@ Kapitein A

1) Economic growth is essentially the same thing as 'income growth'.  This can be taken in a 'per capita' sense (i.e. per person) or in a 'total' sense (i.e. the growth in total income, GNP, of the economy).  As stated in the article, growth for growth's sake is not very meaningful.  It is growth in per capita income that is important.

2) Issues as "personal debt, public debt" have to do with the distribution of income within a country.  They do not take anything away from the need for growth in income per capita over time. However, when the 'local' debt is largely held by foreigners then it becomes an important issue.  

3) I agree with you that a "human development index" can also be an important indicator of economic 'health'.  However, the elements that are included in such an index wil always be arbitrary and subjective, depending on the views of the indexmaker.  Typically, such human development indicators will tend to improve in line with per capita income growth over time, because part of the growing income will be spent on things that are included in the human development index.    

4) "Wealth" is a stock concept.  It reflects the accumulation of invested parts of the incomes generated in previous time periods.  If income does not grow and 'replacement investment' is not maintained, then wealth wil decline over time, and so will people's 'comforts'. 

5) You are right that a declining population could go together with lower TOTAL income without "a loss in standard of living".  That confirms again that it is PER CAPITA income that matters, not TOTAL income.  However, if per capita income does not grow, then many human needs will remain unfulfilled, and when people tend to fall behind others they will be worse off in a relative sense, and - because of that - perhaps also less 'happy'.

6) Economic growth during "reconstruction" (natural disaster) does NOT give a "false impression" of vitality.  On the contrary, it shows exactly vitality.  But, such growth does restore previously attained wealth, and in that sense may for a while give a false impression of the 'new' wealth level. 

7)  You are right that developed countries cannot "match" the economic growth rates of China and NIEs.  It is generally easier to grow fast starting from a low base than from a high one.  However, economic history shows that relative income levels (in a per capita sense) can change dramatically over time, in BOTH directions.   The Chinese growth rate is unlikely to endure at its present level.  The current high growth rate in Russia (and S.Arabia) is dependent on (temporary) high commodity prices and not on locally-induced growth.  The British income level (after several postwar labor governments) in 1970 was a quarter below that of France and Germany, whereas today it is above that of those countries, etc..... 

Thank you for your 'serious' comments.     

Economic growth is merely one of many indicators of a society's 'health.' Total and per capita annual income, wealth, gross domestic product, gross national product, personal debt, public debt, and the human development index are also very important as well. If a country's population is in decline, then it is entirely possible that its economic growth may recede as well without a loss in those citizens' standards of living. Secondly, the economic growth associated with reconstruction after say a natural disaster gives a false impression of vitality. Short of a tremendous population boom, the West cannot match the growth rates of China and the NIEs purely because its economies have expanded and are now in the consolidation phase i.e. the infrastructure is already built, it merely needs to be upgraded and maintained.

In your article you say"Only if they grow economically can they devote more resources to better their environment, in terms of air, water, housing and so on, that people use or depend on." So in order to save the environment  we must first destroy it. You speak of per capita income as though everyone gets an equal share. If only it were so. The sad truth is that the rich get richer by raping the planet and instead of cleaning up their own mess they leave that job to future generations. The driving force behind capitalism is fear and greed. While these forces do work to some extent the end result is a world run by a small number of uber rich who will complain vehemently about having to support the lazy poor. Anyone born on this planet deserves a fair share of its resources. No one should ever go hungry. Canada alone could grow enough food to feed the entire planet. People won't feed starving children because nobody has figured out a way to make a buck off it. 

I will take several of your kleenex's.  I need them to clean the pompous perversity clouding the inside of my screen.  Marc has an analysis of you that all recognize except you.  By your tirades, you are demonstrating why Americans have to do by themselves what must be done.  People such as you are intelligent but useless.

We recognize many aspects of you in American politicians, especially those who were "educated" in British schools, who are the ones most responsible for the leftist mentality you view as coming from America.  Those schools and their product are what you see being directed back at you in tandem with your own politicians.  That thought is what most of us, along with you, despise.  You choose to ignore that you are among people largely in agreement with you but choose to become despicable yourself.

Mission Impossible

You are banging your drum so loudly that no one can hear what you are saying.

@ Frank Lee

You know that I have some understanding of American's increasing exasperation with the shortsigthed and 'gormless' anti-Americanism of many Europeans.  And while the latter is largely a phenomenon on the dominant left, it is also a much longer-standing reality on the European right.  By now you will surely realise that this regrettable situation must also be very exasperating for sensible Europeans. 

Mission Impossible is in many respects a 'conservative', but he also frequently displays a disturbing degree of both misogyny and of anti-Americanism.  While he frequently points the finger at real problems and issues, he hasn't got a clue about rational explanations and reasons, and then tends to fall back on parroting media-induced caricatures.  Perhaps his biggest problem is that he doesn't seem to know the difference between opinions and facts.  Anybody who manages to link all sorts of disparate phenomena - like the Asian currency crisis, the collapse of the Russian economy (before the recent upsurge in commodity prices), the deforestation of the Amazon for beef grazing, the...list is endless....- who manages to link all that to "Disneyland etc..." is obviously a very prejudiced person.  Basically, he is saying that universal human greed and shortsightedness is America's fault.  And anybody, who ends an exposition with a sentence like "you are thin-skinned, emotional and crabby people" is not a worthy discussion partner.

It's revealing that Europeans often rant about America based on something one American has done or said.  But it is especially telling when Europeans rant about America based on something one European has said or done.

@ Mission Impossible

Well, my "good friend", you have at least one more time illustrated that there is very little difference between the anti-americanism of the paleo-left and that of the paleo-right.  Both rest on prejudice, misconceptions and on "gormless" emotionalism, but not on rational thought.  And I, who am not even an 'American', has to point this out to you.

Your latest longwinded anti-american rant is long on fatuous charges (and totally disconnected opinions) but very short on factual knowledge.  It actually deserves no serious response, but as an eternal optimist I will still try to inform you better. 

You claim that I am representing (1) "the Wall Street" viewpoint, and at the same time the viewpoint of (2) the "pseudo-science" of economists from multilateral international organisations as the UN, IMF and World bank.  "Wall Street" doesn't have a viewpoint on anything, but if you mean the Wall Street Journal, then the contradiction should be very apparent.  For your information, the WSJ wants to abolish the UN, the IMF and the World Bank, and that abolition I support.  It is therefore unlikely that I could represent both the WSJ and those organisations.  This position of the WSJ is based on the following considerations: in the case of the UN it is based on the facade of 'law' that it claims to represent while in fact it has become an immoral legitimiser of tyrants and totalitarians; in the case of the World Bank and the IMF the WSJournal's position is based on the fact that their functions could better be performed by international capital markets (in their present state) and because they present problems associated with what economists call "moral hazard". 

While I often agree with political opinions expressed by the WSJ, and often also with their economic-liberal policy prescriptions, I do definitely disapprove of their libertarianism and of their 'open borders' mentality.  In my opinion the editorial board of the WSJ takes too much a short term perspective w.r.t. the economy and does not fully appreciate the cultural and institutional underpinnings for economies to be succesful in the long term.  

It is amazing how you are able to 'reproduce' someone else's writings and manage to say exactly the opposite of that someone else.  In short, you fabricate 'strawmen', and then discussion becomes meaningless.  Referring to my debate with the anthropologist, 35 years ago, it is him and you who are claiming to know that the idyllic vilagers are happy.  My position is that you have to let them decide for themselves what they want, which means observe their actions (not your wishes of idyllism). And what they show through their actions is that they want....more income, i.e. economic growth.  They may want it, but it doesn't mean that they know how to get it.

Armor may have misconceptions (for instance about people's movements in China).  Who doesn't have some misconceptions?  I certainly do not claim such a thing.  But, whereas Armor's misconceptions may be based perhaps on poor media information provision, yours often seem to be rooted in pure prejudice.  I hope, you no longer believe that large scale European emigration in the past to America was based on "free trade".  And I also hope that you are by now well aware of the repression of women in the muslim world generally (despite your personal experience with some individual "exciting muslim women").  But I doubt that you could learn much from economic "tutorials".  Among the many strawmen and misconceptions that I could discern in your long rant, the one I thought particularly fascinating was the notion that "garbage collectors" would know who had "screwed up" the Russian economy.  I suspect that those garbage collectors are wiser in the sense that most of them will know that they do not know.  Whereas, you think wrongly that you know.....On the basis of what?  Prejudices, pure and simple.  

The fact that Capitalism and Freedom are the best systems for mankind is beyond debate. The fact that these ideas consistantly lose the debate in Europe should tell us something about Europeans. The only longterm hope I see is that leftists are having far fewer children than those on the right. Unfortunately Muslim immigration might snuff out this last hope.

@ Armor

You are still mixing apples with oranges. 

1) The need for economic growth is simply a need for higher income per capita.  It says nothing about "population growing too fast in Africa".  In fact there is ample evidence that in general the higher the per capita income level of a country, the lower its birthrate will be.  However, if GDP growth were highly concentrated in improved health care provision, then one could expect a temporary population increase due to lower mortality (not due to higher birthrate).  Whatever population 'problem' there might be, it does not invalidate the need for higher per capita income (i.e. economic growth).  If anything, it is the opposite.

2) I think you underestimate the choices you can make.  You do not have to take a high-pressure job, and you do not have to live far away from your job.   Lots of people do live alternative lifestyles (look at Amsterdamsky).  Generally, the freer a society is, the more choices you will have.  But if you want to live expensively, healthily, and longer, you may have to raise your per capita income. 

3)  I broadly agree with your comments on the need for 'quality' of growth.  Again, these do not obviate the need for economic growth.  On the contrary, they are an argument for more growth (i.e. for higher productivity)  because the resources need to be created or generated to prevent "detrimental effects to nature etc...".  A big chunk of GDP must inevitably consist of activities to improve the 'environment' or to prevent detrimental effects.  Quality of environment is just another human need which needs to be fulfilled, and therefore requires economic growth.  This is essentially a matter of ensuring (via regulation, taxes and government spending) that ALL costs are accounted for in production processes (and not just 'private' costs).  It is a matter of allocation of resources, not of restricting growth.  Again, stagnating and poor economies tend to have 'rotten' physical environments.

4)  I am not an expert on China, but I think you are wrong in your perception about "massive population movements" in China.  Western media may from time to time highlight specific incidents, like the removal of people for a specific large dam, or whatever, but that is not the big problem.  The people movement problem is essentially that millions of rural Chinese continue to move from rural areas to major cities on the coast.  They do this to escape the deep rural poverty in China and to partake in the rapid economic (income) growth in coastal provinces.  The government is not 'inducing' this movement, but rather is trying to slow it down.  The movement shows what people want.  It is not imposed from above.  It does show however, that people tend to become 'unhappier' when they see others becoming richer than themselves.  They then tend to want to become richer too.  However, they don't have to be like that. 

When 'Armor' raised the matter of "happiness" I knew what was coming, i.e. 'rich' people claiming that the poor might be poor BUT they are/were so much happier.  That is what they used to say in good ol' Mississippi about the "darkies" too.

Let me repeat, economic growth has nothing to do with happiness or unhappiness.  It has to do with the economy's ability to satisfy needs that people manifestly have, since they 'reveal' these needs through (1) their FREE work efforts, and (2) through their FREE purchases on markets.   No one is forcing them to work, and no one is forcing them to buy goods and services on markets.

Thirty five years ago, I actually lived for 2 years on a South Pacific island, among melanesians, polynesians, and 'Indians'.  The island had lots of "unspoiled idyllic villages", fisherman, sugarcane workers, and all the rest that might be sprouting in Mission Impossible's not-so-idyllic imagination.  Already then, I recall, having an 'argument' with a westerner, a sociologist/anthropologist from the university (of course, from where else), about the need for economic development to benefit the idyllic villagers.  He thought it smashing to be able to study these 'happy' villagers and their ways, relatively undisturbed by modernity, and did not see any need for economic growth and development.  But when the monsoons came down, he went back to his comfortable home, provided by tax-payers in 'rich' countries, while the villagers went back to their leaky thatched-roofed huts with pneumonia and all the rest.   So, MI is wrong.  The anthropologist, no doubt "schooled in marxist one-world ideology", thougt the villagers 'charming' and wanted to keep things as they were, whereas the hardnosed 'marcfrans' wanted to let the villagers decide for themselves what they wanted, rather than letting 'bwana so-and-so' tell them what would keep them "happy".   

The need for economic growth is of course manifestly more urgent in poor countries than in rich countries, because of something what economists call the law of declining marginal utility.  Those "pseudo-scientists" do not have the profetic wisdom of some commentators here, who seem to know better about other people's "happiness" than those people themselves.  But economists do know that the more you have of something, the less utility any extra unit of that something can deliver.   They do not claim to know how to make interpersonal comparisons of utility, and certainly not of "happiness", but they do know that an extra 100 euros is much more useful to a person with an income of (say) 2,000 euros than to a person with an income of (say) 200,000 euros per year

I would not wish an annual income of 2,000 euros on anyone, not on Armor, not even on Mission Impossible......     

Faced by the possibility of a German invasion in 1939-1940, I doubt that the vast majority of Britons would have freely chosen to ration goods to ensure their own survival and keep the military well-supplied. If people were able to choose for themselves, then anarcho-capitalism would prevail not the rule of law. And yes, economic growth can be linked to environmental degredation - case in point being China and India.  

I understand your point, but I hesitate to blame people's actions entirely on false consciousness, especially after they've moved to the squalid urban area or to the West and have seen past the supposed illusion.  You note that people would like to return to their village, but "find it more difficult to do so."  Isn't part of the difficulty the fact that there is some reality to the illusion?  That is, they know that, should they return to their village and have their appendix burst, they're dead.  And certainly the women know that the traditional life, regardless of its strengths, makes their future a crap shoot, as they wonder, Will mom and dad find me a decent husband or an ignorant and abusive shmuck?  And I hardly need to mention what attraction the West has for gay people, especially those in some of the Muslim countries.  Or for anyone who is intelligent and wishes to start a business in a country with an egalitarian culture and a functioning economy based on the rule of law.  Or for anyone who sees through the stupidity of their nation's majority religion and doesn't want to go around mouthing pieties they don't believe.

You make a valid and interesting point about the difficulty in judging which population is better off:  workers in "a run down, crime-ridden housing estate (but with access to 24 hour health care) in Dusseldorf, Newcastle, or Alabama" or residents of "a picturesque and tranquil fishing village in Borneo (with access only to Shamans)."  You are right, it is not always easy to say who has the most satisfying life.  But it is easy to note that many of the tranquil villagers will jump at the chance to move to a squalid housing project in the West (where they have access to modern medical care) whereas almost no one is willing to migrate in the other direction if it means leaving yourself at the mercy of Shamans.

Marc Huybrechts ... a good article, but, I would question the legitimacy of one of your statements (final paragraph) which reads:

... economic growth is manifestly more urgent in poor countries than in rich ones, because not even many basic human wants are generally met in the poor ones.

Surely, this is a subjective judgement that employs western-centric comparative templates? One could just as easily argue that many more "basic human wants" are in fact better met in many poorer countries compared to rich ones, such as: intimate family settings, supportive communities, a more carefree existence, access to abundant & fresh food, contentment, freedom from undue stress, freedom from 24 hr surveillance, and a closer attachment to the natural environment, etc., etc.

One of the problems of the post-1945 world has surely been the unspoken insistence that all traditional societies must be re-molded or transformed into tropical versions of the American Dream. The problem with this is that most of these so-called "unfortunates" once lived in unspoiled idylls; at least they did until western (usually American) theoreticians schooled in Marxist, one-world ideology came along to apply their one-size fits all solution.

As for who is in greatest need, I believe it is actually those populations living in rich countries. Not because they are already rich but because most are in fact relatively poor and are being mis-characterised as being rich because they happen to be living in an economy that manages to flash all the lights that say "rich" ... you know, those abstract measures that please the pseudo-scientists we call Economists.

Where would you rather be? A run down, crime-ridden housing estate (but with access to 24 hour health care) in Dusseldorf, Newcastle, or Alabama ... or a picturesque and tranquil fishing village in Borneo (with access only to Shamans)?

Where would you find a genuine quality of life?

One cannot easily and honestly answer such a question, am I correct?

@ Armor

Of course, people can decide what "kind of society they want to live in".  At least in true democracies they could.  That doesn't necessarily mean that they will make the necessary effort to do so.

Happiness has got nothing to do with the subject of economic growth.  If people want to live longer and healthier, than their ancesters did, they will need  a higher per capita income.  Has nothing to do with "happiness".  You can be happy poor, and you can be happy rich, and you can be unhappy rich, and unhappy poor.  The fact that (most) people seek to become richer, suggests that that is what they want.  Like you, they will often say that that is not what they want, yet they do it!  And in a free society, people should be free to aspire to be be as rich as they could possibly be, or as poor as they may want to be as well.  Better look at people's actions rather than words, if you want to know what their true intentions or wishes are.

Fifty years ago, economic growth was much faster in Europe than today.  Why were "the social consequences" then not so dire as you seem to think they are today?   Are you sure you are talking about consequences of economic growth? Perhaps you are talking about other things? Such as, for instance, the victory of moral relativism in western education?  Or naive-left immigration policies, or nutty 'libertarianism'. or whatever.  There are many possible candidates for being the instigators of your dire "social consequences", but economic growth is not one of them. 

Also, a closer examination of economically stagnating (or even regressing) societies might help to free you from a misconception.   

"The critics have come in many different stripes, but the bulk of them seem to be in the ‘green’ corner, and others could be lumped together under the label of ‘moralizers’."

For my part, I have a problem with the social consequences of economic growth.

"consumers can usually decide for themselves what to buy"

We can decide if we would rather have a new fridge or a new lawn mower, and we can choose the color, but we cannot decide what kind of society we want to live in. We don't know at all where we are headed, and we cannot stop the evolution! On the whole, society has become less congenial, and we are less happy than fifty years ago. Economic growth has been accompanied by social changes that we have no control over. And for some obscure reason, it has become more difficult to raise a family on one income than it was fifty years ago (or so I am told). What kind of growth is that?

In the EU, the average citizen has no control over the many economic issues that are decided for them by unknown bureaucrats who design new laws. The new laws cripple the economy by adding unnecessary and expensive restrictions. The new restrictions add to the price of the product. The new price increase makes the EU products less able to compete with the prices of products made outside the EU. Because the EU products begin to ‘lose sales,’ the bureaucrats place restrictions on competing products so that they are more expensive. The unfair EU restrictions bring about a counter action by the non- EU country that has been affected by the new EU laws.

This inability of the EU Members of Parliament to understand ‘Economics 101’ and the market process. A good example of this lack of understanding is the launch aid of $20,000,000,000 [billion] that is paid to Airbus to fund a new model Airbus to place Boeing at a price disadvantage. Currently Airbus has a complaint filed against them with the World Trade Organization as Boeing seeks compensation for this unfair EU advantage. The launch aid is paid by France, Germany, Spain, and Britain.

The unwanted EU regulations causes goods in the EU to be more expensive. The extra expense causes the public to have less income to spend on other products. Not buying other needed products causes more EU unemployment. The end result of the new EU regulations is higher prices and higher unemployment.

The mistake the Greens make is valuing the health of the entire system at the expense of individuals.  In a prestine, unsullied environment -- the goal of the Greens -- each of us would be completely vulnerable to small pox and other "natural" elements.  Individuals are better off defying Mother Nature on occasion, even if it throws the system out of wack.  Likewise, individuals are better off with plenty of resources to commit to their own survival and contentment, even if it looks wasteful and, again, pushes the system out of perfect harmony.  It is when the acquisition of wealth starts to harm individuals -- not just the system -- that we need to act "environmentally."