Moral Philosophy and Economic Growth

by Will Wilkinson on January 26, 2006

This is a bleg for my exceedingly well-informed readers.

Are you aware of any works in moral or political philosophy (or normative political theory) that argue that maintaining a relatively high rate of economic growth is morally mandatory for a good government (or is a necessary condition for justice, or legitimacy, or anything like that). I cannnot find anything along those lines at all, which is a scandal.

I am not looking for an economist who argues in passing that (sufficiently equitably distributed) growth is good because growth=higher incomes=concumption of more preferred bundles of goods=good. I consider that an incredibly persuasive argument, properly construed, but I’m looking for something more by a real normative theorist. I am unwilling to believe that there could be thousands upon thousands of pages on liberty, equality, and even stability, but next to nothing on growth as a cardinal social and political value. So please tell me what I’m missing. I’m probably overlooking something obvious. The closest I can find is Sen, who does link economic growth to the development of basic capabilities, but can be pretty disparaging of growth as an aim.

It’s funny; there’s tons of stuff on why governments shouldn’t care about growth. God bless the power of economist folk morality, I guess!

Viewing 34 Comments

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    Good question. The only thing that comes to mind aside from Sen's work is The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, which is cowritten by Robert Goodwin, an excellent political theorist.

    But in general, the lack of attention to economic growth seems like another example of how normative political theory is divorced from the real world.
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    Not incredibly learned. Just a thought.

    It's in many ways a life/health analogy.

    You could construct a link to some biology/systems theory argument that robustness/adequate replacement and innovation will equal the earmarks we call growth.

    Growth per se can have, and for a lot of progressives does imply, a kind of cancer or chaos metaphor. Not to mention the current obesity hysteria. It may be that those embedded meanings that must be expllicityl defeated or distinguished in order to look at a long horizon of growth without paralyzing disquiet. Pure scale itself can be distressing psychologically and physically.
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    Will,

    I'm a graduate student in philosophy out here in AZ. Dave Schmidtz hasn't said anything like that explicitly, I don't think. But that's just because most libertarians don't say weird things like: "A good government should always do x." Most modern libertarians, I think, know too much about public choice economics and the like to make such statements. They're more worried about confining state power, and how institutional structures work. They aren't, say like Rawls, in the business of giving abstract lists of normative conditions for ideally just institutions. And Dave, in particular, is not exactly interesting in that project. But I know you know that.

    Now, that egalitarian liberals don't say anything to that effect is indeed a scandal, if it is true. This means that those *in the business* of doing abstract political institutional theorizing didn't think to add that to their list of quasi-utopian demands for an institution to meet. And that would seem to be a mark of some kind of moral deficiency.

    But nonetheless, it would be not just a little weird for someone like, for instance, Nozick to say "All good governments will promote economic growth." Don't you agree?
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    See, for the life of me, I can't see why this should be weird. But the fact that the idea only recently occurred to me might indicate that it is kind of weird. (I guess I only recently REALLY got my head around growth.) But I don't think sustaining a decent level of economic growth is quasi-utopian. It is, in fact, one of the de facto aims of most decent governments. If it turns out that this is so despite the fact that no philosopher ever argued that it should be would be stunning. It might be that political-economic dynamics of liberal democracy push strongly toward treating growth as a goal. If it slows, you'll lose power, etc. Slows a lot, you get instability. I just think it would help to make it a little more explicit as a required aim of any liberal regime, and to actually offer some arguments in favor of it. There are, indeed, very powerful arguments in favor of it. Maybe they are so powerful that the world makes them even if philosophers don't.
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    And by the way, don't most libertarians say a good government should always protect individual negative rights, or prohibit all initiatory coercion, or keep market regulation to a minimum, or restrict itself to a small set of core taks, etc. etc.? I think they do. James Buchanan makes a lot of "all good governments ought to x" claims on the basis of public choice considerations.
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    100 pct. my next book! I will send you a copy of the manuscript if you promise to give me comments. To which address?
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    Tyler, Awesome! I happily promise to give you comments. Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave NW 20001.
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    I don't understand why _The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth_ by Benjamin M. Friedman does not meet your requirements. It does make the case that economic growth promotes democracy, openness, and tolerance.
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    Brent, Friedman's book is as close as it gets. And that's what I find shocking. Its a very good book, and it's nice to have an argument to the effect that growth promotes democracy, openness, and tolerance. But I guess I'm looking for an argument that growth is good for its more immediate consequences, e.g., individual people have more money, more freedom, more life-options, better health, longer lives, etc. That would seem pretty great to me even if growth was neutral for tolerance, etc.
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    If that's what you want, to my mind you were misleading in asking for something that argues "that maintaining a relatively high rate of economic growth is morally mandatory for a good government (or is a necessary condition for justice, or legitimacy, or anything like that)", and for complaining about the lack of materials on "growth as a cardinal social and political value".

    In your clarified request are you claiming that you're having difficulty finding writings that link economic growth with individual people having "more money, more freedom, more life-options, better health, longer lives, etc."?
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    Brent, Let me reclarify. The Friedman book is good. But it is very simple in the way it posits the values that are served by growth. Friedman just stipulates that some things are good, and then tries to show that growth helps us get them, such that if you care about those things, you should care about growth. That's a fine way to argue. But he doesn't explain why the values he highlights are values. He doesn't address the normative conditions for a just or morally legitimate government. And, again, that's fine. I don't expect economists to double as moral philosophers. What I'm looking for is more sophisticated, integrated, normative work on growth. There are hundreds of normative works in political philosophy on the morally mandatory character of some kind of equality of material holdings and life options. I am shocked because there does not appear to be a single major work on the morally mandatory character of improving the quantity and quality of holdings and life options, which, on its face, strikes me as a lot more important.
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    Thank you for the clarification. If Tyler Cowen's forthcoming book addresses that, I'll buy a copy!
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    This is a non-obscure book, but doesn't the discussion of intergenerational justice in A Theory of Justice argue for just the conclusion you're looking for?
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    Matt, Yes and no. Rawls:

    Eventually, once just institutions are firmly established and all the basic liberties effectively realized, the net accumulation [of savings] asked for falls to zero. At this point a society meets its duty of justice by maintaining just institutions and preserving their material base. The just savings principles applies to what a society is to save as a matter of justice. If its members wish to save for other purposes, that is another matter.
    [ToJ, 2nd Ed., p 255]

    It sounds to me that Rawls is saying that a fully just society requires NO GROWTH. Justice, at certain historical-economic stages, requires growth instrumentally. If we are still at a level of relatve deprivation, justice demands we leave the next generation a little better off than we were. But growth, per se, is not an element of justice.

    Actually, Rawls never thinks systematically about growth as far as I can tell. Growth is implicit in a lot of what he says. For example, the idea that the tax rate is limited by the incentive to productivity. But he takes a barely dynamic perspective. If taxes are too high in period one, there will be less to distribute in period to. The end. He's not really thinking about the overall size of the economy. Similarly, when talking about just savings, he seems to be more concerned with the idea that we don't consume all the resources and leave future generations with less rather than the idea that what future generations will have is compounded by the rate of growth.

    Also, this gets me thinking about the argument for the difference principle. Rawls labors hard to make the argument more than instrumental. But his only really good arguments are instrumental. If the poor are getting a raw deal, they'll destabilize everything, and that's no good for anyone. B. Friedman's argument about growth is just like that. If growth is too slow, we'll get nasty and illiberal.
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    Will- not only that, Rawls does not think your preferred conception of justice as valuing growth is even reasonable. Rawls states in his book Justice as Fairness: "A further feature of the difference principles is that it does not require continual economic growth over generations to maximize upward indefinitely the expectations of the least advantaged (assessed in terms of income and wealth). That would not be a reasonable conception of justice. We should not rule out Mill's idea of a society in a just stationary state where (real) capital accumulation may cease." (pp.63-6; see also pg. 159)
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    Will says "But growth, per se, is not an element of justice."

    I am not sure how a theory could value growth for itself, or what that would mean.

    1) My confusion primarily stems from how you can say that something other than individuals can have value for the purposes of justice, in a non-instrumental fashion (value in itself or 'per se'). What do you mean by this?

    2) Why is Sen any closer than Rawls is to what you're looking for? Basing this comment solely on the discussion above, Sen wants growth (maybe) for basic capabilities and Rawls wants it for a just basic structure. What is the reason why they are not they about equally bad (or good)?
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    This probably isn't too helpful, but on page 174-175 of International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, eds. Mapel and Nardin (Princeton UP, 1998), David Miller comes out in favor of economic growth. He's doing so in response in to Brian Barry who, in an article in the same volume, argues that equality means being concerned for future people not simply present people, which means not causing environmental disaster for future persons, which means not valuing growth.
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    Tim, Thanks! Great stuff. Thanks especially for reminding me of the passage in Justice as Fairness. That's a clearer statement of what he's basically saying in the just savings part of ToJ.

    About growth as an element of justice. Well, really, I think justice is the wrong word. I mean an element of the kind of society we have most reason to affirm, endorse, want, etc. I agree with both your points. I'm talking fast and loose. Sen is no better, unless he thinks that there is no limit on the development of human capabilities, which is what I think, and why I don't think there is a point of absolute development at which it is permissible to allow growth to stall.
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    Clearly David Miller is right! Did Brian Barry at the late date of 1998 really think that growth is in conflict with environmental stability?

    A more interesting argument about future generations turns on Parfit's insight that the big deal about what we do now policy-wise is not how it will affect future people, as if there are a bunch of people with determinate identities, who already exist at a future time in the way that other people co-exist with us at a different place, but how it will determine whether or which people will exist in the future.

    Growth correlates with lower rates of reproduction. Are the possible beings not made actual because of high growth harmed by it?!
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    Hi Will,

    I don't have anything substantial to add to what's above, but in case you've not seen it Joseph Stiglitz has a very interesting review of Friedman's book in the Nov/Dec. 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs. The review touches on some of the issues you mention. I've not read Friedman's book so can't say more on it.
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    Here's a question for all you economists:
    When did "economic growth" as the term is now used become common? Was there a comparable term used before that? Don't recall Adam Smith, for example, saying anything about it.
    If it is a term that did not come into use until the second half of the 20th century, that would help explain why it is not a common subject of political philosophy. That, and the fact that virtually no one writing about political philosophy knows diddly about economics -- eg Rawls
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    Hm. Lots of libertarianish folk think that absolute deprivation is morally much more consequential than relative poverty. Growth as a value looks, to a straight distributivist, like caring more about [intergenerationally] relative wealth than like a concern with absolute well-being.

    *If* (I assume counterfactually) it were the case that there was a maximum sustainable per capita income, then it's hard to see what the moral advantage would be of getting there more slowly, with steady year-on-year growth, than of getting there right away, with growth ceasing thereafter. Similarly, even without the maximum-sustainable premise, if there's some threshold of material well-being that's morally very important, then it's hard to see what's better about *growth* than about *getting to that level.*

    That is, it would be hard from a strictly what-stuff-does-each-person-have perspective.

    If Will is right-- and I think he is-- that steady year-on-year growth is good for things like stable liberal democratic government, then that changes things. But it changes things in ways that are intellectually unfamiliar either to most welfarist utilitarians or to early Rawls and his progeny.

    (I strongly suspect that Jon Elster and/or Adam Przeworski have written something like what Will's looking for.)
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    I think Marxian types argued in the 1970s that continual economic growth was needed for the legitimacy of capitalist societies in the eyes of its citizens; however (it was claimed) continual economic growth could not last forever, so neither could liberal legitimacy.
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    Will-
    The last chapter of Brian Barry's latest book, Why Social Justice Matters (2005) is called "Justice or Bust".
    The chapter begins: "Over the next fifty years, renewable resources will continue to become scarcer, world population will grow and global warming will have more and more adverse effects. The only alternative is a nuclear holocaust, which I would not recommend as a solution."
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    Tim, Awesome. Thanks. This book came out last year?

    When someone says "the only alternative" the red flags go up. How's this for an alternative: "over the next fifty years resources will be superabundant, population will peak then begin to contract, and global warming will have some undetermined adverse and positive effects." I am willing to bet Brian Barry about this. Then again, he'll be dead in fifty years, and thanks to nanotech cell-repair, I'll be an eternal 45.
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    I'm willing to bet on his global warming scenario rather than your external middle age thanks to nanotech cell-repair.

    Yes, Barry's book came out last year.
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    That should be "eternal middle age" not "external middle age".
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    "I am shocked because there does not appear to be a single major work on the morally mandatory character of improving the quantity and quality of holdings and life options, which, on its face, strikes me as a lot more important."

    Well, even if this improvment is more important than equality, meeting basic needs (sufficiency) for all seems a lot more urgent than this improvement. If these two conflict, I do not see how pursuing the improvement for some/many people is "morally mandatory".
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    Tim, The nanotech part was a joke. But I'll put five bucks on it against catastrophic global warming!
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    Yeah, I'll put 5 dollars down!

    (I figured the nanotech joke referced a book maybe tyler cowen or you made fun of a while back.)
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    Here is the URL to the answer I posted on my blog :
    http://radicallibertarians.blogspot.com/2006/02...

    My basic point is that the question is too restrictive.
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    I thought of a book I own but haven't read, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by Michael Novak. A quick check of "economic growth" in the index led to a couple of places where he asserts that economic growth is necessary for democracy, but he doesn't really develop an argument on this at least where I checked...
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    Hi. Interesting discussion. By happenstance I stumbled upon your site. I am a recent graduate in Philosophy and Poli Sci, I studied Egalitarianism extensively for my senior thesis and will soon be applying to go to grad school. I have two books that might or might not add to this debate. One is "The Limits of Social Growth", by Fred Hirsch. His main argument that there is social, not physical limits to economic growth. There is a disjunct between material and positional goods, and Hirsch separates these very adroitly. Its a great read.
    Two, Amartya Sen wrote a great work called "Developement as Freedom". I have only browsed through it, so I have nothing really to add other than it touches on some of the themes here.
    With economic growth, there is always the murky waters of defining what is "good" for an individual, and how material and positional goods fit into that discussion. Absolute scales don't always work for assigning "value" to goods, so while having more might mean a higher material value, it might not correlate to a higher positional value, or vice versa.
    Rousseauian paradoxes abound! I love it. Thanks for the time.
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    Yes, Hirsch is indispensible as I think Friedman agrees.

    One reason philosophers have not emphasized the importance of economic growth is that its importance is too uncontroversial.

    A better question, I think, is why philosophers have not taken more part in analyzing economic theories of what economic growth is and what's so good about it. This is where the rubber really hits the road in deciding how growth figures into a social welfare function. And I think that philosophers have something to contribute to understanding the nature of such a function and the relation between its role in welfare economics and social policy making.
 

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