Until 1700 the world economy did not really grow—it just stagnated. Over the previous 17 centuries global output had expanded by 0.1% a year on average, a rate at which it takes nearly a millennium for production to double. Then spinning jennies started whirring and steam engines began to puff. Global growth quintupled to 0.5% a year between 1700 and 1820. By the end of the 19th century it had reached 1.9%. In the 20th century it averaged 2.8%, a rate at which production doubles every 25 years. Growth has not just become the norm; it has accelerated.
Prices rise faster than inflation. You'd have to adjust for prices instead of adjusting for inflation.
Try indexing it to median monthly non-imputed rent per square foot.
That's only "real" in that it's inflation adjusted. It's still the same balooney that GDP is inherently.
What this "growth" is based on is the same rent-seeking and money printing credit I mentioned. And of course even people getting paid to dig and then fill in holes would increase the GDP.
My "dismal results" refers to actual state of labor market and quality of jobs, actual purchasing power, actual production, actual innovation, actual infrastructure, actual quality of life changes, etc. Not GDP or stock market or how rich the 0.00001% gets.
>My "dismal results" refers to actual state of labor market and quality of jobs, actual purchasing power, actual production, actual innovation, actual infrastructure, actual quality of life changes, etc. Not GDP or stock market or how rich the 0.00001% gets.
How convenient that your preferred metrics can't objectively be measured and basically give you free reign to define the results however you want! It's the "community adjusted EBITDA"[1] of economic metrics.
Yet the fairy tale that growth not only can continue indefinitely but continually accelerate has to be kept up. It's almost as though word “enough” has been banned from economy altogether.
> It's almost as though word “enough” has been banned from economy altogether.
without growth people will start to notice all the wealth is accruing at the top; its hard to justify such a system if average people aren't getting better while working more and more
You clearly don't understand what growth is and think it is just more of existing things. Or understand just how dysfunctional things would have to be for stasis to occur. Developing new drugs is growth. There is an industrial learning curve from refinement of techniques that dated back to even handmade artisinal goods in ancient times. Even when there were minimal rewards for doing so. Let alone when educated professionals are dedicating their lives to improving and understanding processes, and are rewarded for it.
If we aren't growing despite billions in research and development and people spending their lives on the tasks, the question is what the hell are we doing that is so deeply, unnaturally wrong that we are doing worse than all of history?
Could you please stop being aggressive with other users in comments here? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and it's very much against the site rules. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Edit: this has unfortunately been a problem for quite a while:
>You clearly don't understand what growth is and think it is just more of existing things. Or understand just how dysfunctional things would have to be for stasis to occur. Developing new drugs is growth.
And yet compared to a couple decades ago we have declining infant mortality and life expectancy, record low for life satisfaction metrics, demographic collapse, climate catastrophes piling up, enshittification, but yay! growth!
