You can tell a penny is dropping for wider society when the neoclassical, free-market economist commentariat writes that growth is bad. Thats effectively what the highly influential New York Times’ Thomas Friedman is saying in this piece and its a world away from things he has written in the past.
OK so he is still pro-growth but just hopes to redefine it as ‘green growth’. That does miss the fundamental point that we can’t grow any more. We are already well beyond safe limits and if we are to share the proceeds of past growth around the world fairly then we in the rich-word MUST stop growing. But its still a pretty major shift from someone like Friedman. Sort of half way to the right answer.
His book Hot, Flat and Crowded seems to suggest Friedman is finally ‘getting it, though he still denies peak-oil. This new book is a huge about-turn on his The Lexus and the Olive-Tree. Apparently at a news conference he even renounced the ‘science’ of economics and vowed to help develop a new steady state economy.
It’s also a sure sign that deep currents in social dialogue are shifting when the conservative New York Times starts to shift its position on such issues. It’s a great sign that chinks are emerging in the manufactured-consent of media denial around issues like climate change and consumerism. Let’s hope for much more of the same.
