Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
by Herman E. Daly
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Book Summary Information
Author: Herman E. DalyEdition: Paperback
Published: 1997-08-14
ISBN: 0807047090
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
Book Review: Outstanding work, Daly's predictions have come to pass 10 years later
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read a *lot* of economics books in recent years, some good, some not. But Daly's is really in a class by itself for seeing the big picture and explaining it clearly: traditional economics is broken. Neoclassical economics today is like high energy physics: all the trusty laws that held so true in normal energy physics, or 19th and 20th century economies, mysteriously start to fail us. I love the simple, yet compelling logic of Daly's insight: take the existing neoclassical model of economics--the circular flow of income between households and firms--and then draw a box around it, to acknowledge that the world is of finite size. Once you do that, analyze however you wish...the recognition of a finite world leads inexorably to the notion of an optimum size for the national and global economy. I like how Daly uses tools from mainstream economics to make the point: we all remember from Microeconomics that every firm has an optimal size, based on the size of the overall economy. Economics has the notion of limits to growth embedded already, we just need collectively to apply that logic without flinching.
Something that impressed me was how Daly in 1997 used his intellectual model to forecast the concentration of asset ownership in the U.S., with the consequence of increasing class disparity and declining real wages for the middle class. That would have seemed like outlandish poppycock in the mid-90s, but now in 2007, lo and behold, it's coming to pass (per the CIA and the Economic Policy Institute, and BLS.gov statistics) for all the reasons Daly outlined 10 years ago. The man is onto something, and policymakers would do well to listen to him.
Even better, I think, is that reading between the lines of Daly's book there is a real and believable message of hope. The world of the future that acknowledges limits, and embraces development over growth (think "quality" not "quantity" of the economy as the goal) is a better place than the world we live in today. Instead of the world becoming a planetary Los Angeles or Hong Kong, where life is crowded, expensive, polluted and mean, what I took away from Daly's book was a clear intellectual architecture for a world that is beautiful, full of possibilities for interesting life work, and full of hope and things to look forward to. I sincerely hope that Daly's vision helps shape the world my daughter grows up in.
Summary of Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader, Herman Daly has probably been the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. An iconoclast economis t who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has won a wide and growing reputation among a wide array of environmentalists, inside and outside the academy.In a book that will generate controversy, Daly turns his attention to the major environmental debate surrounding "sustainable development." Daly argues that the idea of sustainable development--which has become a catchword of environmentalism and international finance--is being used in ways that are vacuous, certainly wrong, and probably dangerous. The necessary solutions turn out to be muc h more radical than people suppose.
This is a crucial updating of a major economist's work, and mandatory reading for people engaged in the debates about the environment.
"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics."
--Utne Reader
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