to NOT spend.

> what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human population

We don’t have a stable population. It’s growing.

We like things to get better even if we don’t have “more”. I don’t have multiple cars just for me. But the car I have now has adaptive cruise control. It costs more, it makes my driving experience better, and I’m glad I have it.

Both of these, among many other factors, influence economic growth.

> We don’t have a stable population. It’s growing.

The rate of growth is declining, though. So it's not unreasonable to foresee peak population in the near future (most estimates are around 2060, and it's not going to increase much between 2050 and then).

No it's not, most developed countries force their populations to accept immigrants to keep the population growing in order to prop up the "growth" economy.

> what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human population and fixed levels of demand for goods and services, anyway?

Because there's no such thing as a steady-state economy. You might as well ask why people need to breathe in and out, why can't they just hold their breath?

I thought that was pretty funny, but after laughing it made me think… is it?

Breathing in and out actually sounds like the respiration equivalent of exactly a steady state economy. Like, I don’t continue to grow in size with each year, thus requiring more breath than the previous year. I grew a lot as a kid/teenager, then a tiny bit as an adult, and now I am more or less the same size (and relatively same breath size) as I will ever be.

> what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human population and fixed levels of demand for goods and services, anyway?

In one word, debt. The debt must be paid, which requires growth.

(I guess one could argue that the growth demands debt.)

i certainly wouldn't want to be living in prewar houses with prewar safety and prewar appliances with prewar electricity efficiency and driving prewar cars and receiving prewar medical attention. but i guess to many people, that seems like an upgrade, because they are far too poor to afford modern living. life has gotten worse for a lot of people.