DanielCohenThe Infinite Desire for GrowthPrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 184 p. $24.95

Abstract

As the twenty-first century progresses, Daniel Cohen arrives at a provocative conclusion: “We must try to imagine a world in which happiness and satisfaction with one's life are less dependent on the expectation of constantly earning more (6).” In this slim, erudite volume the director of the Economics Department at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris tells us why. In Part I, “The Origin of Growth,” we quickly move through the millennia during which homo sapiens made the transition from small hunting and gathering groups to large agricultural societies whose growing population densities seem destined to produce mass starvation (à la Malthus) but which eventually provoke the increased innovation (à la Boserup) that led to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. “Progress,” the Enlightenment ideal, embraced autonomy and freedom in place of a feudal hierarchal social order. The Industrial Revolution redefined the meaning of “progress,” giving it a material foundation: the continual improvement in the living standard of the average individual. Through much of the twentieth century, such an improvement took place and the expectation that it would continue became internalized. But toward the end of the century, incomes stagnated in many developed countries—90 percent of the US population has experienced no growth in purchasing power over the last 30 years. In Part II, “The Future, the Future!” Cohen outlines the debate occurring among economists over what the future holds. There are those (Kurzweil, Moore, Romer) who highlight rapid technological and scientific advances and contend that the twenty-first century will experience “endogenous growth” in the production of wealth at perhaps a 4 percent annual rate. There are others (Frey and Osborne, Gordon, Autor) who see a dark side to the digitalization of the economy. Not only are assembly-line workers being made redundant, but increasingly middle-class jobs—accountant, auditor, pilot, economist, medical staff—are being replaced by computer code. Such “level 2” jobs had been 60 percent of the US workforce in 1970 and have fallen to 45 percent by 2012. These pessimists predict weak growth for the twenty-first century as wealth flows predominately to the few possessing capital. With modest wages generating lackluster demand, the “secular stagnation” (Summers) of economies is likely. The spread of the fertility transition has lessened the likelihood of mass starvation, but the world's seven-fold increase in population and forty-fold increase in energy consumption between 1800 and 2010 has ushered in the Anthropocene Epoch in which earth systems as a whole are being modified by human activities. Rising greenhouse gases are changing climate and necessitating fundamental modifications in economic structures. Maximizing individual incomes can no longer be our major priority. What is to be done? In Part III, “Rethinking Progress,” Cohen contends that that while modern individuals still seek greater happiness through increased wealth, this approach was always bound to fail since research (Easterlin) documents that wealth does not correlate well with happiness. While general contentment might have existed when most were experiencing rising incomes during the twentieth century, this false road to happiness needs to be directly confronted if general despair and anger are to be avoided during an era of slow growth. These times call for a new strategy for achieving happiness: the construction of a global, more truly democratic community; a refocusing of individual desires on “quality, not quantity”; and a commitment to jointly work for the conservation of the planet.