Economic readings (40)

Economic readings (40)

Book: Social Constraints for Economic Growth.

Author: Fred Hirsch.

Reading:

Years ago, Fred Hirsch proposed to the 20th Century Fund to study growth in rich economic systems, which sought to address the very nature of growth and to address the fundamental and even largely neglected problems of developed societies, i.e. the social problems that economic growth poses to developed societies in particular.

Hirsch's economic growth project took a long time to prepare, and Hirsch, with his thinking and writing, rejected traditional analysis and superficial solutions, with the result of a major contribution to understanding the process of economic growth and its risks in developed societies.

In his project entitled "B· Social Lemites of Growth give answers to three questions:

1- Why has economic progress become a goal and has remained so imposed on all of us as individuals, even though it yields disappointing fruits?

2 - Why has modern society become so interested. in distributing, i.e. dividing candy, although it is clear that the vast majority of people can only raise their living standards by producing a larger piece of candy?

3 - Why has the twentieth century seen a general trend towards collective supply and government regulation in the economic spheres?

We can call these three points:

A) delusional love of contradiction.

b) The forced motive for distribution.

c) Collective opposition.

The main premise of the project is that these three points are mutually relevant and stem from a common origin and this origin exists in the nature of economic growth in developed societies, and the core of the problem lies in the complexity and partial ambiguity of the concept of economic growth once most of the population satisfies its basic life needs to maintain survival such as food, clothing and shelter.

"An increasing portion of consumption takes on a social and individual appearance when the average level of consumption rises, i.e. the satisfaction of individuals with goods and services increasingly depends not only on their personal consumption, but also on the consumption of others," says Hirsch.

Social constraints may arise from effects on individual satisfaction that do not depend on the satisfaction or high status of others, but are nevertheless influenced by the consumption or activity of others.

We draw from this approach to thinking that the main stakeholders responsible for derailing the technical progress train are the institutions that inflate economic demands beyond steady, even limited, growth in terms of their ability to implement them.