Why wouldn't it be? Humans have infinite wants and needs. These change overtime in terms of taste/perception as well. So the counter point should be made as to how this isn't the case and that a "growing pie" is actually against human nature.
It's the compound interest problem. If you keep compounding growth, like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources within a sphere the same number of light years in radius. So clearly, growth is not sustainable and must eventually slow down until it approaches zero.
To be clear, we're far away from that today. But the parent is mathematically correct, the best kind of correct.
A lot of people nitpicking at the argument here, about resource substitutions, efficiency improvements, etc.
So let's simplify this argument a little. It's not possible to have infinite growth in a finite universe. By definition infinity > not infinity for arbitrarily large values of not infinity.
Therefore the limit of growth as time approaches infinity is 0.
At some point you reach the physical limit of the system and exponential growth ends. This is true even for digital systems if the digital good involves some physical resource like energy, storage space, bandwidth, etc.
For example, if we keep growing energy usage at the historical rate of 3% a year, we would cook ourselves with the waste heat within 400 years. It doesn't matter where the energy comes from. Now we can get around that by moving off the earth, which buys time, but eventually, also in short order, we'd use all the available energy from our star. We could get around that through nuclear energy sources or widening the area to encompass more stars. But there is only so much matter and energy in the universe. Eventually the show stops.
I challenge you to find a theoretical counter example.
> At some point you reach the physical limit of the system and exponential growth ends. This is true even for digital systems if the digital good involves some physical resource like energy, storage space, bandwidth, etc.
At some point well before that, the sun will go red giant and swallow earth, so that's sort of beside the point. In the meantime, if we continue to fuel GDP growth via inefficient use of non-renewable natural resources, we'll have big problems far sooner than any astrophysical limit sets in.
You are assuming that increased resource consumption always is tied to increased GDP. Others have argued that once GDP hits a threshold, both incremental and total resource consumption decreases.
For example, a richer economy might replace physical goods with digital goods which have higher value and lower resource demand.
I think that's a temporary setback only. It's a one time thing to replace your resource intensive good with a more efficient one. But that doesn't give you growth forever, because any level of exponential growth with any level of resource consumption can't be reconciled with a finite universe.
Sooner or later all exponential growth must end. That includes all forms of compound growth, such as GDP increasing at any percent you want year after year.
Maybe I was being too generous to your post. There is no way to decouple GDP from material inputs, even if, as with digital good and services the inputs are quite small. They're still there, which means they're still finite, which means GDP is finite.
So perhaps the issue is that there are two cases being conflated.
In the practical sense, there is ample room for GDP growth on Earth in the immediate future. A huge portion of the population is underdeveloped while only a fraction of the world's natural resources have been extracted. Data also suggests GDP in developed economies can be increased while total resource consumption decreases once areas reach.
If someone is going to make a hypothetical mathematical/universal scale argument, I think it worth pointing out that GDP is accounting construct, with no inherent tie to material reality. For example two people could sell each other arbitrary services, (eg silence), and charge arbitrary sums.
>like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources
Increased GDP does not require consuming more resources. Using them more efficiently adds significantly to GDP, so this argument doesn't provide a rationale to claim infinite GDP growth is impossible.
A good example is many advanced economies have increased per capita GDP significantly while lowering per capita energy consumption at the same time (and lowering many other per capita material consumption areas).
Uh, more notable incorrect persons have noted this argument. You’re using what’s called a Malthusian argument.
Anyhow, let’s say everything you say is correct for today’s wants and needs. But if it is true that society changes and needs change etc, then your argument doesn’t hold for tomorrow.
Suppose for a moment there is only 10 years worth of X left, who is to say that one of these things doesn’t happen:
* X thing is no longer needed because Y thing is no longer in fashion
* X thing gets replaced by other comparable Z material
> If you keep compounding growth, like growing GDP at 1-2% a year, within some few thousand years you've grown bigger than all the resources within a sphere the same number of light years in radius.
Would be super interested to see your math. What are the inputs and equation that get you to these specific outputs (a few thousand years, all resources, a few thousand light years)?
If the Pharoah Tutankhamen had invested the equivalent of $1, and earned a real rate of return of 1%, today's value of that investment would be more than $350 trillion, which is a quantity larger than Credit Suisse's estimate of "global net worth".
The calculation isn't so simple -- a lot of growth is efficiency growth: getting a lot more out of the resources you're using. Switching all energy production to nuclear, for example, would lower resource usage while drastically raising GDP.
But why should growth of the growing GDP should be the target? I don't think that anyone believes that the GDP growth can increase every year. But you can reasonably assume that it can grow every year
I think his point is that, for example, a flat 2% yearly GDP growth is a yearly increase in absolute growth due to compounding, and most economists absolutely do believe that's possible somewhat indefinitely (with significant historical basis for that belief).
