Sustained Growth - Nobel Prize

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Joe Zammit-Lucia

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Oct 16, 2025, 7:18:01 AMOct 16
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Some of you may be interested in the fact that this year's Nobel Prize in economics went to a trio of economists whose body of work argues that economic growth can be sustained in the long term despite environmental concerns. This goes against the degrowth argument and their position may be worth trying to understand.

The Nobel committee's paper explaining the winners' work can be found here.

Best

Joe




Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia


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Rees, William E.

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Oct 16, 2025, 1:06:16 PMOct 16
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Further proof that we live in a fantasy world of socially-constructed, otherwise destructive, myths.  So it is that global 'development' is still effectively framed and directed by the discipline of economics whose major models and concepts are based on human exceptionalism and thus contain no useful reference to the complex temporal and spatial dynamics of ecosystems or even the social systems with which the economy interacts in the real world. 
And we wonder why things steadily deteriorate on the ecological and social overshoot fronts (climate change, biodiversity loss, fisheries depletion, ocean acidification, land/soil degradation, falling mammaliam sperm counts, increasing wealth/income disparity, resource and land wars, etc., etc.) 
Bill

aka

William E Rees, PhD, FRSC
Professor Emeritus
UBC Faculty of Applied Science

"The ecologically necessary is politically infeasible but the politically feasible is ecologically ineffective when not disastrous."
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Subject: [SCORAI] Sustained Growth - Nobel Prize
 
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Richard Rosen

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Oct 16, 2025, 1:11:41 PMOct 16
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Economists are the problem!

Halina Brown

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Oct 16, 2025, 3:54:09 PMOct 16
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Thank you, Joe, for sharing this article. Very interesting reading. My take on the point you raise – that the Noble prize recipients in economics favor infinite growth – is more nuanced, based on this article. I would rather say that they have little to say on this subject. These economists have collectively provided an elegant explanation about how and why the sustained economic growth have been achieved in Europe and the US over the centuries, and especially since the Enlightenment. They also explained why some countries did better than others on that count. Since their research has been deeply data-driven and framed in a broader political-social context, they investigated the past, not so much looked at the current  snapshot of  time, or the future.

 

In particular, they have not included environmental impacts and resource scarcity/abundance in their analysis. So it seems to me (naïve in the economic sciences as I am) that their findings do not lend themselves to forecasting the future. They seem to have left this question open and held on to their few basic premises: that technology will continue pushing economic growth forward and somehow compensate for the looming shortages in natural resources and natural disasters, that technology-driven growth is an absolute good and an undisputed benefit to a society, and that government will in the future wisely control the inevitable excesses or negative impacts associated with it.

 

Even the Nobel committee, in this article, says that sustained growth is not the same as sustainable growth (p.38). But this is not what the award recognizes.

 

What do others think?

Halina

Halina S. Brown, Ph.D.

Professor Emerita, Environmental Science and Policy Program

   Clark University, Worcester, MA

Chairperson Emerita, Newton Citizens Commission on Energy

Co-Founder and Executive Board Member

   Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative, SCORAI

Board Member, Massachusetts Climate Action Network

Fellow, Tellus Institute, Boston

Lifetime Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Lifetime Fellow, International Society for Risk Analysis

Personal webpage:  http://wordpress.clarku.edu/hbrown/

 

 

 

From: 'Rees, William E.' via SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2025 1:06 PM
To: Joe Zammit-Lucia via <sco...@googlegroups.com>; jo...@me.com
Subject: [EXT] Re: [SCORAI] Sustained Growth - Nobel Prize

 

Further proof that we live in a fantasy world of socially-constructed, otherwise destructive, myths.  So it is that global 'development' is still effectively framed and directed by the discipline of economics whose major models and concepts are based on human exceptionalism and thus contain no useful reference to the complex temporal and spatial dynamics of ecosystems or even the social systems with which the economy interacts in the real world. 

And we wonder why things steadily deteriorate on the ecological and social overshoot fronts (climate change, biodiversity loss, fisheries depletion, ocean acidification, land/soil degradation, falling mammaliam sperm counts, increasing wealth/income disparity, resource and land wars, etc., etc.) 

Bill

 

aka

 

William E Rees, PhD, FRSC

Professor Emeritus

UBC Faculty of Applied Science

 

"The ecologically necessary is politically infeasible but the politically feasible is ecologically ineffective when not disastrous."

From: 'Joe Zammit-Lucia' via SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2025 04:17
To: Joe Zammit-Lucia via <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SCORAI] Sustained Growth - Nobel Prize

 

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Some of you may be interested in the fact that this year's Nobel Prize in economics went to a trio of economists whose body of work argues that economic growth can be sustained in the long term despite environmental concerns. This goes against the degrowth argument and their position may be worth trying to understand.

 

The Nobel committee's paper explaining the winners' work can be found here.

 

Best

 

Joe


Image removed by sender.

 

Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia

 

 

Follow my regular 'Random Thoughts' newsletter here

 

 

 

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Amparo Merino de Diego

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Oct 17, 2025, 6:14:42 AMOct 17
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Thank you for sharing and commenting this illustrative, and quite disheartening, article.

Although it celebrates authors’ contribution to explaining the causes of sustained growth, this is assumed as a desirable goal without even a minimal acknowledgment of critique, questioning, or controversy. To me, it hopelessly reveals how the myth of progress (built on colonialism, extractivism, technolatry, and a blind faith in perpetual economic growth that defies the basic laws of thermodynamics) still dominates economic thought.

This is despite the abundant evidence linking economic growth to multiple socio-ecological crises and the many heterodox perspectives of economy that have sought to challenge this view for decades. Yet, environmental and social concerns are reduced to a brief mention at the end, framed as mere “externalities” that humanity’s boundless capacity for technological innovation will fix. No problem, then.

Amparo

Amparo Merino, PhD.




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Enviado: Jueves, 16 de Octubre de 2025 21:53
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Asunto: RE: [EXT] Re: [SCORAI] Sustained Growth - Nobel Prize

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Joe Zammit-Lucia

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Oct 17, 2025, 7:08:30 AMOct 17
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Thanks everyone for the comments on this Nobel prize and what it portends.

You are right that the basic (and largely unquestioned) premise on which this is all based is that economic growth is a net social good that needs to be pursued and that the combination of science and technology makes this possible [indefinitely?] despite planetary limits.

Many will rail against this idea. May I suggest that maybe we need to look at it differently. It is now over 50 years that the Club of Rome published its Limits to Growth. I suggest that, given the base assumption underlying this prestigious prize, the general conversation out there, and the focus of every government in the world on finding ways to sustain economic growth, the impact of that book on actual policy and practice has been not far north of zero. 

The question then is whether we react to that by hand wringing, looking at the world from on high with detached superiority, and just keep repeating a message that has essentially failed to resonate for half a century. Or whether we try to look at things with different spectacles.

One of those spectacles, for me, is that we have been unable to paint a picture of how stopping or even reversing economic growth can make people's lives better. In that context, we know that such a message doesn't resonate if it's solely based on predictions of catastrophe decades down the road - even when we now have nascent evidence of the implications on a daily basis. Yet, reacting with 'well, people should learn to take notice' gets us nowhere. For any narrative to have any chance of taking hold, it has to be based on a framework that improves people's lives today as well as tomorrow and the day after. In this, I suggest we have failed by adopting a hair shirt narrative that we must suffer and pay a penance for our past sins in order to secure our natural environment for future generations. Are we surprised that nobody wants to hear it?

Finding alternative narratives is far from easy. But that doesn't excuse us simply falling back into the repeating ad nauseam narratives that clearly do not have sufficient resonance to drive the level and speed of change we desire. And no amount of performative activism is going to change that.

Halina, you are right that one of the underlying assumptions is 'that government will in the future wisely control the inevitable excesses or negative impacts associated with [economic growth].

Personally I am sceptical that this will happen. And the reason is the same as the above - we haven't really found ways of putting forward policy initiatives that are politically viable and will result in making people's lives better (as they see it rather than as we might see it) within the timeframe of the political cycle.

Again, we can simply sit back and rail at 'the system' that forces politicians to think in political cycle time frames, etc, etc. We know that gets us nowhere.

The question is whether we yet know how to exercise significant influence in the world as it is rather than as we would like it to be. I suggest that we don't. And that neither will we learn how to do it better if our reaction to counter-narratives that have seemingly unstoppable traction is to wallow in 'well, they're wrong and we're right.'

All that said, I see some new initiatives, largely arising in the last 12-24 months, where these questions are starting to be addressed. I note a shift in some of the environmental organisations I know where the limits to our past narratives have been recognised and where different approaches are being explored. Let's see where it can all get us.

Best

Joe


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Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia

Philip Vergragt

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Oct 17, 2025, 8:09:04 PMOct 17
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Hi Joe,

Your last sentence makes me curious. Maybe you can give us some concrete examples?

I agree with you that we need to find ways for improving wellbeing on a smaller footprint; currently a new SCORAI working group is looking into examples of countries who are doing “better” and trying to find out underlying driving forces (including policies).

Having said that, systemic change will not be brought about by 4-year cycle politicians; nor by thinkers alone. The bad news is that in the last 50 years the number of viable economic alternatives being developed has been pretty low. Viable alternatives economic systems cannot be drown on a drawing board; they need to be developed in practice and tested; and so far the results have been rather minimal.

Having said all this, I think that awarding a Nobel to economists who do not question economic growth in 2025 and who not include ecological limits is, how shall I say it, old-fashioned? Or worse?

Warm regards,

Philip

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

Philip J Vergragt PhD

Professor Emeritus of Technology Assessment, TU Delft, Netherlands

SCORAI Founding Board member https://scorai.net/

New book: Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles: A Language for our Common Future   

Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles: A Language for Our Common Future book cover

Joe Zammit-Lucia

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Oct 18, 2025, 8:03:01 AMOct 18
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Dear Philip,

Here is one paper that may be of interest. It's part of Systemiq's 'Blue Whale' enquiry where the objective is specifically to develop a new narrative. So far it's proving to be a bit hard going. But at least trying.

I can't remember, but I may have circulated this article before.

To your last point about needing to see progress on the ground, this piece is also provocative 

As to your comment about awarding the Nobel to economists who do not question economic growth, maybe it's not 'old-fashioned' in the sense that it remains today's focus of most policymakers everywhere. We should consider the possibility that it's our own way of thinking that has, so far, remained a fringe activity.

Finally, here are some random musings of my own.

All best

Joe


Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia


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Joe

 

Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia

Carol Holst

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Oct 19, 2025, 3:38:27 PMOct 19
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I agree that our field is on the fringe of humanity's drive for a larger footprint, although the current framing shows signs of hope at times. I also agree that different strategies need to be tried, and the advertising team at Postconsumers is spreading seven playful, open-ended words: "Do I have enough stuff for now?" The target audience is mainstream U.S., which perfected eye-rolling about this field even before current climate-deniers took over. After decades of advocacy and activism, I think raising our topic in an impartial way while accepting all viewpoints is worth a different approach.

Carol Holst
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