News Archive

Eternal/infernal economic growth

Our last seminar, on May 14 and chaired by A/Prof Peter Morgan, began with some
Powerpoint comedy, perhaps underlining A/Prof Neville Bruce’s observation that technology is not going to provide the whole answer to the challenges facing human beings in the 21st century (in fact some of us find it THE challenge). Neville briefly explained what Integrated Human Studies is about before our speakers tackled the topic of whether economic growth can continue forever, or whether, with global warming, it has already touched on the infernal.

UWA Chancellor Dr Michael Chaney defined economic growth as the annual increase in a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He asked the question, is economic growth a good thing? Declaring himself a “fan”, he pointed out the benefits of growth that we often take for granted as they have accrued slowly over time: such things as urban infrastructure, health care, sanitation and so on. He also said that growth is necessary to maintain employment levels while population is rising. A recession (two consecutive quarters of negative growth) creates unemployment, the pain of which is felt by a minority, but which has wider spreading social effects. Australia’s GDP per head growth over the next half century is projected (by Federal Treasury) at 1.6% per annum – but this figure assumes a continuation of historical productivity rates, which will not be achieved without reforms including improving education and skills, encouraging innovation and reforming the tax system.

Dr Chaney then addressed the question of whether the world’s resource availability would limit economic growth. He referred to various predictors of doom such as Malthus, Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, but pointed out that advances in agriculture had saved the day. Nevertheless, he recognised the dangers of population pressures and climate change. He concluded by saying he believed economic growth was positive and necessary and that creative inventive people would overcome the challenges facing the world. You can read the full text of Dr Chaney’s speech here.

Dr Carmen Lawrence challenged the use of GDP as a measure of community wellbeing, and suggested that a brave politician might use a broader measure – as David Cameron has in the UK – such as GWB or General Well Being. On the question of whether politicians might be elected on a platform of a stable economy or negative growth, she pointed out that the Howard government fell at the height of economic growth in Australia because the electorate recognised broader issues of importance such as the Work Choice legislation. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz had criticised the use of GDP as an indicator of a country’s economy. Dr Lawrence explained that GDP is a gross measure of cash transactions that does not distinguish quality or sustainability nor take into account distribution of benefits, household or voluntary work, expenses such as pollution, accidents and disasters, environmental degradation, and depletion of capital. She looked forward to a time when more inclusive indicators were used to measure the performance of an economy. You can read the notes for Dr Lawrence’s speech here .

Professor Graeme Martin used multiple graph lines to suggest that Malthus wasn’t wrong after all, but just a little early. Human population is currently at 6.8 billion and rising; projections calculated some decades ago were checked and found to have erred on the conservative side. Graeme added many other lines to his graph showing such things as oil production, industrial output, and food production, with supporting information like the availability of arable land per head of population, and asked the question, what would a world with 20 billion people in it look like? He pointed out that from a human biology perspective, disease and war have almost no effect on growth projections, but the critical factor might instead be food distribution.

Questions and observations from the audience included the possibility of negative population growth becoming the norm as third world countries develop; the huge amounts of money spent on military hardware and war that could be better spent addressing the problems spoken of in the seminar; the fact that the push for economic growth and concomitant materialism could be perceived as itself causing unhappiness; and other measures of economies such at the Genuine Progress Indicator.

Next seminar 28 May 08

Our next seminar in the “Seeking wisdom” series is:

Human altruism, local and global, in theory and practice

Humans are manifestly a social species. Cooperation and collaboration mixed with intelligence has meant that we, as a physically weak and relatively defenceless animal, have come to dominate the world. But paradoxically, humans are also one of the most aggressive of species. We seem to delight in our own destruction; or at least the destruction of others of our species. So where does altruism fit within this paradox? What are its evolutionary/biological origins? What can the philosophers and psychologists tell us about altruism? Above all, how can we support altruism; an essential element of any wisdom aimed at human wellbeing at a practical and personal level.

Dr Bev McNamara will chair, and presenters are Emeritus Professor David Allbrook, doctor and educator; Prof Mike Anderson from the School of Psychology; and Dr Gary Ward, general practitioner, who will speak about his involvement with The Hunger Project. Audience questions are invited after the presentations.

The seminar will be held at 5.30 pm in the same place, Seminar room 1.81 in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia (two buildings south of Shenton House on the Matilda Bay side of the campus). There is no charge to attend, and refreshments are provided.

Next seminars in our “Seeking wisdom” series

(Find more details at www.ihs.uwa.edu.au . )

June 11 From information to wisdom
June 25 Greening Australia: why, when and how

Previous seminars and newsletters

You can find previous newsletters containing summaries of seminar talks at our website on the News and Events page . Powerpoint notes and the full text of some talks will be available here for some of the talks soon.

About the Centre for Integrated Human Studies

You can find out more about the Centre and about IHS at our web site . If you are interested in enrolling in postgraduate courses in IHS, please contact the Director, A/Prof Neville Bruce on 6488 3292 or email [email protected] .

Tell us what you think

Please feel free to give us your comments, thoughts or suggestions for
future seminar topics by emailing Karen on [email protected] .

Media references

Karen Connolly
Integrated Human Studies
School of Anatomy and Human Biology
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009
+61 08 6488 3647