Vol. 3, No. 1. Special edition: economic growth
First online: 1 October 2018
David
Samways
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DOI: 10.3197/jps.2018.3.1.5
Licensing: This article is Open Access (CC BY 4.0).
How to Cite:
Samways, D. 2016. 'Editorial Introduction – Special Issue: Economic Growth'. The Journal of Population and Sustainability 3(1): 5–19.
https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.2018.3.1.5
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Economic
growth as an indicator of national wellbeing is almost universally, and largely
uncritically, accepted, and its inevitability and desirability has become both
a discursive and material axiom of modern society. This economic orthodoxy is
so pervasive that it is sometimes difficult to imagine that it has ever been
different. Yet economic growth itself, at least at the rate at which we have
come to expect it, is mostly a modern phenomenon. Of course, human history has
involved what might be understood as economic growth at various key moments.
The transition from hunter gathering to settled agriculture represents one such
moment, as does the emergence of the great civilisations and further refinement
of the division of labour. However, past civilisations very often met
environmental (and social) limits to growth that played a critical role in
their demise (Diamond, 2006). In Europe, following the fall of the Roman
Empire, economies first shrank and then flat-lined until the industrial
revolution (Madison, 2001).
The
principle economic theorists of the industrial revolution, such as Adam Smith,
David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill all welcomed the unparalleled growth of
wealth created by technical and social changes associated with
industrialisation. However, they acknowledged that such growth would be limited
by the availability of natural resources, the growth of population and limits
on increases in productivity. They believed that in the long run a “stationary
state” would prevail where population and stocks of capital would remain
constant. Although they thought it inevitable, neither Smith nor Ricardo
welcomed the stationary state, with Smith regarding it as “dull” in comparison
to the “cheerful and hearty” condition of “the progressive” (growing) state
(Smith 2007 [1776] p.68). While Mill shared Smith’s and Ricardo’s view that a
stationary state was inevitable, unlike them he embraced the prospect, but
thought it would only be an agreeable condition if population growth was
restrained. He wrote:
Even
in a progressive state of capital, in old countries, a conscientious or
prudential restraint on population is indispensable, to prevent the increase of
numbers from outstripping the increase of capital, and the condition of the
classes who are at the bottom of society from being deteriorated. Where there
is not, in the people, or in some very large proportion of them, a resolute
resistance to this deterioration – a determination to preserve an established
standard of comfort – the condition of the poorest class sinks, even in a
progressive state, to the lowest point which they will consent to endure. The
same determination would be equally effectual to keep up their condition in the
stationary state, and would be quite as likely to exist.
I
cannot, therefore, regard the stationary state of capital and wealth with the
unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists
of the old school. I am inclined to believe that it would be, on the whole, a
very considerable improvement on our present condition. (Mill, 1986 [1909],
p.321)
For
Mill, the link between welfare and population was absolutely clear: human
numbers not only played a dynamic role in limiting the accumulation of wealth,
but also diluted aggregate wealth thus lowering individual welfare. If
population could be prevented from outstripping the benefits of accumulated
capital, then the stationary state would be agreeable. However, the
congeniality of such a state would be dependent on the wealth created by
technical progress being more equitably shared, thus releasing the working
classes from the drudgery of labour to live more fulfilling lives. Furthermore,
Mill regarded the economic competition consequent on the pursuit of wealth as
crowding-out other more virtuous pursuits:
It is
scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and
population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as
much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social
progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood
of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting
on. (Mill, 1986 [1909], p.321)
Mill
was also much concerned with the impact of growth on the natural world, the
enjoyment of which he regarded as an essential part of an agreeable life:
Nor
is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the
spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into
cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery
waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not
domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow
or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or
flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved
agriculture. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness
which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population
would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a
larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the
sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before
necessity compels them to it. (Mill, 1986 [1909], p.321)
In
the age of the Anthropocene, Mill’s words seem astonishingly prescient.
In
contrast to the other founding figures of classical economics, Thomas Malthus
(1998 [1798]) was pessimistic about the ability to achieve a steady-state at
all, let alone one much above the level of subsistence. Articulating an early
limits to growth theory, Malthus argued that while it was possible to improve
the output of agriculture that this was ultimately limited by nature. In the
long run, the rate of growth of agricultural production (arithmetic) could not
keep up with the rate of growth of population (geometric). Malthus’ “principle
of population” led him to believe, even with preventative checks (abortion,
sexual abstinence, later marriage, etc.) ameliorating the misery of overshoot,
that affluence for the lower classes would always be undermined by their
numbers.
Deriding
Malthus as a plagiarist and an apologist for the ruling class, Karl Marx argued
that rather than surplus population being the outcome of a natural law, that
capitalism generated a “reserve army of labour” in order to keep wages low and
aid capital accumulation.
The
labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital
produced by it, the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is
turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always
increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode
of production. (Marx 1954 [1890] p.591)
Thus,
rather than general trans-historical laws of population…
… in
fact every special historic mode of production has its own special laws of
population, historically valid within its limits alone. An abstract law of
population exists for plants and animals only, and only in so far as man has
not interfered with them. (Marx 1954 [1890] p.592)
Far
from regarding population as irrelevant, for Marx its growth, or at least its
stability, was an essential component of his general theory of capitalism, its
development and collapse. As Petersen observes: “If the number of people were
to decline at the same rate as machines displaced workers…, then there would be
no “industrial reserve army,” no “immiseration,” no Marxist model at all”
(Petersen, 1988 p. 80).
It
has generally become accepted amongst Marxist scholars that Marx did not
believe that there were any limits to material growth and by extension to
population (see Petersen, 1988). Moreover, his supposed “Promethianism”
has been commented upon by a number of writers (see Benton, 1989; Grundmann, 1991; Löwy, 1997) who
regard Marx’s characterisation of human kind as “wrestling with nature”, and of
the forces of technology bringing nature under human control, as implying the
potential social transcendence of natural boundaries. Certainly this much
quoted passage seems to conform to this view:
Freedom
in this field [material existence] can only consist in socialised man, the
associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature,
bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the
blind forces of Nature; (Marx 1959 [1894] p. 820)
However,
a number of scholars have argued that Marx’s conception of the human
relationship with nature was a great deal more complex and subtle than had been
formerly assumed (Burkett, 2000; Foster, 1999; Saito, 2017). It would be
mistaken to think that Marx believed there were no natural limits. Recent
research shows that Marx was aware of how the application of the then current
capitalist agricultural techniques brought “about disharmonies in the
transhistorical “metabolism” (Stoffwechsel) between
human beings and nature” (Saito, 2014). While Marx would clearly, and
correctly, reject the notion that population size is governed by
“transhistorical” laws, it is also clear that he would not have dismissed the
idea that it was subject to socio-technical and physical limits (see Grundmann
1991).
Regarding
the stationary state economy, Marx’s position is more opaque. His historical
materialism clearly rejects Smith’s, Ricardo’s and Mill’s view that capitalism
can attain a steady-state. For Marx, the contradiction between the forces and
relations of production lead to increasing crises and eventually the
dialectical transition to the next mode of production. Marx’s analysis of both
pre-capitalist modes of production and of capitalism itself constituted the
vast majority of his life’s work and we have but fragmentary glimpses of his
vision of the end of history in communism. Many have regarded Marx’s prescient
view of the development of automated technology as implying that the scarcity
problem would be transcended in the communist mode of production – Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury
Communism (2019)
reportedly owes much to this reading of Marx (Merchant, 2015). However, the
glimpses Marx provides of the good life in a communist society are far from one
of excessive conspicuous consumption. In The Critique of the Gotha
Programme Marx
argues that communism will be organised around the principle of “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (1972 [1875], p.165),
while in the German Ideology he writes:
… in
communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each
can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general
production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another
tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the
evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming
hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. (Marx 1972 [1846] p.33)
It is
interesting to note that Marx thought that communism would require the
abolition of the distinction between town and country and a more even dispersal
of the population into rural areas, and certainly the above passage implies a
rural existence with relatively low population density. While Marx acknowledges
that the creation of wealth leads to the expansion of wants, on numerous
occasions he expresses the same conviction that real “measure of wealth is …
disposable time” (Marx 2015 [1857-61] p. 628) leading to the intellectual and
practical self-development of the individual within a community. The fragments
of Marx’s vision of life in communism are utopian, but appear much closer to a
post-materialist lifestyle than one of conspicuous luxury consumption. When
Marx was writing world population was little more than a billion (UNPD, 2016)
and the population of Britain (including Ireland) was less than half its
current level (ONS, 2015). Given his knowledge of the limiting factors of
agricultural production and his essentially post-materialist vision of
communism, a steady state or extremely low growth economy seems to be implied
in Marx’s vision of post-capitalist society.
Rejecting
the notion that capitalism could not be reformed and of the inevitability its
collapse, John Maynard Keynes saw Marx’s reserve army of labour not as a means
of suppressing wages when they encroached on profits, but as an impediment that
“dampens profit expectations by reducing the expected demand for goods”
(Skidelsky 2010, p.325). While Keynes thought that mass unemployment and
economic disequilibrium could be managed to ensure steady growth, like the
classical economists he did not appear to think that this growth would continue
indefinitely. His 1930 essay The Economic Possibilities for
Our Grandchildren gazed
100 years into the future and foresaw an end to economic growth. Like Marx,
Keynes predicted that technological development would ultimately reduce
necessary labour to a point where basic needs would be universally met. Indeed,
somewhat like Mill and Marx, he went further and argued that a point would be
soon reached where “we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic
purposes” (Keynes 1930, p. 326). Like Marx, Keynes saw this as an inevitable
consequence of technological development, but achieved without overthrowing
private property and capitalism. And Keynes concurred with Mill in thinking
this a highly desirable condition. However, despite Keynes’ great foresight
regarding technological development and economic growth we are as far now from
a steady-state leisure society as we were when he was writing. Why is this the
case?
Keynes
assumed that the population of Europe and the USA would not grow significantly.
Yet he also recognised that population would be one of the key factors
requiring control if his vision of future prosperity was to come to pass. In
the 1930 essay he is optimistic about this, but in earlier work he is clearly
concerned[1]:
Before
the eighteenth century mankind entertained no false hopes. To lay the illusions
which grew popular at that age’s latter end, Malthus disclosed a Devil. For
half a century all serious economical writings held that Devil in clear
prospect. For the next half century he was chained up and out of sight. Now
perhaps we have loosed him again. (Keynes 1919, p. 8)
His
failure to predict large increases in population in the developed world may
well have been sufficient for his utopian forecast not to materialise, but he
also failed to anticipate the voracious consumerism of the post-war period.
As we
have seen, Keynes conceived that higher productivity would universally meet
need, and that scarcity would be eradicated. However, he was also clear that
this related to “absolute” rather than “relative” needs, the latter of which
“may indeed be insatiable”, “we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us
above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows” (Keynes, 1930, p. 326).
Looking
at the experience of the post-war period, it’s hard for us to comprehend why
Keynes thought that relative needs would not be expressed through ever more
extravagant material consumption, but once more, like Mill and Marx, his
concept of status consumption seems to owe much to his wealthy upper-middle
class background[2].
For Mill, Marx, and Keynes, status consumption seems to be largely intellectual
or experiential rather than material. Keynes clearly thought that material
accumulation, while necessary in the development of wealth, was somewhat
distasteful and vulgar, and that once a certain level was collectively achieved
these proclivities would evaporate from the majority of individuals. Regarding
those in which the “semicriminal, semi-pathological
propensities” (Keynes, 1930, p. 329) did persist: “the rest of us will no
longer be under any obligation to applaud and encourage them” (ibid). It is
almost as if Keynes thought that people would revert to a pre-industrial
relationship with money and work. He imagined that the working day would fall
to three or four hours (and even then this might be a way of meaningfully
occupying time rather than as a means to an end) as people satisfied their
basic needs. At the beginning of the twentieth century Max Weber had observed:
“A man does not “by nature” wish to earn more and more money, but simply to
live as he is accustomed to live and earn as much as is necessary for that
purpose” (Weber 1930 [1905], p. 60). For Weber, what drove people to work over
and above meeting their needs was the ideology of the work ethic, which he
regarded as a necessary but not sufficient condition in the development of
capitalism itself. Keynes was actually well aware of the power of the work
ethic and the possible difficulty of suppressing it (“[f]or we have been
trained too long to strive and not to enjoy” (Keynes, 1930, p. 327)).
The
fact that a steady-state economy has never come close to being materialised may
well be due to the underestimation of the connection between material wealth
and status. Undoubtedly, the development of consumerism very much relied on
articulating and strengthening this relationship to fuel post-war growth (see
Higgs, 2017). For the classical economists population size relative to
resources was a limiting factor to economic growth, and although his take was
somewhat more sophisticated, population and the limits of natural resources
were factors also recognised by Marx. Post 1945 economic experience normalised
the idea of ever increasing wealth, but the realisation of the catastrophic
environmental consequences of this, from the 1960s onwards, renewed interest in
the connection between resource limits and population size. Writers like
Kenneth Boulding (1966), Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
(1971) and Herman Daly (1973), along with the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1972)
report made the connection between economic growth, limited resources and
population size explicit, renewing interest in steady-state theories.
Anthropogenic climate-change has added further weight to the environmental
limits argument and spawned further discussion about the costs of economic
growth.
The
papers assembled in this special edition of The Journal of Population and
Sustainability are
representative of contemporary thinking about the necessity and desirability of
challenging the orthodoxy of continuous economic growth. Current writers not
only stress the existence of biophysical limits to growth but also recognise
that these limits have already been breached. They argue that without
reconstruction of our economic system that the future for our civilisation is
at best precarious. Issues of ecological limits, the welfare of human beings
and other species, and the reconsidering of the basic political, ethical and
value norms of Western civilisation are recurring themes in these papers. The
concept of liberty is perhaps the link between historical advocates of the
steady-state economy and present thinkers. For Mill, Marx and Keynes, the
wealth created by modern production methods held the key to the creation of the
good life. This was not a life of ever growing material consumption, but one of
increased free time allowing self-development and the greater realisation of
human potential. The concept of freedom employed by these writers was one with
the individual as its end, but this individual is a social being, framed by
participation in social institutions, culture, and “the Art of Living” as Mill
put it. Such freedom is still a highly desirable objective, but it is only
possible within ecological boundaries and, as the papers in this issue indicate,
its achievement may require the restriction of other liberties which we
currently take for granted.
In Envisioning a Successful Steady-State Economy,
Herman Daly, one of the founding figures in the field of ecological economics,
contends that there are two interacting arguments for a steady-state economy,
the first based on biophysical limits, the second on ethical desirability. In
the first argument Daly observes that in terms of energy flow, the growth of
populations of human beings and their “exosomatic”
capital (homes, cars, factories, farms, power stations etc.) are dissipative
structures limited by biophysical externalities. Any sustainable economic
system must function within these fixed boundaries and a large portion of the
ecosystem must be left free of human interference to provide ecological
services to ourselves and other species as well as being a low-entropy
matter/energy source and high entropy waste sink. Such a sustainable economic
system would therefore be a steady-state in terms of physical throughput.
Daly
argues that “exosomatic” structures represent an
extension of human physical evolution that has been “purpose driven” by
economic growth. Economic growth has promised more for everyone, but Daly
observes that this is not only ecologically unsustainable but also ethically
problematic. He argues that “decision-making” elites are committed to economic
growth not to provide a good life for all, but to maximise the standard of
resource consumption for a small minority at the expense of future generations,
the world’s poor and other species. For Daly, this is underpinned by
metaphysical naturalism, a “naturalistic scientism” which leads to moral
nihilism in respect of the natural world. This metaphysical naturalism, Daly
argues, is the most fundamental barrier to the establishment of a steady-state
economy that cares about the human impact on the natural world.
Graeme
Maxton’s Rethinking Everything proposes that the idea that economic
growth has been the main driver of “progress” in the form of higher standards
of living, lower unemployment and higher wages is a myth. On the contrary
Maxton argues that economic growth is not a prerequisite for human progress and
that it neither creates jobs in the long term, nor reduces inequality, nor
helps the poor. More importantly, it rewards the rich while causing devastating
ecological damage. Maxton argues that up to the 1980s rising living standards
were the due to policies specifically designed to increase well being rather than the pursuit of growth as an
end in itself. Indeed, economic growth in the post war period was an unintended
consequence of increases in population and productivity, and increases in
consumption were the result of growth rather than its cause. Maxton points out
that, in the long run, an economy pursuing growth through increases in
productivity leads to fewer jobs as mechanisation and automation lower demand
for labour. Predicting the inevitable demise of the free-market economy, either
due to ecological catastrophe or managed transition, Maxton argues that a truly
sustainable economy must meet a number of criteria including: the need to
prosper for many generations; operation within natural boundaries; ecological
stability and the ability to cope with a rise in population without an increase
in aggregate ecological footprint; the needs of future generations of people
and of all other species must be treated as equal to those of present
populations. However, a critical condition of such sustainability would be a
transition to a population of around half the current size, but even at this
level resource consumption would have to be held at strict limits. Stability in
the economy would be critical since extreme fluctuations could lead to conflict
and even collapse. Maxton foresees that in the short term, transitioning to a
sustainable economy will lead to economic contraction and a fall in living
standards.
In
the long term, once a stable economy has been achieved, Maxton argues that
economic growth would be possible (i.e. of pure services). However, what cannot
grow is the use of natural resources. Ultimately, Maxton thinks that society
will become agnostic about economic growth. Growth will no longer be a goal
since from the viewpoint of the majority of people it is a pointless objective.
As per the title of his essay, Maxton is clear that rethinking the economy
requires us to rethink everything including many of the institutions, rights
and concepts that have come to define our civilisation. Democracy, freedom,
happiness, our relationship with nature, will all need critical reappraisal to
achieve long-term sustainability along with high standards of welfare for all.
In
his paper Agrowth
Instead Of Anti- and Pro-Growth: Less Polarization, More Support for
Sustainability/Climate Policies, Jeroen
van den Bergh observes that one of the major problems in tackling our current
ecological problems is essentially psychological in nature. He argues that if
people cannot be convinced that environmental policies will not harm economic
growth then they will not support such policies. The background to this
psychological attachment to economic growth lies in the belief held by the
majority of economists and policy makers that economic growth always equates to
progress – despite the questionable links between economic stability, full
employment and economic growth. Van den Bergh points out that this discourse is
reproduced in the media and education system to the extent that it is almost
universally accepted that economic growth is the sine qua non for modern
society.
Van
den Bergh argues that to overcome this psychological attachment to growth we
must not reject growth as such, but become “agnostic and indifferent about GDP
growth”, advocating what he calls an agrowthposition. He
argues that such an orientation to GDP growth can find popular support since
GDP is a poor indicator of happiness and welfare. This argument is particularly
important in rich countries since in recent decades growth in income has not
led to significant increases in social welfare. Van den Bergh’s position
contrasts with “green growth” and “degrowth” in that it is not focused on GDP
at all, but on welfare. An agrowth strategy would
allow periods of high, low, zero or negative growth to alternate with each
other, but this would be of no concern as long as environmental sustainability
and social welfare were the primary policy goals. Ignoring GDP information in
favour of welfare indicators allows for the possibility that potential GDP
growth would be relinquished in favour of environmental goals, greater
employment, lowering inequality, increased leisure or improvements in health
care and so on.
In
respect of population and development an agrowth
strategy has important implications. Van den Bergh argues that by focussing on
welfare rather than GDP, an agrowth strategy allows
less developed countries to have economic growth. With welfare as the key goal
the benefits of the accompanying economic growth accelerate demographic
transition toward lower birth rates. This contrasts with wealthy countries with
low birth rates where low economic growth is a likely transition to a
low-carbon economy. However, van den Bergh is clear that an agrowth
orientation should not apply to population growth which he argues must be
stopped as soon as possible to avoid further overshooting of ecological
boundaries.
Theodore
Lianos’ paper, Steady State Economy at Optimal
Population Sizeaddresses the
issue of the connection between population and a sustainable steady-state
economy. Starting from the central economic problem of scarcity, Lianos argues that the problem has been “solved” at the
expense of creating ecological debts to be paid by future generations. The
drivers of this ecological deficit have been overconsumption and
overpopulation. Lianos shows that a number of
different methodologies can be used, including energy use per capita, per
capita land requirements for food production, and per capita income figures, to
calculate an “optimum” population for a given standard of living. He concludes
that for a good, but not a luxurious life for all, this figure lies somewhere
between 2 and 3 billion people. Lianos argues that
only with such a population can a steady-state economy be achieved. To attain
this population a globally tradable system of reproductive “shares” could be
developed. Three “shares” would be allocated to each couple (or possibly to
each woman) with each share giving the right to O.5 children. The outcome of
this would be that the maximum number of children that each and every woman
could possibly have would average 1.5. With replacement total fertility rate
(TFR) being 2.1, lowering the TFR to 1.5 would therefore lead to a reduction in
the population. The ability to trade fertility shares would mean that it would
be possible for couples to choose to have a greater number of children. Lianos argues that this would probably result in a transfer
of wealth from the rich to the poor and, since the system would need to be
global, from the developed to the developing world. While such a system would
represent a financial incentive for some, it would require enforcement through
a system of fines and possibly moral sanctions which over time would ideally
lead to normative compliance. Lianos recognises that,
while there are obvious advantages to such a system, ultimately it is coercive.
However, following John Stuart Mill, he argues that liberty cannot be exercised
if it causes harm to others, meaning that some of our present liberties must be
restrained in order to avoid harm to future generations and their own right to
enjoy a good life.
Notes
[1]John Toye (2000) has observed that
Keynes’ views on population were far from static.
[2] It is
interesting to note that Mill’s, Marx’s and Keynes’ non-materialist values
conform to Inglehart’s (1977) observations on affluence during childhood
leading to post-materialist values in adulthood.
References
Bastani, A.,
2019 (forthcoming). Fully automated luxury
communism. New
York: Verso.
Benton, T., 1989. Marxism and natural limits. New Left Review, no. 178.
Boulding, K.E., 1966. The Economics of the coming spaceship
Earth: environmental quality in a growing economy. In: Jarrett, H., ed. Essays from the sixth RFF forum, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press. pp.3-14
Burkett, P., 1999 Marx and nature: A red and
green perspective.
Basingstoke: Palgrave
Daly, H.E., ed., 1973. Toward a steady-state economy. San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
Diamond, J., 2005. Collapse: How societies choose
to fail or succeed. New York: Viking.
Georgescu-Roegen, N., 1971. The entropy law and the economic process.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Grundmann, R.,
1991 Marxism and ecology. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Higgs, K., 2017. Limits to Growth: Human Economy and Planetary
Boundaries The Journal of Population and
Sustainability, Vol.
2, No. 1. pp. 15-36.
Foster, J.B., 2000. Marx’s ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Inglehart, R., 1977 The silent revolution.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Keynes, J. M., 1919. The economic consequences of
the peace. [e-Book]
London: Macmillan Available at: <https://archive.org/stream/economicconseque00keynuoft#page/8/mode/2up>
Keynes, J. M., 1930. The economic possibilities for our
grandchildren. In: J. M. Keynes. 1963. Essays in Persuasion, New
York: WW Norton.
Löwy, M., 1997 For a
critical Marxism. Against the Current,
vol. 12, no. 5.
Madison, A., 2001. The world economy: A millennial
perspective. Paris:
OECD
Malthus, T.R., 1998 [1798]. An essay on the principle of
population. [pdf]
Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project. Available at: <http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf>
[Accessed 26 November 2018]
Marx, K., 1954 [1890] Capital: volume one. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Marx, K., 1959 [1894] Capital: volume three. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Marx, K., 1972 [1845]. The German ideology. In: On historical materialism.Moscow:
Progress Publishers pp.14-76.
Marx, K., 1972 [1875]. The critique of the Gotha programme. In: On historical materialism. Moscow: Progress Publishers pp. 159-173.
Marx, K., 2015. Grundrisse.
[pdf] Available at: <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/grundrisse.pdf>
[Accessed 26 November 2018]
Merchant, B., 2015. Fully Automated Luxury Communism. The Guardian 18
March 2015 [online] <https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment>
[Accessed 26 November 2018]
Mill, J.S., 1986 [1909]. John Stuart Mill on the stationary
state
. Population and Development
Review, Vol. 12, No. 2. pp. 317-322.
ONS (Office for National Statistics), 2015. UK Population
Estimates 1851 to 2014. [online] <https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/adhocs/004356ukpopulationestimates1851to2014>
[Accessed 26 November 2018]
Petersen, W., 1988 Marxism and the population question: Theory
and practice
. Population and Development Review,
Vol. 14. Supplement: Population and resources in Western intellectual
traditions, pp. 77-101
Saito, K. 2017. Karl Marx’s ecosocialism:
Capital, nature, and the unfinished critique of political economy. New
York: Monthly Review Press.
Smith, A. 2007 [1776] The wealth of nations. [pdf] Lausanne: MetaLibri.
Available at: https://www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/SmithA_WealthNations_p.pdf[Accessed
21 April 2018].
Skidelsky
, R., 2010. The crisis
of capitalism: Keynes versus Marx
. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations,
Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 321-335.
Toye, J., 2000. Keynes on population. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
UNPD (United Nations Population Division), 2016. “The World at Six Billion”. UN Population Division. Archived from
the original on March 5, 2016., Table
2
Weber, M. (1930) The protestant ethic and the
spirit of capitalism. London: George Allen and Unwin.