The 8th PE-DPS David Cano on the normative analysis of growth imperative

This session features our guest David Cano (University of Sienna)

The growth imperative that compels economies to expand and persons to improve seems natural and unavoidable, though awareness and discomfort are rising due to the global ecological crisis it is about to unleash. In economics, a broader understanding of the growth imperative as progress, the improvement in human potential and conditions of existence, is the ultimate, undisputed objective. It is considered either an evident feature of (human) nature, or an ethical and political goal. Only the degrowth approach questions this, but it is still widely unknown and unstructured, and it criticizes the status of economic growth as a mean, not the deeper goal itself. Hence, the profession tacitly or explicitly advocates for the growth imperative, the pursuing of the unlimited, despite its fame as the science of scarcity.

Since the growth imperative is an economic phenomenon and economics has had an important role in its justification and management, I think that a normative analysis of the growth imperative— why are expansion and improvement desirable—is necessary in economics.

Key questions for discussion

1. Is this a valid question for economics, or should it be considered outside the field?
2. Is economics inherently biased towards a defence of the growth imperative, or is it possible to make economic analysis with different normative criteria?
3. How should economics approach this analysis, through the usual technical comparison of the costs and benefits of growth, or through ethical, ontological, or even metaphysical analysis?