Why does the economy always have to grow?

because population grows. in poorer countries it must grow faster than population growth.

It doesn't always have to grow. It can contract, or remain approximately stagnant, which is what it used to do, during all pre-history and history, for the many millenia centuries before the modern period. People lived poor lives, their diets were poor, , their horizons were narrow, they travelled little, half of children died before reaching 5 years old, many women died in chidbirth, and life was hard.

But people don't want that. They want to do what you're doing, sitting at home in the light and warmth tapping away on the internet communicating ideas to, and having fun with people on the other side of the world. They want to have interesting lives, eat a varied diet, wear nice clothes, have enough money to go out for a coffee, to travel to distant places, to have communications and entertainment.

That is the only reason, and underlying value, why the economy "has to" grow. It only has to in the sense that the vast mass of people prefer life to death, health to sickness, and fun to misery.

The puritans and hair-shirt brigade who disagree should confine their self-denial to *themselves*, not try to foist it on everyone else.

"won't it reach a point where the small, and already heavily populated Island stops producing and consuming enough to support further growth?"

a) No, not necessarily, and even if it does,

b) that is not necessarily any reason to stop growth now.

It won't necessarily get to the point where further growth is impossible because, contrary to popular myth, resources are not "finite" - they are whatever satisfies human wants. Some of the most significant resources have come from new ideas that use little or no finite natural resources. Some of the most significant ideas have come from *economising* scarce resources - using the same amount for a greater output, which goes to greater satisfaction of human wants.

If all the world lived at the population density of New York city, the entire population of the world would fit into an area the size of Yugoslavia, leaving the rest of the world available for farmland and parkland. We don't do it because it's more economical the way we are doing, but the point is, we are so far from reaching the limit of resources that it's just not funny. If we continued our current mineral use, at only current standards of mining, after 100,000 years we would have used only 1 percent of the earth, and all the minerals would still be here - matter is not created or destroyed.

But even if we we were to run out of resources a long way down the track - so what? That's like saying people should *definitely* suffer privation and death now, to save future people from the *possibility* of suffering privation and death later. Why should the future have priority over the present, when *all* human beings universally tend to prefer satisfaction sooner than later?

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

The idea that were are running out of resources is based on simple superstitious ignorance. It is flatly incorrect, and is a throwback to the pre-modern belief in the inherent sinfulness of man, the need for repentance and self-denial, the worship of a church (now the state) and all that sh!t.

There is no need to worry about using up depletable resources because

a) if we can't use them on the ground it will deplete them, NO-ONE could EVER use them, and they wouldn't be resources - we would be saying it would be better for people to starve and freeze than use resources - an anti-rational, anti-human, anti-civilisation belief based on ignorance.

b) in the meantime such resources may become redundant because superseded by new technology, just as whale oil, and cave-dwelling were. Will the future then owe us a higher standard of living than we had? How will we access that retrospective credit?

c) man always uses resources in order of what is most economical. He doesn't deliberately find ways of making it more wasteful - but this is exactly what the modern greens are trying to force whole societies to do - based on their economic illiteracy and ethical bankruptcy. For a given standard of living, it wastes *more* natural resources, not less. And if it is for a lesser standard of living

1. you are not comparing apples with apples, and

2. no-one has a right to impose a lesser standard of freedom, health and life by force - government - on anyone.

Because if the economy isn't growing faster than the population, you have declining standards of living.

Then, too, you are always competing against someone who is growing -- often faster than you. For example, in the long growth period of 1982-2007, the UK was competing against the US, which was growing almost twice as fast. And now both are competing against fast-growing Asian countries.

It's all about money really. To pay for the future needs of countries and their populations, growth is needed now. No growth, no money. Let me extrapolate...

Politicians, being elected officials, are so detached from the real world they have no real idea about what goes on in government or how to run it.

This is where the public service comes in to provide the various ministers with the 'correct' information about what is happening in the country. Now the 'correct' information is the information which will support the ideals and political machinations of the ministers, according to the needs of the public service and by occasional happy happenstance, the public at large.

For example: A 'Minister for Transport' needs to be seen by the public to be providing improvements in transportation resources for people with cars, people who want/need to use public transport and people who are muesli chewing, sandal wearing, tree huggers (they walk and ride bikes). So the 'Minister for Transport' consults the public service for the 'correct' information about how to get the biggest political leverage for him/herself and their political party by satisfying the largest public lobby group at him for a particular transport need.

Now this is where the public service comes in, working out how to pay for it all and if the said project actually suits the public service to go ahead. For this example I'll suggest small animals may have been sacrificed under a full moon and the project for a new ralline, highway and bike-way is going ahead and is actually going to be useful for the public at large. See happy happenstance.

Now the bad news: Your children and your children's, children's, children will be paying for this project with their taxes over the next 100 years of its life. Yep, part of the costing of building infrastructure for use by people now is that the yet unborn citizens will be paying for stuff like this because the government hasn't got enough of your money now to pay for the use of something by people in the future.

This is where the 'need' for economic growth comes in. No growth, no way to pay for more fun stuff to get political parties re-elected, fat political pensions paid, keep paying the public service and occasionally build hospitals/roads/rail/schools, do research and pay aged/disabled/student/unemployment pittances.

If the economy doesn't have growth, then people won't have jobs in businesses outside of government. If people don't have those jobs then they can't pay tax and the unemployed cost governments money, so governments want to get them back to work, so they need economic growth to keep people employed.

Now to the last part of your question. No, the UK economy won't stop and implode from population growth because the UK economy, unlike its geography, is not an island. When populations increase, so do the demand for services, ergo so do businesses expand to cope with the demand and employ more people and they pay more tax and occasionally spend what's left of their pay on shiny things for themselves leading to more economic growth.

Now here's the gotcha, the UK economy is also supported by imports and exports from other countries facing similar problems of economic growth. The differences of exchange rates of currency making an import or export, money for the governments and their peoples. Like the UK was part of some European Union. The UK economy is tied to those around it and so are its peoples as part of the EU. Its economy will continue to grow if the governments of the day follow a prudent model of fiscal management devoted to long term infrastructure to support the future needs of yet unborn citizens.

Economies to look at:

Greece: Really screwed up fiscal management with over spending and bent over the couch by currency traders.

Japan: Have negative population growth, almost no natural resources, and really hot women and still manages to be the #3 economy in the world.

Australia: worshippers of aerial ballet, spend their spare time digging up their country and sending it to Japan and China then buying the shiny stuff that the Japanese and Chinese made back from them.