Lecture 5 - Degrowth Flashcards
(23 cards)
What is the main difference between progress and growth?
Answer: Progress represents change for the better, while growth is neutral and simply means an increase in something.
Who developed the first US national income assessment and in which year?
Answer: Simon Kuznets developed it in 1934.
What are the three methods to calculate GNP?
- Production Perspective: Value of Production minus Value of Intermediate Goods
- Utilization Perspective: Private Consumption + Investments/Savings + Government Consumption + (Exports - Imports)
- Income Perspective: Wages + Profits + Interests + Depreciation
What is the key difference between GDP and GNP?
Answer: GNP measures income earned by all residents of a country, while GDP measures income earned within the boundaries of a country.
What is the Easterlin Paradox?
Answer: Despite doubled US incomes (1946-1970), satisfaction levels remained static, suggesting money doesn’t directly correlate with happiness.
What are the two types of decoupling?
Answer: Relative decoupling and absolute decoupling.
List five core principles of the degrowth movement.
Answer:
1. Environmental protection
2. Anti-capitalism
3. Feminism
4. Non-violence
5. Bottom-up approach
What is full-reserve banking?
Answer: A system of banking where banks keep 100% of depositors’ money available at all times and can only lend from time deposits.
What is the difference between relative and absolute decoupling?
Answer: Relative decoupling involves increased resource productivity and decreased environmental intensity, while absolute decoupling involves an absolute decrease in resource consumption and absolute decrease in pollution during economic growth.
What was Malthus’s prediction, and why was it criticized?
Answer: Malthus predicted a “Malthusian catastrophe” as population increased and earth couldn’t produce subsistence. He was criticized for underestimating the Industrial Revolution and technical progress in agriculture.
What are the three main implementation goals of degrowth?
Answer:
1. Environmental Pressure Reduction -> create new consumption patterns, economic regionalization through trade barriers, people-friendly technology, less material-intensive production
2. Redistribution -> e.g. through UBI, maximum wage
3. Post-materialist Change -> increased political participation and direct democracy, reduced working hours, focus on sufficiency, self-subsistence & conviviality
What is the Human Development Index (HDI) based on?
Answer: It is based on Amartya Sen’s work on human capabilities.
Name the limitations of GNP as a wellbeing measure.
Answer:
Measurement inaccuracies: Excludes household production & Includes negative events paradoxically (e.g. wars could increase GNP)
Doesn’t accurately measure happiness/wellbeing
Doesn’t account for environmental impact -> GNP growth links to resource depletion and environmental degradation.
What is the concept of conviviality in degrowth?
Answer: Conviviality refers to “living together” and is part of degrowth’s vision of a good life.
Who originated the economic cycle concept and when?
Answer: Francois Quesnay originated it in 1758.
What are the four elements of degrowth’s vision of good life?
Answer:
1. Sufficiency (having enough)
2. Self-subsistence
3. Conviviality
4. Participatory democracy
What are the main challenges facing the degrowth movement?
Answer:
1. Question of coherence and feasibility
2. Limited potential for bottom-up change
3. Complex relationship with liberal democracy
4. Lack of engagement with mainstream economics
What redistribution measures does degrowth propose?
Answer:
1. Universal Basic Income
2. Maximum wage
3. Local currencies
4. Full-reserve banking
What does degrowth NOT represent?
Answer: It’s not necessarily a reduction in GDP, but rather a reduction in physical throughput/material decoupling, and it’s not really a strategy for the Global South.
What is the utilization perspective formula for calculating GNP?
Answer: Private Consumption + Investments/Savings + Government Consumption + (Exports - Imports)
What is economic growth?
Economic growth refers to increased production of goods and services, measured by Gross National Product (GNP)
What is the economic cycle?
Economic cycle shows relationship between firms and households in an economy → demonstrates how money, goods, services & resources flow between different sectors of an economy
What is the Human Development Index?
Used to rank countries according to their performance regarding human developments
