Compulsion to grow

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The importance of growth constraints for the increase in global gross domestic product per capita is controversial .

Growth imperative ( english growth imperative ) is a term from the economic theory . On the one hand, this refers to mechanisms at the micro level that make it imperative for private households or companies to increase consumption or sales in order not to endanger their economic existence. At the macro level, political growth pressure describes situations in which economic growth is necessary in order to avoid economic and social instabilities, so that other political goals such as climate protection or a reduction in inequality are subordinated to the growth goal . Growth critics ask, in view of exceeded planetary boundaries therefore policies to overcome growth constraints.

In the current neoclassical , Keynesian and endogenous growth theories , no growth compulsion is assumed or it is explicitly denied as by Robert Solow , the inventor of the Solow model . In the neoclassical era, clinging to economic growth is a question of maximizing utility , a decision between current and future consumption. Other sociological and political theories consider the pursuit of maximum profit , social influences, culture ( conformity ) or political ideologies to be decisive, but these are not viewed as compulsion. Possible growth pressures in Marxist theory and ecological economics as well as in political debates are discussed , whereby it is disputed whether and for whom there is a growth pressure and which mechanism would be responsible for it.

Meaning and definitions

The term growth ( expansion ) relates on the one hand in economics or economic policy to economic growth ( macroeconomics ), on the other hand in business administration to corporate growth and in consumer sociology or household theory to the increase in consumption ( microeconomics ).

At the macroeconomic or political level, the concept of forced growth is used by some authors when there is no acceptable political alternative to economic growth, because a lack of growth would lead to economic and social instability and even to “severe economic crises”. The alternative to growth would then not be a stable stationary economy , but rather uncontrolled shrinkage . The consequences of foregoing growth would then be so unacceptable that there would be no political alternative to growth.

According to Christoph Deutschmann, however, this macroeconomic phenomenon must be examined at the micro level . It is important to explain how and why the individual actors (companies, consumers) act and how this interacts with the collective structures. The term social coercion is used in the social sciences when situational circumstances or strong social pressures determine behavior. According to the Marxist theory of “grow or die”, this compulsion is caused by the fact that the company cannot survive in competition without growth. Similarly, the environmental economist Hans Christoph Binswanger only speaks of forced growth for companies when their existence is threatened by steadily falling profits and ultimately bankruptcy; in other cases he uses the weaker term growth urge . Oliver Richters and Andreas Siemoneit have generalized this definition that the concept of coercion is only justified in the case of existential threats to the actors, namely when basic physiological or social needs are at risk because of the threat of loss of income or social exclusion . A microeconomic growth compulsion would exist "if an actor has to constantly increase his economic efforts in order to secure his income."

Microeconomic Theories

Companies

The capital of Karl Marx includes the first, still controversial theory of a growth constraint.

Karl Marx is considered to be the first representative of an imperative to grow . In capitalism zero growth is not possible, because "the infinite accumulation is its internal law."

“Furthermore, the development of capitalist production makes a continual increase in the capital invested in an industrial enterprise a necessity, and competition rules on every individual capitalist the immanent laws of the capitalist mode of production as external laws of compulsion. It forces him to continuously expand his capital in order to maintain it, and he can only expand it through progressive accumulation. "

- Karl Marx , 1867

Company growth is therefore necessary to ensure the survival of the company ("grow or die"). Accordingly, some authors take the position that the pressure to grow can only be defused by overcoming market-economy structures or by pushing back profit-oriented companies that capture the added value for themselves. Other authors criticize this Marxist perspective, a company could be profitable without growth when the positive retained earnings to the owners paid would. Only when the annual surplus had to be retained permanently would companies be forced to grow. If a company reports a profit on the balance sheet, it has not yet achieved any economic profit in the economic sense , because a return on equity and an entrepreneur's wage would have to be paid from it - the profit would therefore not necessarily be available for growth. Therefore, a market economy with profit-oriented companies is definitely compatible with zero growth, as is also the case in the models of neoclassical theory (→ zero profit condition ).

Controversial question: Is technical progress primarily driven by ideas or the consumption of resources?

On the basis of concepts from evolutionary economics, other authors point out that companies can become dependent on growth due to unfavorable framework conditions. Joseph A. Schumpeter described the creative destruction that jeopardizes the existence of companies that cannot keep up in the innovation competition . Hence the necessity to invest in new technologies and to expand production - which investments would be worthwhile, however, can only be understood with consideration of the growth theory . Within neoclassical growth accounting, it is largely undisputed that only technical progress and new combinations of production factors make sustainable growth of companies and per capita income in national economies possible. However, it has been controversial for decades what contribution the individual production factors make to growth: While the endogenous growth theory emphasizes the role of human capital (ideas, education, innovations), representatives of ecological economics and environmental economics emphasize the importance of the consumption of energy and natural raw materials that are often non-renewable (e.g. fossil fuels ). While from the human capital perspective there is no ecologically harmful pressure to grow, the resource perspective emphasizes that the consumption of raw materials is lucrative for companies because it allows them to replace expensive jobs with machines. Therefore, they constantly invest in new resource-intensive technologies and the human capital necessary for development, which increases resource consumption and compensates for advances in energy efficiency .

There is also disagreement as to whether these dependencies can be overcome at the company level - if this is desired by the owners or management. Proposals include new management practices, changes to the product range, supply chains and distribution channels, as well as the establishment of solidarity companies, collective companies and cooperatives . Other authors call for institutional solutions: a reform of stock corporation law to overcome the legal compulsion of stock corporations to maximize profits, a reform of competition law to prevent externalization at the expense of the common goods , or an institutional limitation and increase in the cost of resource consumption through ecological tax reform or emissions trading ( English Cap and Trade ), so that technical innovations could focus more on resource productivity than on labor productivity.

Private households

Smartphone and car: voluntary consumption or a necessary increase in personal productivity?

The need for private households to increase their income and consumer spending is less discussed. In neoclassical household theory, households try to maximize their utility , whereby, in contrast to the profit maximization of companies, they are not subject to market constraints. Therefore, it is not assumed here that there is a need to grow, but rather a free and individual decision between current and future consumption. This “intertemporal optimization” is represented, for example, by the Keynes-Ramsey rule . In consumer sociology there are various theories of consumer society that investigate the influence of social norms on consumer decisions. Examples are the consumption of validity , which Thorstein Veblen discussed in his book Theory of Fine People as early as 1899, or the position competition described by Fred Hirsch in 1976 in the book Social Limits of Growth . Some authors take the position that comparison with others and the unfair distribution of income and power lead to the compulsion to grow. Consumers would have to work and consume more and more in order to achieve a minimum level of social participation, because the economically weak are stigmatized. The reasons given for this behavior are fear and powerlessness, guilt and shame. Whether these theories can actually establish a compulsion to increase consumption is, however, controversial as long as it is not about securing livelihoods (for example because of unemployment).

Another line of reasoning regards certain consumption decisions as investments to increase one's own productivity. Technical products such as vehicles, kitchen appliances or smartphones were used to save time and preserve opportunities to earn an income. From the necessity to acquire these goods one could derive a compulsion to increase one's consumption expenditures in order not to be left behind technically and economically.

Macroeconomic Theories

Political or macroeconomic growth pressure

Andreas Siemoneit presents political ways out of the technological growth pressure.

Politically, economic growth has been formulated as an important economic policy goal for decades. Examples are the German Stability and Growth Act of 1967 or the European Stability and Growth Pact of 1997. This attitude of the politicians is criticized by some authors critical of growth as a dogma or ideology .

The theory of political growth pressure, on the other hand, assumes that economic growth is necessary to prevent economic or social instability. Some authors stress that public finances or social security systems such as unemployment insurance or old-age insurance are dependent on growth. Raghuram Rajan sees the cause particularly in the political promises of the social systems. Unemployment is identified as the central problem, which would occur in the event of technical progress and a simultaneous lack of growth ( Okun's law ). Growth above the employment threshold is repeatedly called for in political debates in order to reduce unemployment. Growth policy in the form of state investments, but also through incentives for private investments, is therefore not required because of the personal wishes of politicians, but is essential to prevent social instability caused by mass unemployment. This situation would be exacerbated by international competition and free trade .

Redirecting technological development with the help of resource taxes ( ecological tax reform , emissions trading ), but also a general reduction in working hours are discussed as a way out . At the same time, a more even distribution of income is demanded, in which action is taken either against the privatization of pensions such as land rent or resource rent (→ rent economy ), or an unconditional basic income is demanded.

Monetary system and interest rate criticism

Exponential interest rate growth only occurs when the interest rate is constant and all interest income is saved.
Bifurcation diagram of the numerical stability analysis of a stock flow consistent model : If the consumption from wealth in the consumption function is large enough, zero growth can be achieved even with a positive interest rate.

For a long time, individual authors, especially from German-speaking countries, have identified a macroeconomic growth pressure in the monetary system, especially in the combination of credit money and compound interest . This inevitably and inherently in the system leads to an exponential growth in debts and interest-bearing assets. This argumentation is ultimately based on the " Josephspfennig " as an example of an impossible exponential development, from which a general interest rate criticism is derived and, for example, according to the ideas of free economics, money or a full reserve system is demanded. A second line of argument goes back to Hans Christoph Binswanger , his doctoral student Guido Beltrani and his son Mathias Binswanger . They argue that the "money shrinkage that results from the interest payments to the bank is largely responsible for the pressure to grow". In the “growth spiral”, Hans Christoph Binswanger assumed a necessary minimum growth of 1.8 percent. Mathias Binswanger in 2009 was 0.45 percent minimum growth so that companies in the aggregate can generate profits while indicating greater than zero in his book "The growth imperative" (2019), a minimum growth so that companies can reinvest profits.

Other authors criticize the results of Beltrani as well as H. C. and M. Binswanger, saying that they were derived on the basis of inconsistent economic models and are therefore not valid (→ Stock-Flow Consistent Model ). In other models of a money economy, there is either no pressure to grow at all or only for certain parameters in the consumption function . With reference to a general criticism of interest rates, they argue that ultimately it is not the interest rate but rather the savings rate that is decisive for the stability of a stationary economy . If the interest income is completely consumed by the lender, i.e. the bank or creditors of the bank, these are available again for repayment. Whether a stationary state can be achieved would therefore depend on the savings decisions of those who receive income or have assets. For zero growth, it is necessary that the savings of some are offset by consumption from the existing assets of the other (→ life cycle hypothesis ). Binswanger's assumption is also unfounded that the banks would always have to reinvest their profits despite an economy that is no longer growing . Therefore, there is no “inherent” pressure to grow, but at best zero growth is not possible if actors decide to constantly accumulate financial assets.

In neoclassical theory and all varieties that assume the neutrality of money or the classic dichotomy , the money market has no long-term effects on real economic variables such as economic growth. A monetary growth pressure is already excluded here by assumption. However, post-Keynesian authors who doubt the neutrality of money also reject the need for monetary growth.

Political demands to overcome growth pressures

Whether there is a compulsion to grow and how it can be overcome is also controversial within the growth-critical movement . The overcoming of growth constraints has found its way into the demands of the Network Growth Turnaround, the International Degrowth Conferences and a working group of attac Germany . In September 2018, more than 200 scientists called on the European Union to turn away from the pressure to grow. In the German party spectrum, the demand was included in the basic program of the Ecological Democratic Party of Germany and discussed for the basic program of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , green politicians such as Reinhard Loske and Jürgen Trittin are calling for growth pressures to be overcome. In a special vote on the final report of the Enquete Commission on Growth, Prosperity, Quality of Life , the experts Michael Müller , Uwe Schneidewind , Ulrich Brand , Norbert Reuter and Martin Jänicke as well as the MPs Hermann E. Ott and the Die Linke parliamentary group argued that “the question must be answered whether progress that is innovative and integrative, socially just and ecologically compatible is possible without the need to grow. "

literature

The first version of this article is based on:

  • Oliver Richters, Andreas Siemoneit: Obligation to grow - an overview . In: ZOE Discussion Papers . No. 3 . ZOE. Institute for Sustainable Economies, Bonn February 2019 ( zoe-institut.de [PDF]). hdl : 10419/201503 . CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oliver Richters, Andreas Siemoneit: Growth imperatives: Substantiating a contested concept . In: Structural Change and Economic Dynamics . tape 51 , 2019, p. 126–137 , doi : 10.1016 / j.strueco.2019.07.012 . Preprint: Oldenburg Discussion Papers in Economics V-414-18, November 2018, hdl : 10419/184870 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Steffen Lange: Macroeconomics Without Growth: Sustainable Economies in Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxian Theories . Metropolis, Weimar (Lahn) 2018, ISBN 978-3-7316-1298-8 , pp. 109-216 .
  3. ↑ Robert Solow said in an interview: "There is nothing intrinsic in the system that says it cannot exist happily in a stationary state". Quoted from: Steven Stoll: Fear of Fallowing: The specter of a no-growth world . In: Harper's Magazine , March 2008, pp. 88–94, steadystate.org , accessed on February 27, 2019. German translation after Mathias Binswanger , Der Kompetenzzwang , 2019, p. 39: “There is no intrinsic reason why an economy shouldn't remain happily in a steady state . "
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  5. ↑ Gerhard Scherhorn : The inner compulsion to economic growth . In: Bernd Biervert, Martin Held (ed.): The dynamics of money: About the connection between money, growth and nature . Campus, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 978-3-593-35461-3 , p. 162 ff . "In the sense of not being able to choose an acceptable alternative to economic growth."
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  8. ↑ Hans Christoph Binswanger , Paschen von Flotow (Ed.): Money & Growth. On the philosophy and practice of money . Weitbrecht, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-522-71670-3 , p. 8 : "If, however, permanent growth ... is a functional condition of today's monetary economy, then serious economic crises could arise when we reach the limits of growth."
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