But in any case, the semantics of "growth" is one thing - no doubt that growth that is visible to the naked eye during one generation is a post 1700 phenomenon - but sustainability is a very different thing.
Even if we assume that growth is exclusively a capitalist creation, there is nothing in that growth that necessarily means inevitable limit or end. Again, it is mainly about semantics and metaphors. If we understand growth as physical expansion in a finite space (e.g. the planet) then yes, there must be a limit. But if we define it as cyclical expansions and contraction, or as growth in a multidimensional space (e.g. physical, social, informational, etc.) there is no inherent limits to it.
As I can see, sustainability of capitalism - or rather modern industrial society - lies not in some abstract economic notion, which is modern age theology anyway - but in its material and technological capacities that give it the power to overcome material forces that are detrimental to the survival of human society (e.g. lack of food, the elements, natural disasters, disease etc.). We have a much better chance to survive as society today than ever before, and the fact that two abstract lines do not cross each other where they are supposed to is totally irrelevant for this material fact.
Wojtek
On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 4, 2013, at 9:13 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So there was no growth between, say, ca. 2000 BC and the middle ages?
>> They pace of growth might have accelerated with the industrial
>> revolution, but there was certainly some growth before, even if slow.
>> Medieval Europe certainly enjoyed material and technological advantage
>> over the "barbarian" tribes during the Roman times.
>>
>> Besides, I do not want to quibble over the issue of growth, which is
>> pretty academic. My main point is against the left-wing millenarism
>> that the end is near because capitalism cannot sustain itself. It has
>> been doing all right for the past 200+ years as far as I know, and
>> there do not seem to be any serious threats on its horizon either.
>
> Maddison too. "Growth," as we know it, whether measured in money or in disruptive technological change, is almost entirely post-1700.
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-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."