Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

Selfishness, Greed and Capitalismno longer deny them. Even those who would bring abouta ‘steady-state economy’ accept that low-income countrieswould benefit from more growth today, even if they areloathe to acknowledge that such growth is largely contingenton richer countries trading with them. The onlyquestion is whether further economic growth would bebeneficial in wealthy countries here and now. Can the veryrichest countries benefit from more economic growth?By its nature, a prediction can never be made with uttercertainty, but we can say that the anti-growth lobby hasalways been wrong in the past and there is little to suggestthat they are correct today. Bryan Caplan gives us a fairassessment when he writes that: ‘Past progress does notguarantee future progress, but it creates a strong presumption’(Caplan 2007: 48 – emphasis in the original).98