Is unfettered growth possible or desirable?
Date: Monday 15 November 2010, 6:30—8:15pm
Venue: The Carriageworks, Millennium Square, Leeds, The Millennium Room
Speakers: Daniel Ben-Ami and Clive Lord
Journalist and author Daniel Ben-Ami and UK Green Party founder-member and author Clive Lord will discuss the limits and desirability of economic growth.
Since the start of the first Industrial Revolution, economic growth has generally been seen as good and desirable. However, over the last forty years, the growth of the economy and the spread of prosperity have increasingly been seen as problematic rather than positive. While some are still willing to defend economic growth, highlighting the gains to humanity it has brought in terms of material wealth, technological progress, increased life expectancy and personal consumption, others accuse prosperity of encouraging greed, damaging the environment, causing unhappiness and widening social inequalities.
So, does economic growth offer solutions to the problems of the world, or is it one of them? Are there limits to growth, whether natural or social, or are possibilities limitless? Isn't the pursuit of happiness more important than the acquisition of wealth? And, as the world enters yet another recession, is continuous economic growth even possible?
Whether you're pro-growth or 'growth-sceptic', come and join what promises to be a lively debate.
Readings & Reviews
Why are limits so hard to accept?, by Jonathan Porritt, Green Futures
Hitting back at growth sceptics, by Andrew Milligan, FundStrategy, 23 August 2010
'Goods are good', by Angus Kennedy, Culture Wars, 29 July 2010
Growth Isn't Possible: Why we need a new economic direction, New Economics Foundation
Growth sceptics selling the economy short, by Daniel Ben-Ami, The Australian, 26 July 2010
Why more is really more, by Sean Collins, Spiked Review of Books, Issue no.35, June 2010
Bjorn Lomborg - Hero or Villain? by Clive Lord, Green Party website
Prosperity without growth is a contradiction in terms, by Daniel Ben-Ami, The Independent, 20 October 2010
Contact us to let us know if you're planning to attend.
