Stick or twist? Pessimism or optimism? Doomers or boosters? To this list of binary dualities vying to shape the future direction of the global economy, we can now add two more terms that have recently entered the discourse: “anti-growth” and “effective accelerationists.”
It looks like 2024 will be another setback for the global economy. Having avoided last year's expected recession, most economists forecast the U.S. will close to modest growth rates of between 0.5% and 1% over the next 12 months. The UK and eurozone are likely to struggle to rise above 0.5%.
Politicians, think tanks and economists are scratching their heads over how to justify these boring forecasts. But the lack of credible ideas, combined with humanity's ever-growing mountain of problems, has allowed a number of fringe theories to gain acceptance.
The clash between two of these movements — which could hardly offer more contrasting manifestos — erupted in some corners of the Internet over the Christmas period, when a year-old article appeared on the website of the scientific journal Nature entitled «Slower growth can work — here's how science can help» started shopping.
In late December, Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist who wrote the book Less Is More: How Economic Growth Will Save the World and one of the article's authors, tweeted: «Thanks to the many tech bros and economists who are very upset about degrowth, this article is now trending publication number one in the journal Nature.”
So what were they arguing about? Since at least the mid-20th century, economic growth has been the guiding light by which most countries manage their affairs and set their priorities.
The decades-long consensus was perhaps best expressed by Oxford economist Paul Collier when he said: “Economic growth is not a panacea, but lack of growth is a killer.”
But now an ideological battle is unfolding over whether it can assessment be direct.
On the brink of Armageddon?
On one side of the divide are a growing group of environmentalists and left-wing economists who argue that there can be no infinite growth on a finite planet, and a tipping point is fast approaching. They argue that the corporate and political imperative to continually expand the economy is bringing humanity to the brink of Armageddon.
On the other hand, a small but influential group of Silicon Valley technologists and entrepreneurs insist that the best way to pull the global economy out of the quagmire is to accelerate at full speed, seek technological solutions to problems and remove regulatory barriers to ways of progress.
Effective accelerationist movements (sometimes shortened to “e/acc”) and degrowth movements did not develop in diametric opposition to each other. E/acc is primarily concerned with pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery, while the degrowth movement has been largely embraced by environmentalists. For example, in areas such as green technology, there may be, at least in theory, a convergence of views.
However, where their areas of interest overlap, the two groups, as Hickel's tweet shows, are unlikely to agree. In general terms, for countries that contribute to slow growth, technology and capitalism are curses; for accelerationists, this is a blessing.
As their labels suggest, degrowthists believe that humanity is currently on a fast destruction streak and therefore needs to slow down and/or change direction; Accelerationists believe that the best way to find innovative solutions to our problems is to step on the gas.
In a 2022 interview with the New York Times, Herman Daly, a former senior economist at the World Bank who has long advocated sustainable economies, discussed the difference in these worldviews, citing what fellow economist Kenneth Boulding called the “heroic ethic” and the “economic ethic.” »
“The heroic ethic says: “Hang the price!” Full speed ahead! Death or victory now! Forward to growth! Daly said. “I think this reflects the belief that if we create too many problems in the present, the future will learn to deal with them.
«Economic ethics says, 'Wait, there are benefits and costs.' . Let's weigh both. We don't want to attack directly from the cliff. Let's look at the margin. Are we getting better or worse?”
For many degrowth specialists, the problem is not so much height itself as how it is measured. They argue that the dismal science has largely failed to capture economic ethics as Daly defined it because the main measure of growth—gross domestic product, or GDP—focuses solely on one side of the ledger.
GDP measures monetary the value of final goods and services produced by a country. As such, it does not take into account, for example, the environmental damage caused by the production of these goods and services, or the welfare of the population.
“The question is, does economic growth as currently practiced and measured actually increase welfare?” Daly told The New York Times. “Does this make us richer in any aggregate sense, or perhaps the costs are rising faster than the benefits and that makes us poorer?
“Mainstream economists have no answer to this question. The reason they don't have an answer to this question is because they don't measure costs. They only measure benefits. That's what GDP is. Nothing is deducted from GDP.»
Breaking into the mainstream
Such discussions and tensions, long the preserve of academics and internet weirdos, are beginning to make their way into corporate boardrooms. One such spat came to light late last year when Sam Altman was briefly suspended and then reinstated as CEO of OpenAI, the high-profile startup responsible for developing ChatGPT.
Although the exact details of this strange episode have not yet been revealed, it appears that Altman's ambitious plans to develop and use artificial intelligence have caused concern among board members. They appeared to be concerned that the potential dangers of the nascent technology might be brushed aside in Altman's headlong rush to commercialize the company's know-how.
The two women in particular, who no longer sit on the OpenAI board after the drama, were known as “effective altruists,” another movement that has found fertile ground in Silicon Valley. As it says on the tin, adherents try to find ways to do as much good as possible.
Sam Altman& #39's brief departure from OpenAI comes amid reported concerns about the commercialization of artificial intelligence. Photo: Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg
It differs in many ways from the degrowth movement, but shares skepticism and fatigue about the prospects of AI. Effective altruists were among those who early last year called for a «pause» in the development of artificial intelligence systems until technologists and regulators could figure out for sure how to make them safe.
That's fair enough. to say that Altman did not share this view. In the past, he has spoken out in favor of a more techno-optimistic approach, which often gives way to effective accelerationism. “Techno-optimism is the only solution to our current problems,” Altman said in 2022. “Unfortunately, somehow expressing optimism about the future has become a radical act.”
E/acc is a relatively recent manifestation of accelerationism, an ideology that appears to have been coined by the British philosopher Nick Land, who co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick, which is interdisciplinary (some have called it «anti-disciplinary»). -disciplinary») group, in the 1990s.
It attracted a wide variety of thinkers who, in the words of philosopher Graham Harman, «experimented in conceptual production, bringing together a wide variety of sources: futurism, technoscience, philosophy, mysticism, numerology, complexity theory and science fiction, among others.»
As this strange mixture suggests, the early days of accelerationism seem to have been a bit strange.
At one meeting during the CCRU conference in 1996, Land was said to be lying on the ground and «croaking into the microphone.» ” while jungle tracks, a particularly intense type of electronic dance music, played in the background. Many visitors left before the end.
However, some of the movement's core principles have recently been rediscovered, revived and updated. Among them is a strong belief that technological advances combined with unbridled capitalism are the best (if not the only) answers to the world's many problems.
They are also, according to effective accelerationists, somewhat inevitable. Therefore, it is better for governments to get out of the way than to waste time and energy on regulations that impede human progress.
The case for accelerationism
One of the leading advocates of this line of thinking is Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm. a $35 billion Silicon Valley-based company whose bio on X used to read: “Techno-optimist. E/acc. About AI and openness for business.”
In October, he published his “Techno-Optimistic Manifesto,” which begins with the words: “Lies. We are being deceived.»
It goes on to say: “We are told that technology is taking our jobs, cutting our wages, increasing equality, threatening our health, destroying the environment, degrading our society, corrupting our children, degrading our humanity, threatening our future and constantly at the peak of popularity. on the verge of ruining everything.”
According to Andreessen and his fellow techno-optimists, the opposite is also true: “We believe that there is no material problem—whether created by nature or by technology—that cannot be solved by new technologies.” From this perspective, innovation becomes an imperative, and any form of opposition to it becomes the preserve of misguided Luddites.
“We believe that [humans] are, were and always will be masters of technology, and not enslaved by technology… we are not victims, we are conquerors.”
The main problems in this worldview As for free markets, they are not yet free enough: “We believe that the market economy is a machine of discovery, a form of intelligence — an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.”
An anonymous Substack newsletter dedicated to explaining the principles of e/acc states: “Practically speaking, the solution to the problems facing humanity is to grow from them. Humanity solves problems through technological progress and growth. Controversial examples from history where humanity solved a problem by stepping back are rare or non-existent.”
The bulletin also lays out overarching “civilizational goals” that humanity must work toward: “Increase the amount of energy we can use as a species (in the short term, this almost certainly means nuclear fission); enhance human prosperity through policies that promote population growth and policies that promote economic growth; create artificial general intelligence — the greatest force multiplier in human history; [and] develop interplanetary and interstellar transport so that humanity can spread beyond the Earth.»
That's quite a to-do list, and you can imagine why it might irritate those who think we've used up enough energy and achieved too much growth for one millennium. Critics accuse accelerationists of drinking too much from the well of Ayn Rand.
They also point out that it is somewhat convenient that the brand of ultra-libertarianism espoused by some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs advocates removing regulatory barriers to unbridled Receiving a profit.
Arguments for slowing growth
If accelerationists want to put their foot on the gas, degrowthers want to hit the brakes. To be fair, “degrowth” is a somewhat more amorphous term than it might seem at first glance. Advocates seem somewhat divided on whether economic growth should be redefined or literally rolled back.
The idea for the movement began when Italian industrialist and economist Aurelio Peccei created a think tank called the Club of Rome in 1968. This was motivated by Malthusian concerns about population growth and an attempt to model what would happen if the world economy and consumption continued to grow along the same trajectory.
This inspired a group of scientists to create a set of computer models and write a book called The Limits to Growth in 1972. They made predictions that have since proven overly pessimistic, predicting that the world would soon run out of energy. food. Interestingly, the book is said to have inspired some Chinese officials who developed Beijing's universal one-child policy.
Modern deroasters are primarily, although not exclusively, concerned with energy use, carbon emissions and the environment. Their main argument is that endless growth is incompatible with limited resources on Earth.
The size of the global economy has more than doubled since 2005, and if it continues to grow at about 2% a year, it will double that in a century. Such rapid expansion, degrowth advocates say, would require ever-increasing amounts of energy and is therefore inconsistent with the goal of cutting annual carbon emissions by about 45% by the end of the decade.
One solution is to reduce the demand for goods that are not really needed (for example, by limiting advertising) and therefore limit the production of «unnecessary» goods. But who decides which products are not needed?
Bill Gates has said in the past that degrowth is unrealistic and that asking people to limit consumption for the sake of the environment will inevitably be a losing battle. Billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel went even further and said that without economic growth, society will descend into violence.
Degrouters have also been dogged by criticism from the left. Lee Phillips, author of The Ecology of Austerity & Crash Porn Addicts: Defending Growth, Progress, Industry and More described their views in a phrase clearly intended to offend as “eco-Thatcherism.”
In a recent OpenDemocracy article he argued: “Degrowth unwittingly endorses what would be the imposition of austerity measures on the Western working class far beyond anything Thatcher, Cameron or May could have imagined, this time in the name of the planet. And, worst of all, slower growth will end progress itself — the steady expansion of freedom for all humanity.»
This hints at questions that degrowth advocates also face: how their ideology can hit developing countries before how they can lift the majority of their population out of abject poverty. Such countries have traditionally grown by exporting goods and services to the world's rich countries, and this path will be seriously limited if developed countries actually try to limit consumption.
Bill Gates argued that arguments for degrowth were unrealistic. Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Leading economists also disagree with the idea that we must keep burning fuel to drive economic growth. New ideas—mostly in the form of new technologies and fresh exchanges—can add value without requiring additional material resources. And since human ingenuity is theoretically limitless, so is economic growth.
However, there is also a lack of time. And as governments fall behind in their efforts to stop the planet warming by more than 1.5C, demands for radical solutions are likely to intensify. At the same time, the slowdown in economic growth began to move from the margins to the mainstream.
Philosophy professor Kohei Saito's book Capital in the Anthropocene, which the author calls «the degeneration of communism,» became a surprise bestseller when it was released in Japan, one of the world's hotbeds of capitalism, a couple of years ago. and has since been translated into several languages.
Last year, the European Parliament held a conference “Beyond Growth”, which was attended by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also mentioned degrowth ideas in its reports. US investment bank Jefferies has warned clients to consider the investment implications of the growing movement.
A sting in the tail
While the debate between degrowthers and accelerationists may seem abstract, there is a good chance that the broader discourse between those can be called doomed and supporters, will have an impact on the zeitgeist. And this has real world consequences.
First, it will help shape our policies. Many attribute the recent rise of populism to the growing belief among large numbers of people that globalization has turned from a net benefit to a net hindrance and that the world is entering «late-stage capitalism.»
In John Byrne's recent fascinating article -Murdoch of The Financial Times attempted to prove a theory put forward by economic historian Joel Mokyr, who in his book The Culture of Growth argues that a broad discourse on the virtues of progress helped develop the conditions for the Industrial Revolution.
This appears to be supported by recent studies tracking the use of certain terms in thousands of books over the centuries, which show «a marked increase in the use of terms associated with progress and innovation beginning in the early 17th century.»
After analyzing the data, Burn-Murdoch showed that a similar picture is observed in Spain. Moreover, there was a surge of progress before both countries' economies began to boom, suggesting that the optimism permeating the cultural zeitgeist helped create the conditions for scientific breakthroughs rather than being a product of them.
However, the analysis has a sting in its tail. “If we extend the same analysis to the present, a striking picture emerges: Over the last 60 years, the West has begun to move away from a culture of progress towards a culture of caution, worry and risk aversion, with economic growth slowing over the last 60 years. same period,” writes Byrne-Murdoch.
There does seem to be a danger that we, as a species, are able to talk ourselves into it.
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