Can the economy grow forever?
Is infinite economic growth possible on a planet with finite resources? Explore how countries can balance efficiency with sustainability.
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Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value. Which raises the question: is infinite growth possible on a finite planet? Explore how economies can balance efficiency with sustainability.
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4:00 Just wanted to note that the reason why German's emmisions decreced was because, instead of producing goods from their own borders, they instead made Asian countries like China and others produce those goods, and then import them back. This is known as "exported emmisions" In the end, the world's emmisions increased along with the GDP, because GHG emmisions and economic growth are *very strongly* correlated.
That is not entirely true. Germany has made some large changes along this road.
@@thefastandthedead1769 and because of Russia-Ukraine war, the are going back to nuclear and coal power
@@thefastandthedead1769 yeah I know, building loads of solar panels and windmills while use bikes and trains instead of cars, while replacing the remaining cars with electric ones and so on, is indeed a good thing that can separate emmisions from economic growth, but don't be fooled into thinking *all* of the emmision reductions came from- and with good intentions. For example, fracking was banned in Germany, but that simply meant that those companies switched to fracking in other countries where it wasn't illegal Again, if you look at the emmisions compared to economic growth globally, you'll see both rise together, and fall together. It *may* be possible to undo this, but either way, just make sure to remember that climate change is a *global* problem.
@@somerandomguy___ However, if they had continued as before any true reduction would not have happened at all. Germany did not frack. It imported gas from Russia. At the same time it recognised that this was not enough. Now this has accelerated. Helped in no small part to the war criminal in the Kremlin. 22GW of renewable electricity going in offshore ASAP. For example. Yes it is a global problem They recognise this more than many other developed countries do.
@@Sid-mj1qf nuclear is good
The problem is, only looking at the total value produced doesn't show who's benefitting from those values. Infinite growth doesn't necessarily benefit everyone but the toll on the planet WILL be felt by everyone
It will be felt by everyone but certainly not equally...
The toll on the planet is significantly weaker then you seem to think
There are complex constraints and tradeoffs, including some we don't fully understand. I'd believe a smaller economy that still has more people (or more of its people) employed at a humane level is also better than a bigger economy that doesn't. It's really a humanitarian question, where economy is a crude and often fallible proxy. We shouldn't want a crazy poverty to get a wooden equality -- a humanitarian conscience, if not explicitly God, forbid! But we should want to lift all the boats, including helping them repair their leaks (if this is not done, "a rising tide lifts all boats" is a fallacy).
fools like you say it doesnt benefit everyone, but is there actually that benefits everyone? endless spending into debt puts future generations at a major disadvantage & pushes inflations even higher = disbenefits everyone
That's a great input.
The best way to describe the present economy is 08' 2.0. Yes stocks are at a discount and things will eventually get better but my monthly living expense is up $3750 from $1600 and I'm left wondering what retirement have in store for me 5years down the line, I'm ill-prepared tbh, my 401k gains are zero-nothing and my stock portfolio?...OH WELL!
Find a mean to gain off the present market condition, we seem to be moving same direction as Venezuela and that wont be good for anybody
The uncertainties accompanying this present market is more reasons I have my daily investment decisions guided by a portfolio-coach seeing that their entire skillset is built around going long and short at the same time, both employing profit-oriented strategy and laying off risk as a hedge against the inevitable downtrends, coupled with the exclusive information/analysis, it's quite impossible not to outperform. Netted over $800k in return on investment, since using a coach for about 2years.
@@HarrietBemish I find your situation fascinating. Would you be willing to suggest a trusted advisor you've worked with?
@@EllenAbrex renowned for her proficiency and expertise in the financial market, “Christine Jane Mclean” my financial advisor, holds a broad understanding of portfolio diversification and is recognized as an authority in this domain.
@@HarrietBemish I discovered her, reached out via email, and arranged a call, anticipating her response. My goal is to commence 2023 on a positive financial trajectory.
I was first introduced to economics in secondary school. I still remember when I first opened the academic book of economics, the first page read, "Wants are unlimited, but the resources are not." I didn't get what it really meant back then, but it is starting to make sense now more than ever.
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And the second page tells you the supply and demand curve. The more scarce something is, the higher the price and therefore reduced demand. The result is we get more out of less resources. Like the led bulb.
Infinite growth is possible due to infinite avenues for expansion (not all of them resource-sapping), which is possible due to infinite ideas. For example, if sales for a digital product dry up, I simply spin a new marketing perspective to a new customer-base and boom; my business is experiencing growth & expansion again without much new production, simply due to an exchanging of ideas and perspectives.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no in theory; Yes. but you aren't considering the other factors that cripple your business in the interim; Competitors that are already well-established suppliers to the people in your new target market, inflation, fluctuations in the market. There are only 24 hours in a day; the attention/time of your customers is a finite resource on its own; you cannot just simply market your idea and hope people will buy. Good Ideas die all the time.
" *The earth has enough resources to fillup everyone needs but not everyone greed* ."
As someone who now buys less, I find my economic utility has gone up (I'm happier). In a sense, this means the economy has grown in my individual experience, because my utility is higher. But my contribution to GDP had gone down. It is our perpetual obsession with using GDP that pigeonholes this conversation. We need to appreciate how bad GDP is as a metric. As one example, GDP could imply many people dying could be constructive for the economy, as long as we spent enough money in a hopeless endeavor to try to save those lives. GDP is purely about spend, not outcomes. It mistakes spending for happiness, and that is only partially true some of the time.
Well aren't you privileged?! I can't wait for you to tell people on minimum wage or on a fixed income like a pension fund how lucky they are to be able to cut back on their spending in order to experience some of the contentment that you've discovered by cutting back. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to learn from your experience.
@@MadMulberry My point is that there's value in finding what is "enough" for an individual. Obviously not everyone has enough, while some have so much that it is excessive and not adding to their happiness, as they'd find more happiness through other means. Another thought is, I suspect taking the worst possible interpretation of comments on the internet and being needlessly hostile about it is not a great way to achieve happiness in life.
the guy who came up with the GDP as a system of measurement even STATES that this should not be the only tool to use and to find a different measurement. no one listened. so the question is: what measurement SHOULD we primarily focus on? if we can look at some of the European countries, including Scandinavia as well as Ireland, we can see what their countries value overall. Ireland, in particular, seems like a rather unique example, in which, using the GDP measurement, is laughably low, but the overall happiness seems to be above that GDP (although that should also be taken with grain of salt, given that alcohol addiction is a concern based on anecdotes from Irish celebrities talking about their life growing up, but that's a case-by-case kind of thing).
@@Echo81Rumple83 SDI (Sustainable Development Index)
How do you quantify happiness
I always found it odd that a company could be consistently profitable but have its stock price drop because they weren't growing.
This is because stock prices factor in expectated growth over the next X years. (Basically a cumulative amount of profit you would expect a company to make in the next 10 years let’s say). When a company stops growing, suddenly that expectation doesn’t look very realistic anymore, so the stock price must then drop.
That's because the value of stocks is how much money you expect to make back from having bought them. If a company isn't growing, then if you buy the stock you can't expect to make more back from selling it later, so the stock itself is less valuable, even if the company is doing fine.
@@TheGregamonster isn't that what dividends are for? A method of sharing profit with shareholders so they earn money on an investment even if the stock price is stable? I'm honestly asking. It's something I don't really understand.
@@KrisRyanStallard it is. Dividends incentivize investing in stable companies. However, most investors are after catching that startup or smaller company that they see has the potential to grow many times over.
The investor wants to earn money. Pulling out if the company to invest in something else is a good idea.
The biggest benefit to post growth economy is the fact that products can be developed to perfection, as for today, most products are designed to break down after an estimated time period to force customers to pay more. This is why the right to repair movement is so important as it is taking a step towards post growth economy by making product breakdowns less profitable for the company.
This is a fairly old concept that never was adopted.
How do you want to achieve this? How are factories can produce products of very good quality for everyone so that they are on time and cheap (because you will not pay 10 times more than now). Quality costs and takes time. And even if they succeed, what then will you close the factories for 20 years because nothing will break?
@@marcelmarceli8238 quality costs money and time, but so does making the same product over and over again because it's a terrible product. producing one product that lasts 50 years instead of 5 that only last 10 years saves money for the consumer and the factory. Just less is earned by the factory essentially.
@@marcelmarceli8238 things will probably cost a more. I would much rather pay $200 for a quality vacuum that won't break down on me in 2 months, or a phone that isn't designed to be useless in 2 years.
@@parkerjohnson4561 it's usually way cheaper for the factory to produce the same item over and over than spend the time to make a long lasting product. This is because the profit margins are baked into the sale. A high quality long lasting product will have prohibitively high price and margins need to be high to recoup the effort needed to make such a good product. A cheap product remade over and over is more accessible to people and is cheaper for the factory to produce per unit. Since per unit sales are always making the company profit, the company will easily be able to afford making more of the same.
Well, logically, in this finite world, we should be recycling the less valueable to create more value out of them. For example, the old phones, cars, etc., that has been so outdated or not being used because there's simply not enough people on the planet to use them, can be recycled and the material can be used to create items with higher value. This however raise another question, what is valuable? We humans are very bad at valueing something, and value is a relatively vague concept after all.
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Good point 👍
Human nature values novelty most.
You can’t just “recycled” things and just magically make it to create higher values. That’s a famous misconception that people have, sometimes it might takes even more resources and less efficient to do it, sometimes it requires more cost, labor, and energy than just creating the product normally.
@@fos1451 it's true that it may takes more effort, but the point is, the material, when not irreversibly used, can be used again to create something of higher value. The higher value could be because it requires more resources, more complicated, more labour, but the most important thing is, serving it's function with better quality and efficiency.
When people say about a goal of 0 carbon emission nation, I wonder if they just forget about the supply chains that relocation to or still exist in their foreign nations. Because then the campaign would mostly mean pushing the responsibility of handling climate change to the nations that rely on production and resource extraction industries and are less prosperous, meaning they will be less likely to be able to invest in tech to reduce the emission rate. In a lot of cases, I just find these campaigns very shallow.
But aren't the majority of carbon emissions in the world generated by only a relatively small number of multi-national corporations? And don't these multi-national corporations (which are legally incorporated in first world countries like the US, the UK, China, etc.) control, by every definition of the word, the means of extracting these resources from third world countries like Ethiopia? Therefore, if we could force these corporations to stop wasting resources and spreading pollution, wouldn't that dramatically lower global carbon emissions? If you're wondering how we force corporations to do this then I suggest you read "How To Blow Up a Pipeline", it's like an instruction manual on how to be an eco-terrorist.
it's almost like they exist as a means to create a sense of cultural guilt relief that enables energy and chemical corporations to continue expanding and exploiting the complacency they engineered into said culture for increased profits. Carbon Neutral isn't even a solution. At least 200 million people around the globe need to start living a carbon negative life to have any impact whatsoever on the climate crisis. Everything else that doesn't start with 200 million people rehabilitating 1 billion hectares of land back into carbon reductive complete ecosystems by 2030 is a lie. There is only one solution to the carbon crisis. That's to turn atmospheric carbon into Living soils and the immensely diverse ecosystems they support. And in order to accomplish this without just creating more carbon, each of these 200 million humans and family groups need to harvest solar, and/or thermal/hydroelectric over 6% of that rehabilitated land. This buys us another century of oil, coal, and most importantly, technological growth. 2 steps back to take 10 billion steps forward. It could not be more simple, or politically palatable. Just say the words "Make America Green Again". North America could be home to a primordial forest that stretches from Alaska to Panama supporting uncountable gigatons of carbon rich biomass. The rest of the world will follow that example when confronted with how profitable and truly transformative the process is for all human cultures. Just the United States, around 5 million people, 20 million acres, and 6% solar harvesting coverage is enough to erase the industrial revolution and enable a global industry to form that will grow exponentially, if not infinitely. Bonus: It's simple, any able bodied human being can be taught with pictures how to rehabilitate land and maintain solar energy harvesting equipment. Just pictures. Young children can do it and often quite enjoy participating. Bonus Bonus: It's really cheap. Like within 3 years pays for itself and becomes profitable cheap. And that's just the land use. The rest of the infrastructure is Amazon profitable. It will literally cost billions of dollars less than O to make it happen. Bonus Bonus reach-around Bonus: It creates a new global standard of poverty that elevates the working class to a position of economic participation, and forces corporations to negotiate for competitive wages with their employees because poverty isn't abject anymore. The lowest rung of modern society in the richest country in the world should be, and easily could be, this model of land rehabilitation for gainful income. It's the same crazy hobo's yelling at a dumpster, only they have full stomachs and are yelling about investment trends in clean cloths outside a home full of kids all paid for by their gainful participation in a Carbon Negative "rock bottom" of gainful dignified existence. For literally everyone everywhere. Now that you are fully released, wtf are you prepared to do with this new information?
Why don’t we talk about reducing carbon emissions by using Nuclear Energy? I want my radioactive chemical electricity plants!
@@mysteryuser7062 we don't need more energy, and energy consolidation isn't necessary to generate anything but profit. Distributed networks of solar energy harvesting are more than enough to power global energy needs as they are predicted to grow for the next 10,000 years. We do need to develop and thoroughly understand these technologies to overcome unknown future and technological hurdles, but there is not good reason to yolk the entire human population with energy scarcity through consolidated generation and distribution. It's far more sustainable to reverse this model and make harvesting and trading units of energy easier for the smallest traders. And WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY cheaper. You make solar energy tradable like small denominations of currency. We're already doing it in a round about sort of way. What we need to do is globally standardize the practice and build out distributed networks to support it. We can even continue burning fossil fuels to grow those industries, and it's quite frankly going to be required, in order to enable this process because through it a global carbon battery can be created. One that can be scaled up by 2050 to a point where the Carbon Crisis is no longer a Crisis. Sustainable human life needs to begin in the soil human feet walk on and be powered by the sun and basic human effort. There is no technology that can do what needs to be done fast enough. Human hands, the Sun, and Life, those are the tools we have to charge up a carbon battery to store our mistakes as a species. Our continued existence depends entirely on the political will to view Life itself as the most valuable and important infrastructure that can ever exist. Nothing could be easier, or more difficult.
That’s why the goal is NET 0. Not absolute 0
I'm all for a post growth economy. As an example, in Belfast, a shipyard that could've been used to build polluting yachts for billionaires, was turned into a wind turbine building facility; the jobs were kept, and both the engineers and the shipyard were repurposed in a beneficial way. We need a lot more of this, at every level of our economy.
How is this post growth? This is actual growth. More jobs, cheaper energy.
The specific Example you´re presenting doesnt actually have to do anything with post economic growth...... sure, its helping the environment in a long term view, but still represents economic growth.
The Rich already live in a post growth economy.
There was some good moments in this video, but I'm disappointed that whenever infinite growth is discussed, it's merely seen as something abstract that some people want to achieve or just a thing that has its own will. The video never addresses the issue *why* infinite growth is really happening. Surely if there constantly more people on earth and more products/services are created that leads to growth, but ultimately infinite (specifically economic) growth starts from the creation of majority of money (not cash, but zeros and ones) by banks granting loans. As money is created from thin air with interest, it automatically creates a situation where there is constantly more debt than there is actual money to pay off that debt. That leads to a situation where everyone needs to get more money to survive as "the game" basically forces a portion of its players to eventually run out of money.
TED-ed Videos always miss the point, it's all clickbait to talk about climate change in the end.
Thank you, this is what I thought the video would be about....instead it's a bunch of looping thoughts with no start or end. "Turning resources into value=growth".......oh really now...how? From where? Capitalism at it's core is about taking advantage of people. It's a great motivator for ingenuity, but it thrives on theifs. We need a new standard to measure with. Value isn't equal to different individuals. We can say that we have the freedom to choose what we support with the value we earn, but is it really freedom when the choices available are decided by wealth.
It seems it's preparing the minds of new generations for the new economic system. You won't own anything, but you will be happy.
Spot on. The monetary system is fundamentally flawed in this way, and very few people understand this. It will ultimately destroy us, or, at best, perpetuate a life of indefinite suffering for most.
@@farfromirrational948 freedom is not agency, and it’s value that dictates wealth.
" *The earth has enough resources to fillup everyone needs but not everyone greed* ." -*_MAHATMA GANDHI_*
this is a nonsensical bumper sticker statement. people are poor because they live in under developed countries where humans arnt educated and the economies arnt industrialized.
@@shake6321 That quote isnt even about poverty?
Changes in time allocation illustrate this beautifully. A family in America used to spend multiple hours every week on tasks such as manually washing and hanging laundry (even though they owned fewer clothes), carrying buckets of water, prepping meals and cooking them, etc. There are also a lot of tasks that people even further back in time had to tackle: combing wool, spinning, weaving and stitching to make blankets and clothes, for example. It's amazing how the invention of new technologies changed how we use that time resource; we gained so many hours every week that no longer need to be spent on providing food, potable water, heat and hygiene. If we were content to live at that level now, we could spend 90% of our hours idle. Of course, culture changed and modern industrialized societies view that level of lifestyle to be horrifyingly impoverished. With increasingly efficient conveniences came increasingly acquisitive habits. Apparently we'd rather spend 50hrs a week working multiple jobs to be permanently indebted for objects that didn't even exist a century ago but are now considered basic necessities. We'll need to overcome that if we want a sustainable economy.
most work now is in sales and money handling, they just compete but produce nothing.
That's an interesting take. As an economics student and savvy investor, I recently came to a realisation we are.in the midst of biggest economic/financial bubble ever. And no one know when will.it burst. There's a limit to how much growth there can be. A limit to the amount of debt circulating around. There's so many more things and money floating around than there are people to consume them. The rates of lending have been insane in the last 50 years. Leveraging, options, crypto, and other forms of investments that are frankly quite untangible and therefore misunderstood and underrated by humanity. Even by the professionals. We created a financial untangible world that we don't fully understand, we have estimates and models and math but these things won't hold forever.. they're not always true. But what's the other option? So we go through with it anyways. The US is sitting on mountains of debt. Debt it can never really repay all of its lenders. And its not just them. So are the Chinese. I mean think about it really, how many things are sold and produced in the world (b2b, b2c, etc..) that we don't actually use on a daily basis? How many companies are making more things than they really sell? So much is going to waste. And we value things by money instead of the work and knowledge put into it.. A product is only made because someone worked for it, had the knowledge, learnt to do it over years or months, and had other people help him build it... Yet we don't value that, we value with Ebitda, we value how much money can these products make within the next 5 or howmany years, and that's how much the company is worth. It's INSANE. This won't last forever. Remember that.. And that's not even all of it. But I've written enough lol
It wasn't family that spent so much time washing, drying, ironing, mending clothes - it was the women. A scaled back world will return women to the kitchen.
Of course most economist would believe that new ideas would solve everything, they love growth.
> Mfw when they accuse most people in a whole field of motivated reasoning.
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Damn it's almost like economists know more.
if you hate growth so much why don't you move to africa
have you ever lived through a recession? less growth --> less demand --> less production --> less employment. not a great strategy if you need to work to live...
Perhaps most importantly of all; should we listen to the rich elites who run the World Economic Forum, or should our futures be decided by the majority of people who don't attend a yearly conference in the swiss alps?
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Shut up liberal
Your comment has a logical fallacy. You're using the argument from authority as a point to not listen to this video because it's from WEF. What if the WEF said that water is wet? Would that make the points in this video invalid? Secondly, why are you assuming the majority of people want something different? Do you really think the majority of people in the world want to depend on an infinite growth model to support our civilisation? Do you realise that the reason why we have so much money printing and mass immigration is that the governments are working for infinite growth to support an ageing population?
My comment is the exact opposite of the argument from authority. The argument from authority appeals to status to shut down dissent. At no point in my comment did I even suggest that I disagreed with the video. I only said that the WEF shouldn't be the only perspective on the issue, since their interests as a class are far removed from those of most people. Please actually google what it is you're talking about before replying. And no, I don't think most people want/gain from infinite growth. I certainly don't.
Without infinite growth "people would fight over the value that already exists". *stares in the last 100 some-odd years of nonstop warfare*
I can't think of a time in the last 50 years where more than 10% of world population countries were in direct conflict
Before the industrial revolution there were much more wars
oh man, you dont want to see what happened 2200 years ago
There's much less war in present day in proportion to world population. Wars mostly take place in undeveloped and economically unimportant nations, so the war in Ukraine is especially unusual
You kidding? The USA has been almost permanently involved in conflicts since WWII - most of that is based on demand for growth in the military sector.
It's amazing how our entire worldview and philosophies are built around a construct some humans created. The fact that global corporations that are still incredibility profitable are firing people because they missed growth targets is insane. I personally would love to see a world where we put human ingenuity into reworking out views around economy!
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What is the purpose of a business, e it a small shop or a big international corporation? It is to make profits, not to offer jobs. A company may be profitable, but still the more efficient a company can be run, the better, than means maximizing production by using less resources, and human capital is a resource. A job is a side effect, not an end of itself. What this video proposes to work around the economy implies that someone, (the government, or whatever) knows what's best for everyone, and that is a fallacy. No body can tell me that Rubik's cubes aren't necessary, at least for me. Our actual economy may not be perfect but is the best we've got.
@@pedromora9927 Sure it's the best we got but doesn't mean we can't stop and take a look around at the game we've constructed for ourselves as humans. None of this matters end of the day. You are correct in saying a corporations function is to create profits but again it's something we as humans invented and defined. If we changed the definition of a corporations success to include a human factor. What kind of world would we live in? I'm sure it would be a world 99% of humans today would hate but if that was all we knew people would probably be appalled at an idea of defining corporations in a manner that celebrates greed.
@@pedromora9927 A corporation isn't just something we defined. It was an emergent property of monetary transactions. We can't just define a corporation to value the human element in an economic system, because in the end due to competition the same as we have now will inevitably emerge again. It is a problem with how humans function, not a problem of definition.
Growth isn't some concept humans created lmao. This isn't "some game we've constructed for ourselves", this is the most basic prerogative of survival; you are delusional. The most basic axiom of survival for any organism in this material universe is the consumption of resources, and the accumulation of these same resources for future consumption; without these resources, organisms cannot sustain themselves. They die off. These are the most basic laws of life. Phenomena such as economic growth simply spawn from this existential axiom.
Really like how this video is about economies producing value and labor is mentioned all of 1 time.
Thats in modern Civilitation absolutily right, because what most traditional Economists get Wrong is that Growth comes from labour.. and Capital.. It comes from Fossil energy mostly.. so labour plays out a minimal role, when each one of us uses the equivalent of 100 Energy Slaves today
@@tomschuelke7955 yeah that’s why venezuela and russia and saudi arabia have such robust diverse and strong economies right? All the oil must be doing wonders for them. China must be a nobody on the world stage because they have very little oil. India too. People make value. End of story.
@@jacobjones630 you confuse making money with creatig real wealth and produckts. Sure when you can only think about money, youre right. But theres virtualy nothing in your world as you are used to that would be available without fossil energy.. so energy. Is far mor profound for our economy but money , wich we just made up
@@tomschuelke7955 Money is a social relation. It doesn't feel very made up when it's time to pay bills, or looking at the lives of people with lots of it VS those who have none. This video is about growing GDP, a figure that some people believe is worth letting people die to see it go up. The whole point of the economy and and money and GDP is to meet the wants and needs of society. And considering 90% of people on the planet are Laborers, they should get a say in the way a new economy is organized.
a yes, the two economic opinions of "hey guys the planet is dying maybe we should do something" and "im sure we'll figure something out later".
If you have a solution is be happy to hear it.
You got a solution other than going into recession and make everyone become poor?
@@fos1451 Why be suspicious of everything? Over the past several decades, median wages have stagnated, but the cost of living has increased. Homelessness is always on the rise. That which you fear (poverty) is the current trajectory's destination. Doing nothing is guaranteed defeat.
Ah yes the totally factual and accurate position that the planet is literally dying. Such nuance and care.
@@NawidN That's actually false, the number of people experiencing homelessness and poverty is decreasing every year (with exception for 2019/2020 because of covid). I agree with the median wages being stagnant and cost of living increasing. Again, you can talk about all the problems in the world, what I would love to hear is the solution
"We have to find a way to benefit for everyone while also taking care of the planet" Hmm i wish there was an economic system that doesn't produce unnecessary trendy things that will go to waste in a short time and end up in the ocean.
Remind me to Soviet command economy during cold war: producing goods just necessary to fulfill demand instead producing lots more to made it cheaper like free-market economy. In theory it will consume less resources as less likely any newly produced goods will not going to waste. The downside is, the number of demand could easily being manipulated by bureaucrats, many goods become scarse (Barely any goods beside the basic one) or took a long time before finally having it (Took few years from order a car to finally owning it) like the Soviet did. Anyway, before we can efficiently use resource for making goods, we need to get rid the habit of making most of disposable stuff like plastic.
Infinite growth doesn't seem viable when the undertaking of creating new values (even intangible value like the cloud, AI, software, etc.) ultimately relies on the consumption of hard, finite resources: humans to build and maintain those new values, food to feed humans, soil and livestock to make the food, lumber too build homes to house humans and infrastructure for those new values, water to quench humans and other livestock to create food, minerals to build computers to enable humans, oil to fuel vehicles for transportation of goods and humans, etc.
Every time we fear of running out of a resource, the price of that resource increases due to supply and demand. This incentives people to use that resource more sparingly, make more efficient use of that resource, find other alternative resources or find more of that resource. There is no end to human ingenuity to overcome the problems we face if the market demands it. The market always finds a way.
@@8is There is one problem. There's one resource that we absolutely need and there's absolutely no way to expand it: land. It's inherently finite. Infinite growth won't be able to cope with that one unless the population stops growing altogether.
@@HappyGick Advancements in transportation increases the land we can use. Just look how cars destroyed the Georgism movement. We also find new ways to make otherwise useless pieces of land valuable (putting solar panels in desserts is an obvious example). Climate change doesn't always help, but the more northern parts of Siberia could be useful to farming in the far future. There is also nothing stopping us from making more use of the land that we already use, which we do by for example making more effective factories on the same land we already have our factories on. If you really want to go down that road, you could also take into consideration the practical infinite amount space we have in our solar system. Regardless of what happens, humanity and its markets will always find a way.
@@HappyGick the human population will flatten in 2050.
@@8is Not the market, but Humans, usually scientists (with help of the Geist)
Kind of a crazy assertion that removing dependence on working to survive would somehow lower demand and need for goods.
Labor is becoming less a factor in producing value, especially with the rise of new Tech, thus removing dependence on working to survive should be part of the post growth economy.
@@TheModeler99 the idea that reducing labor will reduce the demand for goods is based on what?
"In partnership with the World Economic Forum" Immediate red flag
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at least they declared it lol
The moment I saw world economic forum. My trust in this video plummeted.
This. They have an agenda.
Can you elaborate? (Confused here)
I'm with @Aditya Ryo I too would like to know why world economic forum is bad
@@MxHavmir Read my other reply above this one
@@adityarao1462 the WEF are an association of the richest and most powerful people in the world that want to own everything. Their motto is "you will own nothing and be happy". So they want a future where you don't have any property and you just rent everything from them. Your house, your car, your phone and the rest. That way they can control you. It's not a secret too you can read it on their website.
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
Brilliant
Didn't understand
How to poison people
Masterful behavior
@Spring Ranch he puts them in his jacket pocket, not even in a ziplock or anything 🤢
There is more then enough resources and technology on earth for every single individual to have exponentially increased wealth, to barely work, or to not work at all. The fundamental issue is the system of distribution, advances in technology do not lead to increases in wages on the contrary, increases in technology typically results in a decrease of real wages and a decrease in self-sufficiency and independence. As the property of these technologies are owned by few and their intellectual rights are secret and patented, an increased system of production, results in an ever increasing system of inequality. Yet the fundamental mode of production does not change, the capitalistic system is discouraged and hostile towards permanent system of sufficiency. The capitalistic system therefore produces self made shortages, the majority of value destroyed. As in a capitalist mode of production, overproduction is encouraged a fundamental contradiction of value emerges, if everyone was able to live comfortably for a minuscule amount of work, the overall productivity of the capitalist system drastically decreases. As an example take a sandwich shop, the sandwich shop's food is only edible for a single day, at the current price the majority of food can be thrown away and still maintain a profit, and as a shortage in food creates much greater loss then over buying of the product, the shop maintains the system of created scarcity, throwing away large sections of value. The food could theoretically be given at the end of the day, however in such environment sees a decrease in profit, many would choose not buy the food until the end of the day, and decreases the perceived value of the food in the minds of individuals, if it is completely free for certain parts of the day. The same fundamental principle applies to a cut in prices. To maintain ever increasing profits for the capitalist class, workers must have disposable income, yet in the current system encourages paying workers the smallest possible share of earnings. The solution is to produce money sinks, things which every individual requires and increase the prices of these exponentially, in this current environment, the price of the bottom line is contentiously raised and saving is discouraged, if not impossible, thusly in an ever increasing environment of loss of value, spending is encouraged. The solution to this is simple, describe these things which all humans require to live including water, clothing food, and housing, as a human right and produce it for the general population, this would alleviate the fundamental crisis's of the modern era and the industrial basis is present to provide for it. Under capitalism however if these sinks are removed one of the primary reasons for working is removed thereby seeing a large decrease in income and productivity for the capitalist class. Thusly ownership is the safety mechanism of capitalism, people's ancestral land becomes commodified, and sold at an exponential rate. In truth people's livelihood has not increased by a substantial amount since the 1960s, production has increased drastically and wages have stagnated and even substantially fallen amongst the younger generation. Thusly the issue is the underlying system, under the current mode of production, overall increases in living cannot exist.
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The problem is that the average unskilled worker doesn't produce much value anymore. Since the increase of productivity is due to technological advancements the productivity is created by the managers and the people directly involved in the technology. So scientists, doctors and technological specialists are the ones who create the most value. The managers also get a larger amount of wealth because they made the decision to employ the technology. Capitalism is the most beneficial and fair system but I agree with you that now it has run into some social problems and more technology will intensify the issue. I believe that capitalism's effectiveness in promoting efficiency and technological development and the benefits of the free market are paramount to the success of our society so we should never get rid of capitalism. I believe that the solution to the socio-economic problems is an increase in welfare and when automation is wide-spread enough, the implementation of UBI. But the people that innovate and make the economy more efficient deserve the wealth they create.
@@urektus69 Fundamentally, unskilled work still produces an incredible amount of value, workers are still required to run machines and ultimately are the primary producers of value. As an example take a individual making shoes, each pair can sell for 30$, and they are able to produce upwards of four shoes per hour. Under this system you would be expecting roughly a 30-60 wage, in accordance with the work required. Yet fundamentally this is incorrect, these workers are often paid less then five or even a dollar a day, yet producing value far greater. The increase in productivity is driven by greater worker knowledge and better system of cohesion from the bottom up. The "solution" you claim however has a fundamental flaw, it does not change the capitalist mode of production, if this system were to be implemented, capitalism would maintained and exist on life support and maintain it's exploitative and ever increasing authoritarian system, a revolution would inevitably occur as the exploitation of this system would be comparable to some of the worse regimes in the 20th and 21st century. Fundamentally you seeing the cracks in capitalism multiply rapidly, as an example Hati, Brazil or Sri Lanka. It has fundamentally caused massive societal violence, and as these fundamental fallacies of the capitalist system emerge, it is enviable that more societal upheaval will occur. "Scientists, Doctors, and Technological Specialists" however do not see any noticeable difference from wages from the working class. The primary wages for these professions in the US is between 50,000$ and 150,000$, an individual of the capitalist class in the US (the upper 1%) own on average tens of millions of dollars, and this is not even the top of the top, these professions do not ultimately see large wage growths from the capitalistic system. Those who are making the value in society are not the capitalist class, on the contrary the capitalist class produces little to no value. If we take those who produce value in an economy, workers and compare them to the capitalist class, the capitalist class produces essentially no definable value as they simply cannot be responsible for production and innovation, and they are not. As an example let's take the physicists of the Quantum and Relative revolutions that upended classical mechanics in the early 20th century. These individuals are responsible for producing untold billions, even trillions of dollars of value, while all these physicists lived comfortably they ultimately never got a fraction of the value they produced, and this is fine. Their contribution to humanity is immeasurable and they understood they did so not for profit but for humanity. Einstein himself understood this which is why he was an ardent socialist throughout his life. This same principle applies today, those innovating the economy are producers of value, they create things,. The capitalist class primary function is the holding of assets. It is impossible for a few group of individuals, most of which barely even work to in any way control the systems of production. The claim that the capitalist class are the producers of value of an economy is a recycling of Reagan trickle down economics, which has been an absolute disaster for wage growth.
Food can never be free, real estates should be free because the bank pays the constructor. The industry pays the bank and we pay for food. we're in no need of overtaxing to increase inflation as demand on more money to pay the taxes.
Someone with an average (not median) net worth would not be able to retire. So no.
Both are actually happening at the same time (it’s will continue). It’s not going to be either or. It might be a competition to see which approach gets the best results. Or a collaboration to see what both approaches bring to the table to solve our overall issues. We might still be able to grow the economy but need to/will restructure the economy and society significantly for the planet and for people. Change is inevitable so I think restructuring will happen. Restructuring is also an opportunity to increase value and innovate. There are also other paths that this video doesn’t highlight. For example we could end up getting a split. A new civilization that will spin off from ours (new planet/live in space/upload itself to the cloud 😂) if we survive long enough.
Or, more realistically, the side which advocates for dramatic change is unable to get anything done since the other side wont collaborate with them, and in the meantime the side which hopes for innovation to solve the issues never gets the magical breakthrough that they hoped for. And in the meantime 99% of the world who doesn't get to make these decisions slowly suffers more and more every day
@@imanukeyourface3210 Yes, until what? What's the endpoint?
Short answer: The earth is finite, so no.
Long answer: The universe isn't. We as a species are surely gonna be multiplanetary.
Someone who didn't watch the video
Note to everyone: If you see a video begin with “World Economic Forum”, you can be absolutely certain that key factors will be ignored, under the promise of future improvement. Same goes for a video about oil saying “sponsored by shell”. Of course they’ll say that the climate “will get better eventually”.
I haven’t watched the video yet but we’ll see
For anyone wondering, one of the core reasons behind the high cost of living and lack of trickedown is that land is finite, and rent factors greatly towards inflation. As its supply is inelastic, an increase in demand does not create more, therefore any increase in value can only benefit the landowner. An increase in demand (real incomes) / GDP will therefore “drag” this added value away from those who create it (labour/entrepeneurs). Until this issue is dealt with, real incomes will be frozen, there will not be enough houses, and wealth will not trickle down. Even billionaires provide some value to the economy through their business. On the other hand, an increase in land value is actually likely to restrict supply, as its valuation further outstrips the value of anything you can do with it, such as, build a house. Wealth inequality is the primary symptom of this issue. Free Market Capitalism is often referred to as being free from government intervention; however, this is only true in terms of the free trade of capital itself. Privatisation of capital allows economic agents to make more, and incentivises them to do so at a reduced price. Whereas, an increase in demand for land (people who want somewhere to live, which is to say everyone) simply increases the cost of rent in the short run, as well as restricting capital development in the long run. Due to the nature of land as extremely limited, its efficient allocation is crucial, as it is 1 of 4 factors of production. A free market requires freedom from any intervention of economic agents which simply moves wealth instead of creating it, and not just the government. TLDR I’m mad procrastinating rn so apologies for taking up half your screen :P
" we have to find a way to benefit everyone" most billionaire and world leader's will disagree with this statement, their greed knows no limit.
Like Kl@us Schw@b?
and that right there is reason enough to declare it a mental illness, along with an international emergency before we're cooked alive like a lobster.
uhm, no. World leaders mby, but billionaires are mostly the ones who come up with new technologies which everyone benefits from
@@kristianmatustik6180 Right... and that's why they use child labour and generic exploitation?
I wish we can have a world where it “Benefits everyone.” But the sad reality is not everyone deserves it. We have lazybones and flat out bad people who abuse the system. They do not deserve equality.
I think the solution to current dilemma on how economy should evolve should have both idealistic and realistic aspects. "idealism without realism is a mere illusion and Realism without Idealism is a mere object"...
I would go further and say we change completely how we see "growth" and "progress". For example, my definition of growth would be to improve our relationship with nature and life on earth. But that is directly incompatible with economic growth. We have to change our values completely and question that dilemma.
Sid You're talking nonsense. Capitalism has to go.
@@peterchui1964 Economics is a subject where when you say something is true, the opposite is also true
But y'all just hit a gold coin in the end lol, jk 🍺🍺🍻.
@@cosmicwakes6443 yeah cause we've seen how well communism worked in the past, right?
Imaging technology would fix our problems is fallacious for many reasons. But for me, the big reason is that many issues CAN already be fixed with our current technology. In our current world, technological inventions can already fix many issues. But they're just not doing it since it's not profitable. For instance, we can solve world hunger tomorrow. It would be very expensive, and very difficult but it's not impossible. The only issue is that preventing people from starvation would cost money, and no one would profit. At least not immediately. So it's nonsense to just claim to wait for the next upgrade or new invention since no matter what engineers create, it's not going to solve problems unless someone can make a billion from it.
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I believe that there is enough food to feed everyone, the problem is that it is unevenly distributed.
@@iimm Yeah, it's really a matter of distribution. And the only issue is that it's not profitable to distribute food to the poorest areas. Because they can't afford it.
@@proton8689 you may not need to bring the food to the poor, very often the food is produced in their countries and just shipped away to be sold
@@dani.lepore9410 That is true.
There's an assumption that innovation will increase exponentially as well. It could be that all of the scientific and engineering discoveries and innovations are still in a process of being worked out since the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution (and perhaps even since the invention of agriculture). Who's to say that in 100 or 500 or 1000 years time innovation won't become very slow (or stop?) as the limits of our understanding of the physical world are reached? It's easy to see scientific progress as inevitably coming up with new things in our lifetimes but in the broad sweep of human existence there is surely a hard limit to human understanding of reality and so a hard limit to the innovations that follow from that understanding.
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Human technological achievement will probably continue to grow exponentially. Why? I will give you a few reasons. 1) The rising standards of living in the world are increasing the number of people that work in science and engineering. An increase of people allows for much more specialization and more specialization means that human society as a whole can handle more and more complex technology thanks to the division of mental labor. We are seeing an increase in experts in ever more narrow and specific fields of science. 2) AI. In the future it won't be the humans that do most of the scientific and engineering work, it will be artificial intelligences! Artificial intelligence and machine learning applies perfectly to very abstract and data intensive tasks like scientific analysis and discovery and engineering. We have already created many AIs that are capable of generating any image you describe, in any style you want from a text prompt(check out DALL-E 2) What's stopping someone from developing an AI that can design you a skyscraper or a car or any piece of technology? 3)Thanks to the inherent competitiveness in capitalism and the free market, innovation will never end because shareholders want more profit so any obstacle will be overcome due to sheer market pressure
@@urektus69 Getting more researchers and scientists doesn't mean technology will be better. Let just say about math, before Kurt Godel, a lot of mathematicians think there is nothing math can not reach, until Kurt Godel came, ... The same argument can be said about technology, just because we haven't seen the limit today, doesn't mean there is no limit.
@@DangNguyen-jw9fl and yet we are advancing in every field at an ever increasing rate. Also, math is probably the one field where one can safely say that there are an infinite amount of discoveries that can be made. Math is infinite, there are infinite orders of ever increasing complexity so we won't run out of fields to research anytime soon
@@urektus69 more fields => more resources required. Betting on technology will save the earth put us at risk. If technology won't work, we're done for.
There has been a wave of violance all over my city: shootings, stores and busses are set on fire, etc. I would like if ted-ed made a video explaining waves of violance, how it spreads and most importantly how can they be stopped.
They've made videos about riots and protests before.
@@SirFaceFone I think what he means is "crime waves". What is the cause of chronic influx of crime.
They don't want to stop crime. They want society to crash. Hence this fake video which is not grounded in any truth or science.
Don't forget what these guys really want : "You will won nothing and be happy". In other world foll you into thinking you have to have them everything you have to save the planet while they become even richier
The part that irks me in this video is that it speaks about only developed countries...We developed countries face the consequences of climate change because of their greed and colonialism. The saddest part is we don't even have luxury thinking about the two solutions mentioned above (sigh)...
Indeed, the first child has done some good and bad things. As the second child, you can use thtat knowledge to do wiser things. Never think that you are "late" or "whatever they want you to think". Having a fresh mind, a fresh way of seing the world and not being use to all that comfort we are dependent on is a strong asset if used well. There is only one planet, and everyone suffers when the planets do, but we also have millions people with ideas and action potentential.
So, you are irked that people in the past was not on board with post growth economies? They were also not as woke as you are. 😒
It only really talks about developed countries because most destruction of the environment is because of those countries and they should take the most steps to reduce it now considering they now have pretty good living standards. Developing countries actually need room to grow to create new wealth for their populations (assuming it doesn't all get into the hands of the super rich and oligarchs, anyway...)
@@noahway13 way to miss the entire point, Keith. They said that developed countries, which were built off high carbon emissions and the spoils of colonialism are now in the position to think about “post growth economy”, while the countries they looted and polluted can’t even get basic human needs for all their citizens.
@@eunbiasedfan2873 Thanks for supporting me
It's terrifying to think that the first and foremost goal of every country is increasing GDP while the planet is dying and future generations will probably suffer from it. Like the only important thing is growth, is money, more and more, better and better each year. When in reality, it's worse. Truly a terrible time to live in, and I don't know if that time when a solution just magically happens would come or not.
Would you take a pay cut to save the earth? Would you give up all your money to save the earth?
@@clipsrus2300 I think the fact that there are people willing to buy a pricier product under the grounds that the product they're buying is in some way more 'eco-friendly' alludes to people like that existing. I mean, spending more to 'opt-into' being a more 'eco-conscious' consumer is a bit like taking a pay cut to save the earth.
It's terrifying to think how little people know about the advancement of green energy all throughout the west. The west already makes a large part of its energy renewable/nuclear, and it's accelerating.
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@@Noam_.Menashe But at the same time, the sales of big 4x4 SUVs, the number of flights and the sales of Amazon are increasing at an exponential rate. We aren't exactly heading in the right direction because 1) There still are a lot of people who are climatosceptics or 2) People who do understand our impact on climate, generally think the government will solve all problems without them having to make any single effort of their own. They always think it's up to others to change... and they keep overconsuming all kind of stuff as if nothing happened
Animation is always the best part of this channel.
First time I've heard of a 'post-growth economy'. Now that idea is firmly lodged in my brain because it makes so much sense.
Post scarcity?
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i think they mean "degrowth" but they are afraid of using the word.
my bad: "Post-growth can be distinguished from similar concepts and movements (such as degrowth and steady-state economy) in that it seeks to identify and build on what is already working, rather than focusing on what is not.[5] Post-growth advocates try to encourage, connect and further develop already existing ideas, concepts, technologies, systems, initiatives, and actions. In this way, "post-growth" does not specify the answer to the limits-to-growth challenge, as "steady state economics" and "degrowth" attempt to do, but rather, seeks to understand and address this challenge from an evolving complex systems perspective. With this perspective, post-growth deals with all aspects of self and society (such as psychology, human nature, human evolution, cultures, social systems and economies) and the interrelation of all of these aspects. Accordingly, the post-growth concept also advocates solutions that are appropriate with regards to place, time, resource and cultural factors. Therefore, post-growth initiatives take shape in very different ways under different circumstances.[6]"
It's called the great reset. "You will own nothing, and you will be happy"
Gosh, I've been wondering about this all day long since I got into economics. You guys should've made this video earlier!!!
We invented the heat pump. It makes 4 units of heat out of 1 unit of energy. If we switch out all oil- and gas- heaters immediately with heat pumps, we can save 75% of energy needed for heating, drastically cut all CO2 emmissions for building operations - and give consumers more money to spend in the economy.
5:26 Soooo... At the end it's stupidity vs discomfort. Like, you have a gas leak. Would you prefer: A. Continue working so you can eventually buy a new house model that prevents gas leaks entirely B. Stand up from your comfy chair and go fix the pipe
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Idk it feels like the concept of infinite growth doesn't seem like a bad thing now (to people who hope to reap the benefits of said growth at one point) but throw in stress, that climate issue mentioned earlier, a couple of wars, and a country significantly more powerful stealing resources from other countries for years- in a landscape of other ultra powerful countries doing the same to other countries, and it feels like we've cooked up a recipe for disaster. Not only are humans in a race to destroy ourselves, the entire planet itself is revolting against us
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the entire planet isn't revolting against us, species have often killed themselves, what sets humans apart is that we usually find a way, when there are more foxes, there are less chickens, but when there are more humans, there are more chickens. We are the only, or at least the best of the few species who can do that.
Earth IS beginning to revolt against humans. One day, as the late great George Carlin said, she will shake us off like a bad case of fleas. The planet will then begin to recover, giving another species a chance. Hopefully, they will do better than us greedy humans.
The question in 1:04 asks if infinite growth is possible in this planet. What if we colonize and terraform other planets?
Within a couple of seconds of hearing "post-growth economy", I went from strongly against to skeptical to potentially in favour within seconds. It is potentially essential but certainly hard to time.
May I ask what made you change your mind?
@@adisage The current economy. One drop in growth makes all the poorest so much poorer.
By current I mean 2022
The description of "post growth economy" sounds an awful lot like communism. As someone who actually lived in a communist country, I can tell you it simply sucks!
It's the only logical solution, because infinite growth is simply not possible. Somewhere down the line, limits WILL be reached, it's just physics at that point
I am confident that a carbon negative population is possible and only possible through innovation. For infinite growth we need to be interplanetary because the resources on earth are of course finite. Being able to colonize mars and then other planets are not only important for the sustainment of the human race but instrumental for our growth.
With wealth more distributed everyone would be more sufficient in their wants and needs. When that happens it frees up time for them to pursue more creative endeavours. Within these creative endeavours are bursts of innovative businesses and solutions to our problems. So I believe that the post growth economy is actually disguised as a more effective way to grow our economy.
I'm also a socialist. People should democratically decide their work hours and the direction of the company they're working in without the state or CEOs and their shareholders deciding over their heads.
And who exactly would be in charge of seeing the even distribution of these resources? Shouldn't we allow the free market to decide naturally who gets what resources and how much?
I think how you distribute wealth is more important than how much it is distributed. If everyone gets their basic needs covered with no effort, it will kill most of their incentives to work and contribute to the growth.
@@catdogmousecheese No, because the free market on its own will produce homelessness, sickness and starvation. But things like food, health care and shelter should be independent from the market to the extent that they are guaranteed to all people to a basic degree. Free market will always lead to power consolidation. That's why it needs interference to the extent that everybody's basic rights are met. Homeless people shouldn't exist. Never.
@@FAQUERETERMAX The opposite is the case, though. People with more free time are more happy and more creative and pursue various interests much more easily than when their time is limited by work.
Either we'll learn to recycle resources and run out of labour or run out of resources without being able to replenish them.
5:35 It's easier to imagine the end of our civilization as we know it than to imagine the end of Capitalism.
Capitalist realism.
How about the end of a civilization? Because that’s China right now. It’s Great Depression levels bad and that will be felt *globally*
Because things that communists want to get rid of(private property, money and government) appeared with civilization after Neolithic revolution.
Maybe
The latter leads to the former.
Can I just say the music here was incredible in itself and fit the video perfectly 😍
Very well articulated; I wish I had more time for trial and error, but I'll be 56 in October and I need ideas and advice on what investments to make to set myself up for retirement, especially with the looming inflation and recession; my goal is to have a portfolio of at least $500k at the age of 60.
@@miawhitlock9140 please who is the financial adviser that assist you with your investment and if you dont mind, how do i get in touch with them?
Oh my God... Bots are getting smarter....
Nediyon Mesut abi ya
Am seriously looking forward to a post growth economy... Infinite growth is unsustainable
we can keep growing for a thousand more lifetimes. to think that every thing comes crashing down in your lifetime is Neo Liberal Religion. it’s the “end times” for Atheists.
New technology always solves old problems, but create new problems of their own. And we don't know what new technology will come and what help it will do. We must act today, move away from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have damaged environment, as well as give advantage to war mongers
This exactly. Technology does not improve our life quality as a whole, it has not done it since the 60s-70s. It only uses up more resources just to create new problems. We are still dealing with the same problems since 20,000 years ago and all this slavery and colonialism has brought very little help.
Most new technology isn't even solving old problems anymore.
I deem it highly unlikely for such an economic system to be implemented at a global scale (which would be necessary in order to be effective), as Companies and specific Individuals, who are prospering from the current economic system, are holding tremendous amounts of both political and social power. An Implementation of such a system would basically "turn the whole world upside down", which leads to appealing less attractive to "ordinary" people.
If you think the great reset is about helping ordinary people, you're lost.
@@Scroolewse I don’t think this great reset is about helping ordinary people …. But if you really want to implement something like this, you’ll need the “masses on your side”, otherwise this system would be impossible to run long term
Soon governments will change the definition of Celsius to say we're under 1.5 degrees
Very real
1.5 degrees relative to what?
@@Noam_.Menashe earth global average temperature
Literally yesterday I'm just looking for this topic. What a timing!
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Change the economy slowly over time is the solution. Incremental adjustments are easier to do when we aren’t be rushed into it. Waiting for future human ingenuity is just pushing off the problem and may result in us crashing the economy into the problem later with zero plans to come out of it. We should be looking at us finding solutions now as the future ingenuity of past generations, we can’t pass the buck forever.
The problem is we are running out of time. Incremental solutions would have worked if we were on the ball and started these changes back in the 50s when scientists started noticing the problem. However the wealthy decided that those changes would hurt short term profits and so we delayed until we are in the situation we are now. Sure the global north (US, Canada, Europe) will probably be okay and not suffer too many awful catastrophes despite the hardships that will come from natural disasters like fire, drought, floods, and hurricanes but wealthy countries have the money to weather the storm. The real problem is the global south (South America, Africa, Middle East, South East Asia) that lacks the wealth, infrastructure, and diversified economy to sustain themselves. Hundreds of millions to Billions will die, People will starve, water will become scarce, and some regions of the world will become inhospitable to human habitation (droughts, heatwaves, floods, islands sinking beneath the sea) creating the worst refugee crisis the world has ever seen as people from the global south flee the conflicts and famine to the global north. Which will invariably lead to a rise in xenophobia, racism, and hate. Scarce resources and uncertain times make people very fearful of others. We need to transition as fast as possible despite the pains that come with it because otherwise the human cost will be so great that the human population will plummet as a new underclass will need to be created to compensate for the fact the global south would unstable and in turmoil due to the natural disasters and wars. Democracies will fall as dictators rise to fill power vacuums and nuclear war will become increasingly likely as tensions rise over resources. This isn't inevitable as the faster we transition the less likely these things will happen. Lower global temperatures decrease the likelihood of the worst outcomes which we must strive to prevent otherwise human civilization will fall backwards into Authoritarianism as people fight over land, resources, rather than cooperate through trade. Time is running out and we can't rely on innovations to save us. We have the technology now to make the change. The only thing we need is the political will to make the changes. Sure it will hurt but we can mitigate the pain by making everyone (especially the wealthy) pay their fair share for the changes that will ensure peace and prosperity for all. The only problem is that the Dragons of our age don't want to give up their wealth. They would rather live in bunkers or on mars rather than give up a some of their wealth and power to deal with the problems. They could have been a hailed as heroes if they decided to make the changes necessary but for now they are the villains that push for infinite growth and quarterly profits at the expense of everyone else.
@Zaydan Alfariz The GCC is still experiencing record high temperatures and water shortages that make agriculture difficult. Desalination will help their potable water issues for drinking water in cities but rural and agricultural communities will be destroyed. The GCC exploits an impoverished, rural underclass for their wealth and that underclass will flee.
As long as you make sure enough people die every year with small amounts of unspent currency you can really make the growth look permanent until the very last moment though.
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They're not 'resources', and this way of viewing the ecosystem that we ourselves are a part of is what needs to change first.
Okay, what if instead of trying to solve income inequality and guarantee all of those things first so that the mass production slows down eventually, we just shift the current focus of interest (entertainment and luxury) of the people, hence of the big companies too, towards more to the environmental, public transportation, and healthcare side. It would have been good, if possible, to alter the focus of the people (a.k.a the cash stream), however you could just convince the big companies to redirect a big part of their research and growth into making those areas better instead. I know it's a stretch, but the government could also compensate them for their "lose" during that time (until the improvements in those areas are sufficient enough). That way, there is no disturbances in the wealth state (for which we can care later), and we save our planet and us in this process of finding our rhythm of this 'economy growth'.
Economies grow based on consumption. Consumption is based on population. The last 200 years the human population increased absurdly, and it is now slowing down rapidly. In order to keep economic growth with a stagnant population growth, businesses will need to make the population to consume more. However, money distribution is completely uneven and there is a limit at to how much a person will be able to consume. Added to the resource issue, it is definetly impossible to have eternal economic growth. But the rich and powerful will push to the limits....
The Growth in Population was on it self based on the use of fossile fules. This is what to few people are concious about.. We use each Year about 5 Kubic Kilometers of Oil.. 35 Billion Barrel, each with 159 L of Oi.. and each Barrel Containing the energy a person could deliver in 12 Years of hard labor.. this was the means how we striped away all negativ natural feedbacks that did hold us in Check.. are You aware we use for each Calorie we eat, 10 Calories of fossile fueles? Its not Labor.. ore Population... its Energy that did al this.
"eternally growing economy is necessary to improve peoples lives" - coming from India which has highest GDP growth yet so many people suffering because all the benefits have gone to a few people while the rest are where they were or worse, I find this very SUS. PS. I myself have lived in the US and i have seen with my own eyes the huge inequality between have and have nots in the worlds "richest" country, where people have to turn to Gofundme to get medical care.
Don’t forget that the middle class is growing in India and eventually the Indian middle class will overtake the US middle class!
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Hey fellow Indian, Growth is concentrated in one side of the spectrum and the saddest thing is they dictate and lecture us on how economy should grow
@@clipsrus2300 middle class is still where they were half a decade ago. It is the upper class which has become super rich and a handful of below middle class has tapped the middle class boundary.
India lifted 271 million people out of poverty in the 2010-20 decade. The economic growth you decry here was the sole reason why that was possible.
"Who gets to decide what's necessary?" The customer. There's a reason why we say, the customer is always right ... and it's not what most people think.
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I mean customers spend billions on things like cigarettes and "alternative medicines", and plenty of other things that are definitely not necessary. The truth is you can't expect every single person to be well informed about every single thing and always make the most utilitarian decisions.
@@FrostedCreations Well yeah. That's why the saying "The customer is always right" refers to consumers in general, rather than specific circumstances. It doesn't mean the customer standing right in front of you has the right to tell you what to do (it certainly doesn't mean they know what's good for them), it means the average consumer knows what they want/need, and it's the job of a business to fulfill that want or need. It's an economic statement, not a policy ... though many businesses and customers alike like to treat it as policy anyway.
Zygmunt Bauman tells us that we do not produce goods to satisfy our needs, it produce instead needs to satisfy the income of the world market. I read this in Liquid Modernity.
This video is missing a crucial part of the story. The increase in the value of goods and services produced is *greater than proportional* to the increase in our use of non-renewables. Our machinery is only becoming more energy efficient every year, and most of this innovation has come through the private sector. For private firms to make investments and take risks, they need to see that those investments will be profitable in the future, for that you need a growing economy. The public sector coming in and saying we need to slow down and use less resources would only serve to end the innovation that the private sector brings and bring the nation to stagnation.
it's less and less people who profit of the growth tho. The rich are the only ones getting richer at this point
With all due respect, I think that most of the innovation comes from the public sector. ex: touch screen, internet, etc.... also, I think that most of the innovation from the private sector is made despite capitalism, not because of it. ex: the polio vaccine. Correct me if im wrong tho.
Infinite growth: *exists* Finite resources: *”Im gonna stop you right there”*
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Economic growth should benefit everyone. Like in a lot of European countries where capitalism is used to generate an immense amount of resources and those resources are then used to pay for social services. Economic growth is good, but I think that it should benefit everyone.
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Everyone should benefit only if everyone cobtributes. Social services are just creating parasites.
Yep free market democratic welfare states are the ideal societies
Yeah, it's working really well here in Europe. Double digit inflation, lower incomes, low profits, job creators leaving to the US, literal war... It's a paradise.. A socialist paradise.
@@tomas_marques I agree. My comment was designed to get people to see the value of capitalism who are biased against it. People have biases and so I try to find common ground to change their opinions, I give a little and say that it should all be given away but I take a little in getting people to see the productive value of capitalism and how those societies actually function.
We are hitting limits everywhere including in productivity and technology...those 2 things were making labor obsolete anyways by default distorting "the consumer" variable. The model will have to change to meet the new reality.
That's what people thought in 1750
I really love your voice, it is easier for me to learn English. Hope that you will upload more video about economy. Thank you for your meaningfull channel.
Market thinking has an amazing ability to ignore things, like pollution and resource depletion. These are called "externalities". It also ignores all non-financial values, e.g. unpaid labour like house-keeping and child-raising, and cultural values.
The entire premise of measuring economy by what gets sold on a market is already flawed from the outset. None of us ordinary people care how much profit is made off the things we use in our everyday lives. I care that I have a home, not that someone made money by renting me a home. I care that I have food, not that the food I eat provides marginal value for agribusiness. The entire conversation around how we should structure our world is wholly dominated by capitalism, and everything is fed through the lens of the profit motive. That's the only reason anyone even considers the question of unlimited growth, rather than the most obvious human question of "how do we get everyone what they need to live a good life?" Unlimited growth is a fantasy of capitalism, bound as it is by a simple, immutable economic truth: the rate of profit declines over time. The technological innovations alluded to in this video do make production more efficient, and therefore give humans more access to resources. But from the perspective of the capitalist, the only thing that matters is *their own* profit. They can make more profit in the short term with new technology, but as that technology permeates the market, the individual capitalist's edge disappears. They need to find new ways to "grow" just to stay abreast of the competition. Hence, "growth" is constantly necessary only for the *capitalist enterprise* to survive. The effects on the environment or the people living under this system are irrelevant in this framework. So yes, we desperately need to reshape our entire productive system. It is fundamentally impossible for the capitalist mode of production to maintain growth without hollowing out the physical and social world in which it operates.
Well said, comrade
it starts wrong with a magic that makes money come out of nowhere. and only goes on from there, thinking that growing up necessarily means consuming unbridled. It is evident that capitalism is incompatible with sustainability. New ideas will only be new if they are against Profit and big capital
You should have been at Davos saying this instead of in the youtube comments!
@@tjerkwietse3561 do you think the People at Davos care?
@@bri1085 It's true that Davos is essentially just a place for wealthy people to come together and try to figure out how they can ease the symptoms of capitalism without ending capitalism or losing any of their immense power. Still, while it wouldn't actually solve anything, it would be very cathartic to attend and just scream in their faces about how morally bankrupt they all are.
can you also make a video about ESG (i.e. sustainable development), please?
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Can you make a video about the world economic forum, the great reset, and “you’ll own nothing and be happy” plan
infinte growth in a finite world is absurd. but if we look at the stars... there is room out there for everything.
Wait, we are going to let AI decide who is less necessary? Sounds like a great idea for a Hollywood movie!
A.L.I.C.E doesn't like to be called that.
2:58 the definition of technology and efficiency is that they DON'T generate new demand that uses up MORE resources. If that is the result it 's anti-technology and pure waste and we should punish that.
I've watched this video maybe a year ago and I have probably thought about this "post growth economy" every day since then.
It is fun but I don't really agree here. Maybe because of simplification, but you know you are talking about economic growth, but not taking account about things devaluating and recycling. The same phone that cost now 1000$ is gonna cost way less in 5 years. But this is not taken into account. And with recycling, the old mining materials are gonna end up back into the machine working to do better things. Thats the first point. The second one, when you are talking about energy. You know having to relie on fossil fuels to move is somehow a problem (beside the global warming thing) because we can run out of fuel to burn. But with EVs there are lots of ways to produce electricity. Most of them come from sun directly or indirectly which can still burn for billions years. You also have nuclear (here, the supply fuel is somehow different), and geothermal (nuclear too, just inside earth). And there are process to use this energy to produce goods (methane can be produce using sabatier principle, and everything). I'm not saying our economies are good (far from that actually, but that's not what I wanted to point). I'm just not at all fan of the video probably because of oversimplification. This may lead people link this vid, saying the same arguments than me saying people "you see, they advocate for changing but does not take everything into account", and it will confuse people, making them thinking that maybe we don't have anything to change.
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If they were speaking the truth the video would be a 1 second "Yes"
So well animated. The style, simplicity, transitions and visuals were so smooth and on point, simplifying such a complex subject. I didn't know about degrowth economists. Well done team! Also the comment section here is just gold! ✨
I love the visual metaphor of putting roofs over buildings and houses in this video
can anyone help with the concept of a post growth economy? Or maybe leave links that references it? thanks!
Ted Ed has basically one of the best teachers and explainers on the planet to explain complex subjects.
And that may be why even if this happens these countries will turn the model to their beds
I always wondered how you tell people it's capitalism ruining our lives and the planet without saying the word capitalism. Brilliant/s
"Don't buy what you don't need"
To me, these video and comment section is terrifying. At some point, some organization (managed by a human group; corrupt, with incomplete information and biased) would decide who needs what.
@@Rb-cf7rs No they wouldn't? Where on Earth are you getting that thought from? Please read a book.
@@user-wm2sc6rz4l Don't asume that someone who think different to you doesn't read. But that is exactly how usually Happens. For example, since the 90's United Nations, had influenced the World Bank to not lend money to countrys if is not to small scale energy proyects (and, sadly they remain poor). Let me recommend you a lecture; Investigate about Thomas Robert Malthus. He thought like in the video (a few hounded years ago... And he was wrong).
Well, if they're so afraid of equality, maybe there's a reason for it...
the variable people don't think of is this, not sure if its close to right or super wrong: back in the day work was work and people got paid; however, through inventions, people had to gain a vast amount of skill to manufacture these inventions. which demands higher pay. the product is better quality, so obviously needs to be more expensive than the average. so on and so forth. well, everything began to become replaced and improved (houses, windows, fridges etc) which costs more. so that made thing complicated. they had to increase minimum wage, in addition, increase wage of those skilled jobs. which required more paper money to be created. i guess this is my opinion, but it could be somewhat on track
we all have to start consuming less. it's as simple as that, but it's difficult when you've been raised your entire life to be a consumer.
There is one lie I am not willing to forgive: That the economy as it has been is efficient in creating value.
Infinite growth is not possible, nothing is Infinite. But, you can seem to expand infinitely if you constantly improve the efficiency of how you use your finite resources as well as expanding the pool of available resources (e.g. more advanced extraction techniques, ajd perhaps eventually asteroid mining).
I wouldn't say nothing is.... Time might be.
God is forever.
:Degrowth" (of the economy) will occur soon. That is scientific, and we're already seeing signs of it eventually collapsing. Nevermind that I find it wrong that we talk about nature and our planet as nothing more than "resources" for "growth".
@@peterchui1964 'degrowth' will not occur soon, that's pure fantasy. The global economy has been under much greater strain at numerous points throughout history than it is now. The economy will be fine overall.
@@explodingwolfgaming8024 I doubt you are qualified to talk about such a complicated subject (the same goes for me). However, listen to Jean Marc Jancovici (or any expert on the subject). He clearly states that economic growth cannot last due to the literal laws of physics. Our current economic system is likened to an "instability", and is by definition a system that crashes.
An important element that this video leaves out is that not all segments of the economy are dependent on consumable resources. Economic growth generated by services for example is quite different from economic growth generated by factory output. A consultant can go on to consult over and over again while barely using any material resources. Likewise economic growth fueled by tourism doesn't deplete the site being visited; the Sphinx just sits there rather a hundred people look at it or a million. Growth fueled by AI won't even necessarily require the use of human time and effort as resources.
The key word here is energy. Energy is the ultimate currency. Economy grow as long as human keep improving in converting energy. You cant create food if the sun is not enough. You cant create things if there is no energy.
One issue that also should have been addressed is 'interest'. If you think about how a post growth society could look like, you can't leave out the fact that we have a monetary system that directly or indirectly forces us to grow our economy. Interest on money let's the money grow exponentially. If you take a loan, you have to pay back more than you lent. And that "more" that has to be generated, can of course be of intellectual nature. But it always will be in great part resources that we exploit to satisfy the system we are currently all living in. Anyways, we have to address this issue, if we want to takle changing our economy to something that let's us grow and at the same time doesn't destroy the planet we live on.
In fact money is generated out of thin air. IIRC bank only have to have 10% of what they loan out in reserve. They basically rent out money they don't have and cash in interest rates, thus generating money out of thin air It's a huge problem in our economy, because it heavily relies on it to function. The banking crisis in 2008 was caused exactly because of this particular issue
I think you have it backwards, it's not the financial system that demands growth, but the growth that demands the financial system. If growth were to slow to a standstill because of resource constraints then the financial sector would shrink during that process because investment would fall.
Sounds too good though it would never even come close to achievable. The %1 will never want to earn less money and have less power as they are mere humans after all, not driven by logic and sense but with hubris and greed. It may look like the general public would want such nice way of living but individually if you ask them, they'd want to have 2 coins rather than 1 coin. Post-Growth Economy is a nice sheet of music which we'll never get to see composed.
Revolution is the only way forward.
It absolutely is achievable. They're called the 1% for a reason - we outnumber them by a lot. The problem is people are propagandized into believing that capitalism is a) a meritocracy, b) sustainable, and c) the "natural" course for humans. None of which are true. Capitalism can be beat and we can create a better system for all.
@@user-wm2sc6rz4l You miss the point, I am trying to say the %1 is the same as the %99. They both want more and not less.
The problem is that we are asking economists about their environmental opinion instead of asking oh let’s say… an environmentalist
5:22 lmfao this made me laugh so much. Perfect animation for this point.
Will we look back and think of this as an example of being "fair & balanced" to a fault? I hope so. Even in developing nations growth is currently conceptualised unjustly.
I used to think that it's unfair how developed countries have a headstart compared to the rest of the world because of their greed and colonialism in the past. But coming from a developing country, I later realized we are at a much better position than developed countries to not repeat what they did and to have a sort of 'clean slate' to build our countries via this "post-growth economy" proposition. But then of course it's easier said than done. There's still so many issues to address.
This "post growth" economy has failed every time it was tried. There's absolutely zero reason to hurt people's quality of life .
Post-growth economy sounds like another form of colonialism to me. It's promoted by the world economic forum an incredible elitist organization. You're right that you have a clean slate and don't have to repeat the same mistakes (building coal power plants instead of clean energy like solar, wind, water, or nuclear) while growing your economy. But please don't believe WEF propaganda. Post growth would mean rich countries stay rich and poor countries stay poor. The only reason they are promoting that is so that they can keep investing in fossil fuels and pat themselves on the back that they are solving climate change by preventing poor countries from becoming rich.
@@Noam_.Menashe yall memorised 1 response to anything even slightly different to capitalism
@@frankabjh674 wow mate really disproved my argument. You really found out exactly what I said that was wrong and corrected it, you didn't just start insulting me and acting superior. Sarcasm, obviously.
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Any one wondering how there know. Exactly how many degrees hotter it going how they get 1.5 how do they know it actually and not some super long loop we don’t know yet that could make look like it? Explain!
They haven't mentioned where these materials got extracted in the first place. I'm talking about the parts of smartphones.
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I haven't got the app. What's the next topic? The Great Reset?
This video was absolutely beautiful. The editing, illustration, voiceover, music. Well done.
According to what you present yourselves, you describe the envisioned "post-growth" economy as the economy of a Marxist, socialist/communist state, BUT a state that first became developed through a capitalist system and only afterwards starts to distribute all resources "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (Karl Marx, 1875) in a state-run economy. Observation: Marx mistakenly expected the British Empire to have been the first country to ever embrace communism exactly because of these growth-related issues (only that he had given these issues the all-comprising name of "capitalist exploitation" and put the blame on the private enterprise owners for these growth obsession phenomena, in addition to identifying the human traits of greed and thirst for fueling class distinction among people as a major underlying cause). Marx lived in London and saw how the British were running their empire. He would've laughed in case anyone told him that Russia and China would be the largest countries to embrace his doctrine after his death, as those countries had been struggling with poverty and it would've made no sense to him for poor countries to start allocating the few resources they have to a rather numerous population instead of BECOMING RICH FIRST. In short, communism was from the beginning designed for VERY rich, highly developed states in which there is already great wealth that is unequally distributed among the owners of large companies and enterprises (i.e. basically all world billionaires) and which awaits to be made accessible to the largest chunk of the population - the people without whom the businesses wouldn't survive in the first place (also search for "Global Inequality visualized" for that matter).
Marxism indicate that there's an endless cycle of capitalism and individualism. The worker has to eventually revolt(Stop working) as the companies enslave the labourer. This will eventually return to capitalism as the demand of work increases. That value is time and how much time you put into work is money. That's why the most known slogan that time is money comes from Marxism ideology that the time you have to not work is based on how much time used to work. Once that time is obtained the employee gains time with their family. In USA there's no free weekends because money is not time in USA. You don't earn time by working in USA. There's few to no free days because time has been stolen. As example company owners decide how much time they work. The employee doesn't decide and time is not money for an employee. That's why all company owners are marxists.
Continually growing more value with increased efficiency and less resources also begins to leave people out of the system. That's what we are seeing happen now.
the guy swetting at 5:24 was funny hahaha it was a *chuckles* I'm in danger moment x)