Economists Chart New Roadmap to Replace Doomed Growth Strategy
There is a gate across this road. The modern man says, “I see no reason for it; let us remove it.” The wiser man says, “If you see no reason for it, I will not let you remove it. Go away and think. When you can tell me why it is here, I may let you destroy it.”
This is the principle of the fence, and it is the only sane way to deal with the sudden enthusiasm of Mr. Olivier De Schutter and his companions from the United Nations, who have declared that the strategy of economic growth is “doomed” and must be replaced by a new roadmap shaped by grassroots movements. It is a charming notion, this idea that growth is a disease to be cured rather than a symptom of life to be managed. It is like a doctor who, seeing a patient breathing, decides that respiration is inefficient and prescribes a new roadmap for holding one’s breath, shaped by experts in stillness and grassroots movements of the faint-hearted.
The fence in question here is not merely a statistical chart or a GDP figure; it is the accumulated wisdom of centuries of human effort to produce more bread for more mouths with less back-breaking toil. To call this “doomed” is to mistake the map for the territory, and then to burn the map because one dislikes the view. Mr. De Schutter, a man of considerable intellect and undoubtedly good intentions, has assembled a coalition of UN agencies and local activists to argue that we must stop growing. This is the classic error of the intellectual who has studied the tree so closely that he has forgotten the forest, and indeed, has forgotten that the tree is supposed to grow.
The contest lies in the definition of “growth.” To the reformer, growth is a monster that eats the earth. To the ordinary person, growth is the reason they are not starving in the mud. The fence was built to keep the wolf of poverty at bay. The wolf has been kept at bay for two hundred years by the very mechanism these experts now wish to dismantle. They argue that the strategy is doomed because it has succeeded too well, creating a world so comfortable that we have forgotten the alternative. This is not a logical argument; it is a complaint from the full-bellied that the feast is too lavish.
Consider the stakes. Political leaders and global populations are being asked to accept a fundamental shift in how resources are allocated. This is not a minor adjustment; it is a revolution in reverse. The grassroots movements involved are not wrong to desire dignity, nor are the UN agencies wrong to desire stability. But the solution they propose - stopping the engine of prosperity because it makes noise - is like stopping a train because the wheels are turning. The fence of growth was built because, historically, when societies stopped growing, they did not become more spiritual; they became more desperate. They did not enter a state of enlightened equilibrium; they entered a state of famine, war, and plague.
The paradox is that those who wish to tear down the fence of growth are the same people who benefit most from the security it provides. It is the luxury of the secure to advocate for the precarious. Mr. De Schutter and his colleagues are safe in their offices, surrounded by the fruits of the very growth they denounce. They have the privilege of viewing the economy as a theoretical construct rather than a daily struggle for survival. The fence exists because the world outside it is cold and hungry. To remove it is not an act of bravery; it is an act of negligence.
The new roadmap calls for a shift in strategy, but it fails to explain what replaces the engine. If growth is doomed, what is the alternative? Stagnation? Decline? These are not strategies; they are surrenders. The fence was built to hold back the tide of want. If you remove the fence, the tide does not stop; it rushes in. The experts believe they can negotiate with the tide. They believe that by appealing to the grassroots and the UN, they can convince the ocean to be polite. But the ocean of human need does not read roadmaps. It responds to production, to innovation, to the relentless, often messy, process of making more out of less.
The anger I feel is not against Mr. De Schutter personally, but against the arrogance of the position. It is the arrogance of the man who looks at a thriving garden and says, “This is too much life; let us prune it down to a manageable size.” The problem is that the garden does not want to be manageable; it wants to grow. And the people who tend it do not want a manageable plot; they want a harvest.
The fence stands because it works. It has lifted billions from destitution. It has allowed for art, for science, for the very leisure that allows men like De Schutter to write papers on why we should stop. To dismantle it because it is “doomed” is to confuse the end of a chapter with the end of the book. The book is not over. The fence is not obsolete. It is the only thing standing between us and the dark. And until Mr. De Schutter can explain to me, with concrete evidence, how a society without growth feeds its poor without becoming cruel, I shall remain on the side of the fence. For the fence, at least, knows why it was built.