 Historical
perspective
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it" (George Santayana, 1863-1952)
After 200 years of industrial economic growth, most people
have come to believe that economic growth is a normal and
indeed essential state of affairs and that it will continue
indefinitely. A historical perspective suggests that on
the contrary, economic growth is a temporary phase during the
development of a civilization and that it is
unsustainable. We can deduce this in three ways: from
archaeological records, from contact with other living
civilizations and from basic arithmetic. Let's look at
each of these in turn.
Archaeological records
Archaeological records tell us that no previous
civilization has ever achieved perpetual economic
growth. If they had, they would still be here
today. Most past civilizations have eventually failed
through war, resource depletion or other factors which are
examined in detail in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse: How
societies choose to fail or succeed"
(2005). Examples of civilizations which have failed
include, in approximate order of appearance, the Sumerians,
Assyrians, Medes, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans
and Carthaginians. Their surviving records suggest
that none of them foresaw their own collapse, and all of them
thought their society was stable and would continue
indefinitely.
Contact with other living civilizations
During the Age of Discovery, from the late 1400s to the
late 1700s, European explorers sailed the world making contact
with, trading with and/or conquering other
civilizations. None of the living civilizations they
encountered had achieved, or had an expectation of, perpetual
economic growth. All the civilizations encountered had
achieved an approximately steady state or zero growth
economy, with the exception of Easter Island which was in the
final stages of collapse due to resource depletion.
Basic arithmetic
A brief consideration of basic arithmetic will show why
perpetual economic growth was just as impossible for early
civilizations as it is for us today. Let's take as an
example, the Romans. The Western Roman Empire (that part
of the Roman Empire centered on Rome) was founded around
753 BC and expanded until around 117 AD with the death of the
emperor Trajan. His successor, the emperor Hadrian, was
a man ahead of his time and decided that it was neither
possible nor desirable for the Roman Empire to continue to
expand. He therefore attempted to stabilize the Empire
at its then current size, it continued in a steady state until
around 180 AD with the ascent to power of the emperor
Commodus, then began a long slow decline until 476 AD when the
last Western Roman emperor was deposed.
Let's suppose that instead of stabilizing in 117 AD, the
Roman economy had expanded at 1% per annum until the present
day. This very modest rate of economic growth would be
viewed as sluggish by most modern economists. Eighteen
hundred ninety three years of economic growth at 1% per annum
would result in a Roman Empire which produced and consumed
over 166 million times the amount of goods and services
in the year 2010 as it did in the year 117. Of
course this amount of growth isn't possible: there aren't
the resources on the planet to sustain it. So if Roman
economic growth had not been voluntarily stopped by Hadrian,
it would have been compelled to stop by natural forces when it
bumped up against the physical limits of the environment.
And just for fun, let's calculate how much the Roman
economy would have grown if it had enjoyed a 3% growth rate
until the present day - a rate which most modern economists
would consider to be normal. I have no idea what the
answer is because the compound interest calculator I am using
can't handle numbers that big. If any economist
reading this knows the answer, please tell me, and then tell
me how he or she thinks that would be possible to achieve.
So archaeological records, contact with other living
civilizations and basic arithmetic all point to the same
conclusion: perpetual economic growth was impossible in
the past, it is impossible now and it must at some point
stop.
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