Responses to the Limits to Growth argument: Conservative Liberal Radical

Conservative Response

pro-economic growth:

• can have growth without reaching limits
• growth necessary for:
  • raising living standards,
  • for alleviating poverty
  • for technological development
• growth possible through expanded use of available resources
• economic growth leads to lower birth rates in developing countries
• growth provides money for technologies to:
  • improve pollution control,
  • reduce waste,
  • improve efficiency of resource management
• regulating mechanisms
• changes in cultural values
• price system (deliberate or automatic)

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Liberal Response

• critical of limits to growth arguments
• skeptical of urgency
• argue that limits to growth analys is too technical and apolitical
• no growth policies reflect the self-interests of environmentalists, computer simulation experts, environmental scientists
• adverse consequences for the poor by deflecting attention from other problems
• no-growth policies will hurt the poor most
• limits to growth arguments used to legitimate reduced wages and living standards
• limits to growth advocates ignore role of power and influence in resource allocation

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Radical Response

argue real problem is growth under capitalism:

• social and political limits to growth more important than biophysical limits to growth argument serves multinationals by covering economic and political limits to their growth
• by providing an argument for a global political apparatus to stabilize the world economy and ensure raw materials and markets were provided by 3rd world
• by helping them to stabilize wages, consumption and living standards
• need for alternate forms of economic organisation that would allow for growth in poor countries

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