Qn 2) To what extent is the pursuit of continuous economic growth a desirable goal?

When Donald Trump says “Make America Great Again,” he is alluding to the promise of economic
growth. Just as when Bill Clinton said, “it is the economy, stupid,” he was actually saying that “it is about
economic growth, stupid.” This is the golden promise of politics: continuous economic growth. Golden,
because it is effortlessly translated in voters’ minds to mean more jobs, more money in the economy, and
therefore more income in everyone’s pockets. Continuous economic growth can certainly fulfil all of these
conditions because it leads to the creation of numerous wealthy communities. Additionally, governments
can channel the resources that they have gained from this continuous economic growth to further enhance
the country. However, continuous economic growth may not be an entirely positive matter because
achieving such a goal can harm the well-being of citizens, due to unnecessary pressure stemming from the
workplace, resulting in a myriad of negative ecological impacts and exacerbate the income gap between
the rich and the poor. Therefore, I believe that the pursuit of continuous economic growth is, ultimately,
an undesirable goal because the harms overweigh the benefits engendered from such growth.

Proponents of the argument will avouch that the pursuit of continuous economic growth is a desirable
goal because it leads to the creation of prosperous communities. When there is sustained economic
growth, the material standard of living amongst the population improves because it causes the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) of the country to increase, which causes the national income of the country to
rise. As a result, consumer and business confidence increases, causing consumption as well as the
investments pumped into the economy to rise, which will further fuel and stimulate the economy.
Additionally, household incomes will increase, which will cause the level of material comfort across the
nation to rise. Hence, when a country pursues continuous economic growth, it will become increasingly
prosperous and wealthy, which will enhance the reputation of the country as it demonstrates its
remarkable economic stability. Countries that exemplify this are Taiwan and South Korea, which both
achieved unprecedented economic growth and, consequent, economic prosperity between the 1970s and
the 1990s, as they maintained remarkable annual average growth rates of 9-10% from 1970 to 1980 and
7-9% from 1980 to 1990 while achieving high levels of development rivalling that of already
industrialised countries. This economic success of the countries, as a result of sustaining their economic
growth throughout the two decades, greatly improved their reputation, and it gave them the name —
‘The Asian Tigers’. By the same token, in Malaysia, Mahathir’s goal to achieve sustained economic growth
compelled him to liberalise Malaysia’s economy and emphasise on industrialisation, which made her one
of the largest exporters of semiconductors, textiles and footwear in the 90s. Such policies helped Malaysia
achieve 8% annual growth between the 1980s and 1990s and, consequently, she became one of the
wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia. Hence, the pursuit of continuous economic growth can be a
desirable goal because it leads to the creation of more affluent communities.

Additionally, continuous economic growth can improve the flexibility of governments to channel the
resources that they have gained into enhancing the state of the country. When there is continuous
economic growth, the overall employment of the country will continually increase. When this happens,
the government’s budget position will improve from a global standpoint, and its budget will be more
flexible. This is because there will be an increase in tax revenue collected from income tax and indirect tax,
a fall in government spending on unemployment benefits as well as an increase in the corporate tax
collected from profits. As a result, there will be low social costs for the government, allowing them to
channel any form of budget surplus into the improvement or expansion of the infrastructure, education or
healthcare sectors of the economy. As an illustration, after World War Two, the Japanese government
began pursuing continuous economic growth by boosting business through the provision of low-interest
loans to sectors designed for growth and organising the economy to facilitate development, resulting in
annual growth of 10% in Japan’s real GNP from 1950 to 1973. The budget surplus that resulted from this
move was then utilised by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), which provided
financial support for the export industry, favoured industrial sectors, provided subsidies and tax incentives
to them and protected them from foreign competition. This continued to facilitate the Japanese economy
and enhanced the overall state of the country. Similarly, between the 1950s and the 1970s, the Western
European governments began adopting Keynesian economics to stimulate economic growth and improve
stability in the private sector. This was done through a reduction in interest rates, lower taxation and
investments in infrastructure. As a result, progressive taxation rates often surpassed 50 per cent of personal
income, and with these large tax incomes, the governments’ budgets expanded and the states increased
their expenditures accordingly, concentrating the spending on social welfare. Hence, Western Europe
prospered economically despite the damages that they experienced during the Second World War because
the governments channelled the budget surplus that they had gained to enhance the welfare and standards
of living in the country. Therefore, the pursuit of continuous economic growth can be a desirable goal
because it can improve the flexibility of governments to channel the resources that they have gained into
improving the state of the country.

However, when the government has an obsessive fixation on achieving continuous economic growth, it
can be harmful to the well-being of individuals, as it can translate into the deterioration of mental health
among citizens subjected to it. Certain times, when a country continues to place the achievement of
sustainable economic growth as a top priority, it can lead to many social problems, whereby a trade-off is
being made, in which the mental health of citizens is being compromised. This can mostly be seen in the
workplace, whereby workers experience mental health issues related to work stress and an increase in
unhappiness. When this happens, the non-material standard of living of the nation will begin worsening
because the government’s aim to pursue continuous economic growth can result in the maximisation of ill
effects on citizens. For instance, while Singapore records high economic growth rates of three to five per
cent per annum, a survey by Willis Towers Watson in 2018 found that 60 per cent of employees
experienced above average or high levels of stress. Similarly, since the 1950s, Japan heavily emphasised her
goal of attaining continuous economic growth, which, as a result, has developed a stressful and punishing
work ethic across all Japanese communities. This can be seen in Statista’s report in 2017 that over 58 per
cent of employees in Japan felt strongly troubled about their current working situations. Furthermore,
Japan has a culture of long working hours, and many young Japanese workers are working themselves to
death. The term ‘karoshi’, which translates to ‘death by overwork’ in Japanese, is a legal term recognised as
a cause of death in Japan. Hence, when the government obsesses over attaining continuous economic
growth, it can place an overwhelming amount of pressure on individuals, which can negatively impact
their well-being.

Moreover, critics believe that the pursuit of continuous economic growth is myopic because industrial
development, which is a major force that influences the trajectory of economic developments in the
country, is detrimental to the environment. The pursuit of continuous economic growth has spelt disaster
for the environment because many harmful effects have been inflicted it, as a result of such a goal.
Scientists have proven that environmental degradation and the global carbon footprint have indeed
skyrocketed since the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Continuous economic growth means that
the production of outputs in the country is increasing due to a great demand in the market for labour,
increasing factory activities. When there is a large number of factory activities facilitated in the economy,
there will be a high quantity of toxic waste, pollutants and other negative externalities released into the
environment. This means that there will be poorer air quality, which will negatively impact the health of
the general population as well as endanger biodiversity. For instance, in Bangladesh, the government has
invested large sums of its revenue in developing local industries. This has proven to be effective as the
economy experienced exponential development in the years thereafter due to rapid industrialisation.
However, the product of this rapid industrialisation was increased industrial emissions, and, as a result,
Bangladesh is now the 43rd most vulnerable country to the effects of climate change and 25th least-
prepared to tackle such consequences. Similarly, urbanisation and deforestation are also taking place at an
alarming and unregulated rate, as a result of the advancement of machinery in clearing lands for industrial
and residential purposes. This is especially prominent in poorer countries like the Philippines, which has
had a deforestation rate of 26% — one of the highest in the world — for the past two decades because
these countries are perpetually seeking to achieve continuous economic growth to further reduce their
poverty rates and become more prosperous. However, the implications of deforestation on the
environment are discomfiting because it is a major cause of global warming, due to the vast amounts of
carbon emissions released into the environment, and the tremendous biodiversity loss. Therefore, the
environments in such countries have, consequently, undergone the vicissitudes of detrimental human
actions that are a result of an obsessive fixation on achieving continuous economic growth.

Furthermore, the pursuit of continuous economic growth is undesirable because it can exacerbate income
inequality and poverty in the nation. When a country begins concentrating more of its resources into
achieving sustainable economic growth, there is a possibility that inclusive economic growth is
compromised as all echelons of society might not receive an equitable share of the benefits that are a result
of such economic progress. Under free-market competition, the rich are in an inherently advantageous
position to accumulate more wealth, and the poor will have to work harder to avoid getting poorer.
Without any redistributive efforts, wealth will begin begetting wealth, while poverty will begin begetting
poverty. When the Vietnamese government embraced Doi Moi after 1986 to achieve continuous
economic growth, the status of the Vietnamese economy was elevated as the government began embracing
capitalism and, subsequently, privatising Vietnamese industries. However, the government’s transition
towards achieving sustained economic growth led to an increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, in
which 10% of the wealthiest had 10.6 times the income of the poorest decile. This exacerbated income
inequality in Vietnam. By the same vein, although Singapore’s economy has been experiencing continuous
economic growth, the income inequality in Singapore is still one of the worst in Asia, and this can be seen
in her Gini Coefficient, which measures the distribution of wealth in a country and is an indicator of
income inequality. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s
(OECD) statistics extract in 2012, Singapore’s Gini Coefficient was at 0.414, which was significantly
higher than the other economically-developed countries in OCED, showing that her income inequality is
continuously exacerbated. Without changes to how wealth is generated and distributed, the political
convulsions that have swept the world in recent years will only intensify. Hence, it is evident that the
pursuit of continuous economic growth is undesirable because it can further inflame the income
inequality and poverty present in the nation.

The fact that the pursuit of continuous economic growth is keeping many economies wealthy and stable
today, but is threatening both social and civilisational cohesion, and ultimately the very capacity of this
biosphere to sustain life, is a terrible paradox. In addition to this, most politicians, like Donald Trump and
Bill Clinton, deal with this paradox by ignoring it. However, whether it is the fact that the Antarctic ice is
now melting three times faster than we thought, or the declining mental health of millennials that is a
result of their long working hours and stagnant wages, or the fact that, according to a gloomy American
study, between 1980 and today, almost none of the gains acquired from continuous economic growth are
accrued to the bottom half of the population, we cannot deny the repercussions of such an objective. For
the future of humanity, governments must craft new and inclusive growth models by moving from
quantitative economic growth, that only focuses on the financial aspects of the economy, towards
qualitative economic growth, that also focuses on the well-being of the nation. This way, leaders can
minimise the various negative impacts of continuous economic growth on the citizens and country, and
reap as many benefits as possible.