Economics and Beyond - das alles und noch viel mehr - Social Limits to Growth

In this lecture we will discuss Social Limits to Growth with Laura Porak, scientific officer at Insitute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy (ICAE).

As some of you know, many economists refer to economic growth as a cake that is supposed to grow for the benefit of all. (Almost) everyone likes cake, and the more the better is the rule at many birthday parties.

But what are actually the real benefits and downsides of economic growth? And how to measure it?

Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik - Social Media

[harrisjm]

Great presentation Laura. One comment though: GDP is a monetary value as you've noted, but are the important promises coming from economists or from money itself? Money is itself a promise as various scholars have noted (Searle, Ingham, Merhling). Instead of taking economists word for what GDP promises, perhaps we should analyse the money GDP is composed of instead.

Feminists have correctly noted GDP does not measure production/reproduction. What they, and indeed the vast majority of economics have failed to realize is that money isn't supposed to represent production anyway. Some economists who begin with money first note money is used in many non-productive payments. If this is the case, economists have been wrong about the meaning of money and wrong to start from production.

Unfortunately the youtube comment section isn't long enough or an appropriate place to explore the issues with connecting utility or welfare to money. But basically money doesn't need to be a promise of utils or welfare, and certainly not one for everybody given that the military sector gets paid to cause harm to others.

Due to the ignorance surrounding money, economists have misinterpreted nearly everything attatched to their main measurement device.