What If Newspapers Were Brutally Honest About Economic Growth?
Western society is obsessed with economic growth. Whenever the economy isn’t growing as much as we would like it to, news outlets will report it as bad news. If it’s not growing at all, the perception is that something is wrong and we must do all that we can to have it growing again. If we ever find our selves in a situation where the economy is decreasing in size, god forbid, our media and politicians will sound the alarm and go into a panic mode.
The reason why we are biased in this way is that we think the size of our economy reflects the wellbeing of our people. In reality, when the economy reaches a specific size, any further increase won’t affect wellbeing at all. Increasing the size of the economy is a risky business because it’s harming the environment on which we depend. All economic activity will use up natural resources, which in many cases takes ages to rebuild, if ever. Additionally, economic activity creates waste which might be ok as long as it’s on a minimal scale. To sum it up, we want our economy to be as small as possible.
Think of it as filling up your car with gas. Once the tank is full, it’s not going to do your car any good. If it would be possible to keep pouring gasoline, you would eventually create a fire hazard and poison to the area around you.
I’m not saying economic growth is always a bad thing; it’s just that we want to be very careful when using it. A country that hasn’t been able to provide welfare for its citizens should try to grow its economy.
To prove the absurdity in promoting economic growth in rich countries, I did a small experiment. I’ve looked at articles published by some major US, UK and Canadian newspapers, news agencies and web sites to investigate how they report on it. I then flipped the coin. What if we would refer to economic growth as what it is, environmental destruction? Here we go.
The first article was published in the Huffington Post and addressed the topic of the Trump Presidency. For a long time, there has been a discussion about how well the Trump administration is performing. Usually, in terms of economic growth. Very rarely will you come around anyone questioning if a colossal economy is a good goal or not. You can read the full article here.
The next one is from the news agency Reuters. The article is an excellent example of how bias looks like in action. According to this article, Canada handled the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak better than the US and won a more considerable increase in economic growth. We are all so used to economic growth being referred to as a good thing we don’t question it. Read the full article here.
The following article is just like the previous one an excellent example of pro-growth bias. Any factor that would impact economic growth is a threat. What if economic growth itself is the threat? Because it’s dependant on the destruction of the environment, it’s threatening the economy itself, as well as the living world. Read the article here.
As seen in this article, there is no question if economic growth is a good thing or not. In this example, it’s bundled together with something else that is good, supporting women. Once you change the sentence, it becomes absurd. Everyone wants to help women, but no-one wants to destroy the environment, so why are these to things next to each other? Read the article here.
Here is an article from Fox Business reporting on the hot topic of face masks. The Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan is worried that sick or even dead people aren’t buying things. We are thinking so hard around how we can grow our economy that we never stop to think if that’s something we want to do. Read the article here.
The last article I wanted to share is one from the online publication Business Insider. The wording they use indicates that we are on a collision course with economic stagnation. A collision with an economic recession isn’t without any issues. But colliding with the environment that we depend on is not preferable. Compare a children’s toy hitting a tree with two cars going into each other at full speed. Read the full article here.
They say you should be careful about what you wish for. In the case of economic growth, this is particularly true. By wishing for a huge economy, you might end up with one, one which will pull out the rug from under your feet.
Not everybody fails to see the conflict between growing the economy and the welfare of the planet, though. The online publication Grist recently published an article called “Growing Pains — Post-COVID, should countries rethink their obsession with economic growth?” which you can read here.
