Official “development” against growth

A hugely revealing essay attacking growth by James Gustave Speth for America’s Schumacher Society. Speth is, among other things, a former head of the United Nations Development Programme (1993-9). Yet a man who was entrusted with the leadership of one of the world’s key development institutions is blatantly anti-growth:

“Economic growth may be the world’s secular religion, but for much of the of the world it is a god that is failing – underperforming for most of the world’s people and, for those of us in affluent societies, creating more problems than it is solving. The never-ending drive to grow the overall U.S. economy undermines families, jobs, communities, the environment, a sense of place and continuity, even mental health. It fuels a ruthless search for energy and other resources, and it rests on a manufactured consumerism that is not meeting the deepest human needs.”

Thanks to Austin Williams for the link.