Welcome to In Praise of Growth by me, Ville Vesterinen.
I explore the importance of growth and talk with individuals who have a vision of what our future should look like. Those who are tirelessly working on the wild inventions, ventures and institutions that our future prosperity depends on be it in science, business, policy or arts.
My hope is that readers and listeners will find inspiration, a new-found understanding of the importance growth and most importantly an excitement fuelled urgency to get going.
The podcasts are long and juicy. The blog posts more structured and to the point.
Why Growth Matters
It's worth repeating how important long term economic growth is. Economic growth is what will ultimately lift everyone's quality of life. Conversely we'll all be hosed if the economic growth slows down significantly and the technology driven growth in our living standards during the past 200 years turns out to be the exception rather than the rule. All things considered the faster the pace of long term economic growth, the better off everyone will be.
More science, engineering and arts combined with the relentless creative human spirit is the way forward in a world where technology is making repetitive work redundant while the same time our planetary boundaries are being stretched to a breaking point. We should not wait to get going. If we let people loose hope along with their jobs we are flirting with a revolution that capitalist system may not survive as we hope it would. The alternatives are not great.
Economic growth has many faces. A sense of shared direction, creative expression, entrepreneurship, advancement of science, art, hope, peace and excitement for the future. It lifts societies and can be a lifechanger for the individuals who get to be part of it. Growth is a close friend of progress and the ultimate enabler.
It’s true that if not managed properly economic growth can easily get a bad rep because of the potential for large economic inequalities and market failures like polluting the environment. These are both important issues that we need to collectively figure out but the distribution of wealth and the pricing of negative externalities should not cloud the importance of economic growth itself. Quite the contrary. Economic growth makes all the solutions possible.
Clock’s ticking. Buckle up!