Arguments against economic growth

Growth has negative effects on the quality of life: Many things that affect
the quality of life, such as the environment, are not traded or measured in
the market, and they can lose value when growth occurs.
Growth encourages the creation of artificial needs: Industry cause consumers
to develop new tastes, and preferences for growth to occur. Consequently,
"wants are created, and consumers have become the servants, instead of the
masters, of the economy."
Resources: The 2007 United Nations GEO-4 report warns that we are living far
beyond our means. The human population is now so large that the amount of
resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available. Humanity’s
environmental demand is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth’s biological
capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person. This report supports the
basic arguments and observations made by Thomas Malthus in the early 1800s,
that is, economic growth depletes non-renewable resources rapidly.
Distribution of income: The gap between the poorest and richest countries in
the world has been growing. Note that this does not necessarily imply
that the gap between the poorest and richest persons has been growing.
Other intellectuals report that the narrow view of economic growth, combined
with globalization, is creating a scenario where we could see a systemic
collapse of our planet's natural resources.
There are concerns with the environmental and ecological effects of economic
growth, especially relating to growth in mining, forestry, agricultural and
industrial activities. Many researchers feel these sustained environmental
effects can have an effect on the whole ecosystem. They claim the accumulated
effects on the ecosystem put a theoretical limit on growth of these activities.
Some draw on archaeology to cite examples of cultures they claim have
disappeared because they grew beyond the ability of their ecosystems to support
them. Since it is axiomatic that it is impossible to grow indefinitely within a
finite system, economic growth as it is now conceived must, of logical
necessity, fail at some time, just as the growth of bacteria in a Petri dish
must come to an end. The problem lies in the throughput of materials
(mine-manufacture-use-dispose) in the economy as it is presently set up. In
making the transition to a more stable and sustainable economic system, growth
in the green sector of the economy will occur naturally.
The rate or type of economic growth may have important consequences for the
environment (the climate and natural capital of ecologies). Concerns about
possible negative effects of growth on the environment and society led some to
advocate lower levels of growth, from which comes the idea of uneconomic growth,
and Green parties which argue that economies are part of a global society and a
global ecology and cannot outstrip their natural growth without damaging them.
The Austrian School argue that the concept of "growth" or the creation and
acquisition of more goods and services is dependent upon the relative desires of
the individual. Someone may prefer having more leisure time to acquiring more
goods and services. Also, they claim that the notion of growth implies the need
for a "central planner" within an economy. To Austrian economists, such an ideal
is antithetical to the concept of a free market economy, without the presence of
governmental intervention. As such, Austrian economists believe that the
individual should determine how much "growth" s/he desires.
Most growth in economic activity necessitates some growth in consumption of
resources - for instance, it is impossible to produce goods without resource and
energy inputs, and it is impossible to have the economy running without the
further input of energy to transport people and goods. Steady growth is, by its
nature, an exponential function. A quantity that grows according to an
exponential function exhibits a doubling in size at a regular time interval
(called the doubling time). If the rate of consumption of a non-renewable
resource is growing steadily (for instance, 5% per year), then that rate will
double regularly. At 5% growth per year, in approximately 14 years the
consumption rate will have doubled. After another 14 years the rate will have
quadrupled. After a century of 5% annual growth, the resource will be consumed
at a rate 130 times the original rate.
Canadian scientist, David Suzuki stated in the 1990s that ecologies can only
sustain typically about 1.5-3% new growth per year, and thus any requirement for
greater returns from agriculture or forestry will necessarily cannibalize the
natural capital of soil or forest. Some think this argument can be applied even to more developed economies.