Is Economic Growth a Positive Sum Game (Jim O'C)

[Barbara Laurence]

So says Brad, who must have read Hirschman and Schumpeter. The latter said
there is war in capitalism only because of atavistic thinking/feeling; that
trade and accululating money are essentially pacifist activities. Hirschman
writes convincingly of the "passions" and the "interests" -- the latter
dominant in capitalism, the former in medieval times, religious states, and
other irrational forms. He makes clear that the Dutch understood this from
the start, legitimating Dutch commercial and physical expansionism on the
ground that the interests subordinated the passions. There are a lot of
problems with these formulations. One of them is that negative
externalities are ignored. Economic growth to date anyway hasn't been
positive sum game because negative externalities tend to be borne by the
poor or not so well-to-do, while the well-to-do tend to appropriate the
positive externalities for themselves. The whole process of
industrialization/economic growth suffocated, poisoned, etc., much of the
population of Lancashire (latter Pittsburg, etc.) while the well-to-do
lived on the hill and had trout streams out of harm's way. Positive
externalities such as come from "clustering" development went to capital.
In other words, there are huge effects of economic growth the "cost" of
which doesn't fall on capital but rather the have-nots. One can go a step
further and add that fast growth hence fast growth of positive
externalities for the haves were and are possible only because negative
externalities were also growing fast, which fell mainly on labor, the poor,
people of color, etc.
Jim O'Connor