The Growth Obsession

Abstract

In pre-capitalist and pre-industrial times economic growth was dependent on population growth which, in turn, depended on the supply of goods and services for subsistence and reproduction. But since the Industrial Revolution GDP growth has been propelled by the dynamic development of the productive forces, i.e. by increased (labour) productivity. From the second half of the nineteenth century, average growth rates increased remarkably. This growth, however, has been extremely uneven over time and in space, and has failed to narrow the inequalities between peoples and regions in a globalizing world.