Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Human Progress — And Collapse?

Human Progress — And Collapse? Against the human experience of long-term stagnation and misery, the record of growing prosperity over the past two centuries, and in particular the last fifty years, is astounding. Economic growth owes much to the mobilisation of resources and structural flexibility, but this depends on the ‘software of economic development’ – institutions, which change slowly. Now, old fears and growth-impeding policies are being justified on environmental grounds. One example is Jared Diamond's recent book ‘Collapse’, which discusses the possibility of a swift descent of the world into social disintegration. To anyone familiar with long-term economic history and the theory of growth, the book is pure millennial pessimism. It could become self-fulfilling if environmentalist doomsayers win the political argument with the doers — the engineers, entrepreneurs and economists. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Energy & Environment SAGE

Human Progress — And Collapse?

Kasper, Wolfgang E.
Energy & Environment , Volume 16 (3-4): 16 – Jul 1, 2005
Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/human-progress-and-collapse-kBHo9MFUEU
Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 2005 SAGE Publications
ISSN
0958-305X
eISSN
2048-4070
DOI
10.1260/0958305054672303
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Against the human experience of long-term stagnation and misery, the record of growing prosperity over the past two centuries, and in particular the last fifty years, is astounding. Economic growth owes much to the mobilisation of resources and structural flexibility, but this depends on the ‘software of economic development’ – institutions, which change slowly. Now, old fears and growth-impeding policies are being justified on environmental grounds. One example is Jared Diamond's recent book ‘Collapse’, which discusses the possibility of a swift descent of the world into social disintegration. To anyone familiar with long-term economic history and the theory of growth, the book is pure millennial pessimism. It could become self-fulfilling if environmentalist doomsayers win the political argument with the doers — the engineers, entrepreneurs and economists.

Journal

Energy & Environment – SAGE

Published: Jul 1, 2005

There are no references for this article.