I could rant some more about that, but the key objection is that there seems to be a huge correlation between measures of improved wellbeing and energy usage, particularly fossil fuel exploitation.
That suggests that things weren't so much "zero-sum" as mostly a product of growth. If Wolf is admitting that, it's an interesting admission, although of course he wouldn't admit that "growth" is purely a matter of energy consumption, he'd try to make some claim that trade is the engine...
As for the future, the key is to rethink "productivity" which tends to be measured in terms of return on human or capital input. The future of "growth" is in "productivity" that is increasing output for static amounts of energy input. At least, that my utopian idea for the day.
The future of "growth" is in "productivity" that is increasing output for static amounts of energy input. At least, that my utopian idea for the day.
Increasing output for the same or smaller energy use is the history of basic/process industry for the last 30 years. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
After the cold spell that allowed the Bubonic plague to climb down from the upper Nile River Valley to the Mediterranean world, that reliance on rapid transport across the Med turned from a blessing into a curse ... and undermining Justinian the Great's reconquests of North Africa, Iberia and Italy (guess who recently read Justinian's Flea?) ...
... but then after the collapse of that system emerged the North Atlantic economy built on the heavy horse-drawn moldboard plough and the three-field system, and the growth that followed from that was positive sum growth as well. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
