ECONOMIC OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

ECONOMIC OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT - Essay Example TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 4 Limits To Growth 4 Mathematical Analysis 5 Role And Impact Of Technical Advancements 7 The Quality Of Life 7 Challenges 7 Transition To A Sustainable Economy 8 Conclusion 8 References 10 1. Introduction Barack Obama (27 March 2008) said, â€Å"I think all of us here today would acknowledge that we’ve lost that sense of shared prosperity†. With the escalating gap between the economy of nations and amongst the individuals of same nation, prosperity is declining. The definition of prosperity needs to be revisited considering the world’s limitation of resources. According to Jackson (2009), global economy is constrained by finite ecological limits. The flourishing of human society in context of ecological limits is not only an alternate vision but also a necessity. This is a finite world with limited resources. To add to this, the population is expected to rise to 9 billion [1] and even more within a span of just three decades. Having a vision of prosperity for such a scenario is the need of the hour. Jackson (2009) has scrutinized the assumption that whether growth is essential for prosperity or not. Herman Daly (2008) and others have continuously tried to put forward the notion of steady-state economy. Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth (2009) has been a vital attempt on the same notion and following it there are considerable â€Å"De-growth† European movements (Latouche, 2007) and surfacing of organisations like CASSE (2010). These actions and notions are all in favour of removing the growth element from the current implications of the economy. The arguments against this idea constitutes primarily of the reforms of the consumer-capitalist society. However as per Trainer (2010), the consumer capitalist society cannot be fixed or reformed. Rather, it needs to be scrapped and then remade along different lines. 2. Limits to Growth There are some huge issues down the line and these include the compl ete consumption of the environment, resource depletion, war, conflicts and lessening of social bonding. The key cause behind this would be overconsumption. Fotopoulos (2007) comments on the â€Å"de-growth initiative† and states that people are currently trying to live at standards of affluence which are too high for all to share. This is leading to an unstable society and considering the environmental factors, the adversity of results can be well analysed. Considering the following two examples, it is clear that the there needs to be a limit set to the growth factor or else, there would be no prosperity at all. Example 1: As per World Wildlife Fund (2009), it takes around 8 hectares of potent land to supply water, food and settlement area for one individual in Australia. After three decades, considering the number of 9 billion, 72 billion hectares of potent land would be required. This is approximately 10 times of the land which would be available at that time. Example 2: Th e Green House issue is well addressed by Hansen (2008) and Meinschausen et al (2009). In order to discontinue carbon content present in the atmosphere, the CO2 eliminations would be required to be completely eliminated by possibly 2030. Such examples clearly explain that the rich people’s living standards would no longer be sustainable in the coming future. People are living in way which makes it completely impossible to share resources by all. 3. Mathematical