The Invention of Infinite Growth:
How Economists Came to Believe a Dangerous Delusion
by Christopher F. Jones (University of Chicago Press)
This is one of those books about something that everyone treats as old, but which is new. In this case, that thing is economic growth, most usually in the form of Gross Domestic (née National) Product (GDP). Classical economics was uninterested in growth, or considered it a bounded affair. Neoclassical economics dropped the limitations, but did not focus on growth. It was only in the middle of the 20th Century that it became a meter-stick at all, and then The Measurement of an economy.
The book is more history than discussion of the subject, and as a history particularly interested in biography. This makes it highly readable, but also in a way that I had to adjust my expectations. It is less an exploration of the idea and more a description of how we got here. Of particular interest here is the soft counterfactuals. In the abstract, no one, to a certain definition of “no one,” in investigating growth intended to center it in the way that it is, and usually was more interested in an academic or intentionally-restricted observational sense.
It is scarquotes “no one” in that there are individuals and institutions who do have more direct policy goals. Those goals become intertwined with policy, to arrive where we are now where growth is policy, rather than a correlated measurement. The book avoids being a hit piece towards them; perhaps too much so.
There is also a B-plot to this story of the change in economic thought from math to data. It exemplifies the way in which that the map changes the territory, and the way in which what you choose to measure and how affects the perceived utility of the measurement.
The book avoids outright criticism in the interest of pointing out flaws in the idea of growth. A particular point of interest is the sort of violation that a fixation on growth represents in terms of the natural world (again, something that the earliest economists seemed to want to grapple with). It ends with two visions of growth going forward, one of a ‘greenwashed’ variant that looks to transpose the fixation on growth into more sustainable ideas, and the other around an anti-growth ideology and what something like ‘secular stagnation’ as a desirable goal would look like.
The focus on biography and history sacrifices depth for clarity. The number of times that a concept came up where I was hoping for a deeper exploration that did not happen is significant. This was usually around the criticisms of growth, which leads to something of the Boyd Paradox here: for an idea that is so orthodox as to be one of those invisible architecture ideas (e.g. parking), there sure does seem to be an extensive history of critics to the idea over the years.
One of the reasons I was drawn to this is a recent read on contemporary tech oligarch ideology make it clear about how central the growth ethos is. It shocks the conscience to read that turning every atom of the universe into fuel to propel human domination of the known and unknown universe is a goal, not in subtext – they said such a evil overlord thing. But both books have a similar flaw in the yada yada yada over the history of anti-growth. Anti-growth was frequently wrong, often racist, and fundamentally memory-holed. Both bring up their ideas, even with chapters dedicated to aspects, but leave much unsaid and under-examined. I understand why the authors make this choice; it stands to be a huge distraction. But it amounts to leaving a hay bale on your opponents doorstep.
The book also demonstrates why I have a soft spot for polemics. The author clearly has a point, yet the author is also assiduous in offering an neutral view. This inadvertently lands the conclusion in ‘just asking questions’ territory. As much as an invitation to discussion is relevant for a topic like this, where both Right and Left assume it as a given, the sole action item here is vegetarianism. Bitcoinistan and Fully Automated Luxury Communism rely on economic growth alike. What do we give up? Yes, in Carter’s America we would not have had this problem. But now I press a button on my smart phone and 40 lbs of dog food appears on my doorstep as if left there by the pet gnomes. I am able to read these books because of specific material technology involving screen readers; I am able to write about these books because of specific material technology involving serotonin modulators. The cool detachment that the book is written with is meant to affect even-handed neutrality but instead frustrates.
I get that the idea is an invitation to a discussion, but I think that a more on-point book would have worked better to accomplish that. The historical novelty of the idea is not the critical factor. There are lots of good ideas that are historically novel. It is the idea itself. This would also have provided a lot more investigation of the many other growth skeptics, rather than taking the time there for the origin stories of the proponents.
It is a satisfactory introduction on an important topic, but stops there where it even feels in the reading that the author wanted to let loose more, so I largely finger-wag at whatever editor suggested that.
My thanks to the author, Christopher F. Jones, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Chicago Press, for making the ARC available to me.
CITATION HEEDED 