New seminal environmental works. Nine review articles. - WZB

30 New Seminal Environmental Works
Turning Point. An End to the Growth Paradigm
By Robert U. Ayres
London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1999, XIV + 258 pp.
ISBN 1-85383-439-4.
This is a very personal and, at the same time, wide-ranging book, written by
one of neo-classical economics´s most innovative critics, Robert U. Ayres.
He starts with a confession: “Though I am an academic person by
temperament and profession, this book is much more informal than the usual
academic monograph. I make no apologies for that“ (p. XI). And he gives
reasons for not doing so: “I have deep misgivings, both about economic
growth, as currently defined and measured, and about world trade as an
instrument for archieving it“ (ibid.).
This turnabout, he starts to discuss in rich detail, has been mostly triggered
by the evidence that economic growth is benefiting only the few, and that
large part (the major part, he seems to incline) of statistical growth reflects
increasingly frantic activity. In many respects, Ayres says, “it amounts to
running faster and faster to stay in the same place - ’wheel spinning’ rather
than true wealth creation“ (p. XII). Particularly, growth in recent decades is
attributable to expenditures resulting from unavoidable transportation, from
a growing need for protection against threats to life, health and property,
and from ’living on capital’, i.e. depletion of natural resource stocks and
environmental degradation.