The emperor's green clothes: Growth, decoupling, and capitalism

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 74-95

  Næss, Petter ^a   Høyer, Karl Georg ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAPITALISM; ECONOMIC GROWTH; ECONOMIC IMPACT; ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION; ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS; SUSTAINABILITY;

EID: 70349850983     PISSN: 10455752     EISSN: 15483290     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10455750903215753     Document Type: Article

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92. Although economic growth is usually measured and discussed in terms of growth rates (i.e., annual percentages of increase in the volume of production), growth can of course also be non-exponential. Linear growth (i.e. with constant annual increases in wealth) would imply that the time horizons for the necessary dematerialization factors would be postponed. Such linear growth would, however, imply a steady fall in the rate of profit and thus make capitalist competition even more fierce and crisis-prone. Moreover, even a linear or reduced growth will run into ecological limits, especially since the global "ecological footprint" is probably already larger than the ecological carrying capacity, cf. Chris Hails, Living Planet Report 2006 (Gland, Switzerland: WWF, 2006).
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