Author Jeff Rubin predicts de-growth expansion
A Toronto author whose latest book is called The End of Growth has the following response to the De-Growth Vancouver political party.
“I predict that their constituency will grow,” Jeff Rubin told the Straight during a recent book-promo swing through Vancouver. De-Growth Vancouver, which was the Work Less Party until 2011, fielded three council candidates in that year’s municipal election.
Rubin was chief economist with CIBC World Markets before going rogue in 2009 to write Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Despite his new book incorporating many themes the political party ran on in the 2008 and 2011 municipal elections, Rubin said he had not heard of it or the de-growth conferences it organized in 2010 and 2011.
Like the municipal candidates, Rubin claimed that unfettered economic growth cannot continue on a planet with limited resources.
“I think that’s what prices are telling us—that triple-digit oil prices, they’re not the enemy; they’re the messenger,” Rubin said. “And the message they are sending is that we live in a finite world. And as we start to feel the boundaries of that finite world, I think the solution is less is more.”
“As the expansion and the increasing human footprint—in Vancouver and elsewhere—continues to grow, it is very clear that at some point you reach the limits of that growth,” Chris Shaw, a De-Growth Vancouver city council candidate in 2011 and a Work Less Party candidate in 2008, told the Straight by phone. “Our position in De-Growth Vancouver was, let’s rationally deal with it while we still have a chance to rationally deal with it, and have a softer descent into sustainability rather than a crash into it.”
Rubin suggested Germany’s job-sharing program Kurzarbeit could be emulated here. “The greatest challenge of slower economic growth is job creation,” Rubin said. “How is the economy going to be able to create as many jobs in a slower-growth gear? The answer is, it’s not going to. But maybe a way of dealing with this is, instead of one person being laid off, four people take a 25-percent cut in their time.”
Jeff Rubin speaks with the Georgia Straight about his book The End of Growth.
Comments
5 Comments
scathie
May 30, 2012 at 10:18pm
Rubin's been towing the neo-Malthusian line forever now. It's old, it's tired, please stop reporting on it. Yes, fossil fuels are limited, but then we'll move onto something else, like the way Germany can now supply half their energy needs with solar power. Wait? Didn't hear about that one? Oh right, The Georgia Straight only reports bad news.
http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2012/05/sunspots-germany-proves-...
Ian G62
May 31, 2012 at 12:08am
Scathie - reporting on the limits on growth is NOT bad news, its a recognition of the path we are on. And until we ALL recognise the path we are on, we are destined not to find a solution to the problems facing us. Exponential growth on a finite planet is an uncomfortable reality we have been brought to by those with a lack of vision. YES I do believe there are solutions out there, but I see no significant sign of them where I live.
of_no_consequence
May 31, 2012 at 5:29am
Neoliberalism is a contemporary political movement advocating economic liberalizations, free trade and open markets. Neoliberalism supports the privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation of markets, and enhancing the role of the private sector in modern society. It is commonly informed by neoclassical or Austrian economics. The central pillars of neoliberalism are the individual's role as a market participant. The central neoliberal goal is to 'roll back the frontiers of the state', in the belief that unregulated market capitalism will deliver efficiency, growth and widespread prosperity for all. In this view the 'dead hand' of the state saps initiative and discourages enterprise; government, however well-intentioned, invariably has a damaging effect upon human affairs. This is reflected in the liberal New Right's concern with the politics of ownership and its preference for private enterprise over nationalisation. Such ideas are associated with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
NWO
May 31, 2012 at 9:25am
The so called economic growth over the past decade have no real benefit for everyday Joe but only made the rich richer. It's better to change now than later when countries need to fight it out for finite resources.
scathie
Jun 2, 2012 at 9:15am
"Scathie - reporting on the limits on growth is NOT bad news, its a recognition of the path we are on. "
Uh... what path? THAT'S the whole point. We aren't running out of energy any time soon at all. Along with other forms of energy, there's this huge ball of fire in the sky called THE SUN that can provide us with virtually limitless energy for billions of years.
All the nonsense that "the end of oil is the end of our civilization" is starting to get tiring. There's a reason why Exxon Mobile are investing $600 million into algae-based biofuels. It's not because they have nothing better to do with almost three quarters of a billion dollars, but because there's more to energy than oil and even the petroleum industry understands that.
How Rubin ever got a job at CIBC is the biggest mystery we'll never solve.