A former Bank of Canada governor is predicting Canada has about a 30 per cent chance of falling into a recession, amid growing global economic pressures.
Outside of the normal Marxist reasons for capitalist pursuit of growth, there’s a resource demand argument for growth (which would exist even without capitalism).
Think of it like this: everyday, people are born or immigrate here. Everyone has needs that need to be satisfied, like food, housing, entertainment, medicine, art and culture, education, clothing, and water. Let’s imagine that growth didn’t occur. These needs would still be there, so that situation would mean that everyone would have to make do with a little less per-capita – or some people would have to go without. What other conclusion would there be if there’s no growth in production and supply but a growth in total demand?
Even in a socialist or communist system, growth would still need to be planned for because the population tends to grow and people have needs to tend for. Unless you are planning for a population to be maintained at replacement rate on a multi-generational scale, economic growth needs to happen to accommodate a growing population.
Edit: to be clear, I am not suggesting that capitalism does resource distribution well. I started out by saying “outside of the normal Marxist reasons for capitalist pursuit of growth” for a reason. I’m just saying growth needs to be planned for no matter the mode of production.
Outside of the normal Marxist reasons for capitalist pursuit of growth, there’s a resource demand argument for growth (which would exist even without capitalism).
Think of it like this: everyday, people are born or immigrate here. Everyone has needs that need to be satisfied, like food, housing, entertainment, medicine, art and culture, education, clothing, and water. Let’s imagine that growth didn’t occur. These needs would still be there, so that situation would mean that everyone would have to make do with a little less per-capita – or some people would have to go without. What other conclusion would there be if there’s no growth in production and supply but a growth in total demand?
Even in a socialist or communist system, growth would still need to be planned for because the population tends to grow and people have needs to tend for. Unless you are planning for a population to be maintained at replacement rate on a multi-generational scale, economic growth needs to happen to accommodate a growing population.
Edit: to be clear, I am not suggesting that capitalism does resource distribution well. I started out by saying “outside of the normal Marxist reasons for capitalist pursuit of growth” for a reason. I’m just saying growth needs to be planned for no matter the mode of production.