The boiling water principle

There seems to be an expectation today that we should all be better: that we should learn more, work more, achieve more and produce more, be tested, monitored and assessed more, and at the same time keep fit, cook, clean, look after the kids, and keep up with your social and cultural interests. This is only the beginning, but it's already exhausting.

It seems that the main reason for this improvement drive is economic: the growth economy. The idea is that development, health and happiness requires that the economy must grow year on year: it would be nice if the total of all the economic transactions in 2006 will be 2.5% (or even 5%) bigger than the total in 2005. The alternative is apparently depression, in every sense of the word.

I don't agree with this. I can't help thinking about the image of a pan of water sitting on a gas flame. As the water is heated, the temperature grows. Quite quickly we get to a point where some of the water gets so hot it's transformed into steam and evaporates away. The more we heat it, the more we get out of it (that is the more water turns to steam and gets out of the pan). Gradually all the water disappears and we're left with an empty pan (or, under other circumstances, perhaps an explosion).

Classical economists would reject this image out of hand: they say the economy is a closed system and all the profits get reinvested. Today it's clear to many people that this is a scandalous conceit which completely fails to account for the raw materials that are being turned into landfill and pollution on a massive scale. Our oil, gas and mineral reserves are being increasingly relied on and depleted, intensive forestry and agriculture is taking all the nutrients from the soil and replacing them with pesticides and other chemicals, and on a human level we seem to be suffering in ways we don't quite recognise from our past.

It seems that we cannot go on as we are: certainly not indefinitely, and maybe not even for as long as 20 years. It seems quite likely that in 20 years the environmental and economic restrictions on many materials that are basic to our lives today will make them largely unavailable to the majority of people and change our lives drastically. And what does this insistence on an ever growing economy really mean to the working lives of people? I don't think we can really know, although I feel that some of the stories in this blog are indicative of some of the trends. Can you see yourself becoming 2% more productive every year for the next 20 years? Can people and communities and societies manage to average out at this growth level for ever? And even more importantly, what is the cost? What is it in these people that's going to evaporate off like the steam from the pan?

I think we need to start to take a look at some of our services and their cost and sustainability and maybe use some economic questions like these to develop new critiques and alternatives.

This will be an ongoing discussion, comments welcome...