NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business / Economy

John Peet: Time to defy the worship of growth

By John Peet
NZ Herald·
19 Feb, 2012 04:30 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The much-vaunted productivity of developed nations is due to the magic of fossil fuels. Photo / Supplied

The much-vaunted productivity of developed nations is due to the magic of fossil fuels. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

Main cuts in resource use and pollution must come from wealthy, writes John Peet, chairman of Sustainable Aotearoa NZ.

Financial markets around the world are trying to adjust to the momentous stresses evident in the US and Europe.

Even in New Zealand, economic forecasts don't look particularly good.

Enhancing our economy via economic growth is the implication behind Greg Whittred's oped piece, which makes several interesting points but misses a number of important issues.

Will policies to grow the economy work? There are two sides to a response to that question.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Side A says economic growth is undermining the very ecological systems that not only support life on the planet but also are the foundation of the economy, and for that reason it is not sustainable.

Side B says failure to grow the economy risks social and political instability. Both are probably correct.

This creates a dilemma. By definition, there is no simple escape from a dilemma. The usual approach is to accept one side as fixed and try to change the other. Politicians have chosen largely to accept Side B and concentrate on economic growth, trying to maintain ecosystem health while population and consumption increase. This is done via economic ideas that largely ignore social, environmental and resource issues of Side A of the dilemma, treating them as "externalities", that need to be "balanced" against economic issues such as growth. This policy has been adopted by all New Zealand governments in recent years.

These beliefs have to be rejected in any scientifically based economics for a sustainable future. The perspectives of mainstream economics and modern science are actually in fundamental conflict here, despite many assertions to the contrary.

Real goods and services are always physical. If their quantity grows and they are exchanged for money in the marketplace, the quantity of money can grow, too, and debt together with interest can be repaid.

Discover more

Banking and finance

Wall St up as US economic engine roars

16 Feb 07:30 PM
Commodities

Rewards and risks in quest for oil

17 Feb 04:30 PM
Opinion

Brian Leyland: The only way is full steam ahead

26 Feb 04:30 PM
Opinion

Robert MacCulloch: Who is responsible for inequality?

18 Mar 04:30 PM

The resource and waste implications of their production also grow (albeit usually ignored), because supplies of energy and resources and their transformation into goods and services are subject to the laws of physics, without exception.

Going into debt increases consumption in the short term, on the implicit assumption that it will all come right through economic growth.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Over the past couple of decades, debt-based money supply has grown vastly more than the increase in production of real goods and services.

After banks were largely freed from government controls, money soon became a commodity, with trading in debt and derivatives an industry in itself. Debt grew massively, and the house of cards collapsed in 2008. It is at grave risk of collapsing again, as recent events in Europe confirm.

The real costs of key resources and of pollution are now rapidly increasing, while at the same time people are being encouraged to increase their demands for goods and services via easy finance.

In the end, however, money is still a claim on future consumption - an IOU, in effect - so when it is spent, the physical and resource connections kick in. Mother Nature doesn't do bailouts, so printing or borrowing money simply builds up resource problems for the future.

A central issue here is that the mainstream has yet to learn that the much-vaunted productivity of developed nations is the result not of the magic of the market, human innovation, creative finance or some vaguely-defined "technology". It is due to the magic of fossil fuels.

Given that a barrel of oil can do the work of around 20,000 hours of human labour, such dramatic expansion of productivity is not so magical after all. Without cheap, mainly petroleum-based energy, the staggering economic growth of most of the past century just wouldn't have happened.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Given the unfolding realities of peak oil, and the inevitability of steadily increasing costs for fuel, it may never happen again. Belief in the inevitability and desirability of endlessly continued economic growth has fuelled a monstrous confidence trick on humanity and nature that is a direct consequence of following misconceived ideas about prosperity and growth.

To build a strongly sustainable future, it is essential that we accept the primacy of safeguarding the health of the planetary ecosystems that give and sustain life. That means Side A is primary - and we must address Side B issues by means of a new economics.

Central to this new economics is the need to adopt the same approach used by physicists and engineers 100 years ago, and incorporate the reality of limits and constraints.

We also need better understanding of the complexity of behaviour of real people, especially in families, groups and communities, rather than in idealised marketplaces.

The "steady state", a term taken from physics and ecology, provides a framework for the new economics.

In a Steady State Economy (SSE), resource use and waste generation stay within levels which can be supplied and absorbed indefinitely by the surrounding ecosystem. These in turn must be determined by good science and clear ethics determined by society.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

With advances in technology and social organisation, it is possible to envisage further improvement in the health and happiness of people living in an SSE.

Overall, however, the world must cut back heavily in resource use and pollution. The main cuts must come from the wealthy, who use most of the resources anyway and who have been relying on debt to use even more. The poor need at least enough to live decently, meaning continued growth in inequity also has to be reversed.

We badly need better economics, but we also badly need a good scientific, technological, social and ethical basis for policymaking.

It is high time for a nationwide conversation that is not afraid to challenge entrenched political-economic worship of growth, and improves the standard of policy advice to a level capable of future-proofing this country.

www.phase2.org

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Economy

Employment

'Like having our throats cut': Couple called into meeting, both told their jobs were gone

11 May 02:32 AM
Premium
Opinion

Liam Dann: In a world of grim news, here are five economic bright spots

10 May 05:00 PM
Premium
Business|markets

Allbirds predicts turnaround - finally - if lucky break on tariffs holds true

09 May 12:23 AM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Economy

'Like having our throats cut': Couple called into meeting, both told their jobs were gone

'Like having our throats cut': Couple called into meeting, both told their jobs were gone

11 May 02:32 AM

Now Didi van Heerden has been awarded $207,000 from the company and its director.

Premium
Liam Dann: In a world of grim news, here are five economic bright spots

Liam Dann: In a world of grim news, here are five economic bright spots

10 May 05:00 PM
Premium
Allbirds predicts turnaround - finally - if lucky break on tariffs holds true

Allbirds predicts turnaround - finally - if lucky break on tariffs holds true

09 May 12:23 AM
Premium
‘Rip-off’: App developer and Consumer say fees will stifle open banking

‘Rip-off’: App developer and Consumer say fees will stifle open banking

08 May 11:00 PM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP