Why do we need economic growth?

Most things don’t grow forever. If a person grew at the same rate for his whole life, he’d become gigantic. Yet most economists are united around the idea that the economy needs to grow, always. And at a high rate, for the good of the country and its people.

• Economic growth is the increase in the goods and services produced by an economy, typically a nation, over a long period of time. It is measured as percentage increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) which is gross domestic product (GDP) adjusted for inflation. The economic growth every year is essential to a country’s stability and prosperity. But some economists argue that it makes more sense to focus on measures of well-being than growth.
• Maximizing growth doesn’t necessarily help people, but also that rapid growth can itself come at a cost, such as when the pursuit of growth is used to push through policies that are expected increase the GDP but may have negative consequences for millions.The pursuit of growth can be quite dangerous. The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income.
• For a developing economy where the basic need isn’t met and growth is necessary for more food. Economic growth in a developing economy can go a long way to improving living standards. When people are living in poverty, they experience a deprivation of basic human needs, such as food, shelter, education, basic health care. Economic growth can enable many of these basic needs to be met and this economic growth can radically increase living standards among those countries.
• It's an election winner. Politicians see growth as very important. Elections are won or lost on the state of the economy. Look what happens if growth disappears and recession looms. People get very concerned about falling incomes and rising unemployment. 
• If poverty is to be relieved and the rich are not to be made poorer, then growth is necessary. Making the poor richer is not easy and there are many political obstacles in the way. But at least growth makes it easier.
• When real incomes are already quite high, economic growth can have a marginal impact on living standards. There is a strong diminishing marginal utility to extra income. 
• Economic growth is driven by technological improvements, which reduce the costs of production and enable more to be produced. This technological progress in many ways feels an inevitability. How could you stop this technological progress? Technological improvements have particularly improved the productivity of agriculture and manufacturing. This means we can support ourselves with a smaller % of the workforce on agriculture and manufacturing. Many of new jobs are in service sector.
• In theory, economic growth should enable people to work less, enjoy more leisure time and would enable to retire earlier, if they are able and willing.
• Increased GDP offers the potential for higher living standards but certainly doesn’t guarantee it because of uneven distribution and how it is used. GDP measures activity in the economy, but there’s no way to know whether that activity is actually good for society. The BP oil-rig explosion, which killed 11, and the subsequent spill, which leaked 3 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, actually lifted GDP because of the amount of money spent cleaning it up.
• Economists often say that without growth it will be impossible to address income inequality. But even with growth, there’s no guarantee that inequality will decrease. The economy’s current trajectory is of increasing inequality. Economic growth leads to the depletion of resources - a problem that's likely to get worse as world population and world consumption grows.
• One of the biggest sources of rising expenditure in western economies is health care. There are simply more things that can be treated. Also, there is the irony of having to treat diseases of affluence (such as obesity, heart attacks, cancer etc).
• Economic growth will not solve the fundamental problems of human psychology / behaviour. It can increase sense of inequality. Growth will not reduce the incentives to cheat and steal. It does not make people more charitable and good-natured.
• Environmental problems facing humanity, economic growth could exacerbate these issues and reduce living standards.
• Some of the most content people in the history of the world got by on a lot less. Some saints have argued they were much happier when they forsook their wealth.
• Rather than worrying about increasing real GDP, we could spend time promoting greater social harmony.
• The point is that life is a struggle for most people in developed economies, and technology and increased efficiency has not done much to fix that over the last 40 years. No doubt there are a few that have enjoyed increased leisure time, but at the expense of the masses.

Do we need economic growth? Not really. But, if managed well, it doesn’t have to do any harm and gives the potential to make improvements in our material well-being. Needless to say, economic growth is far from the panacea to make society better. It is a neutral component of human well-being. There’s nothing wrong with targeting economic growth as long as you are aware of its imitations. Governments and society need to be judged on so much more than simply whether their economies are growing.

We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve 

wealthier people serve poorer people as well.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. 

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of 

knowledge, experience, and ability ... Henry Ford

Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point ... Bill Gates

For India with large number of unemployed youth, economic growth is the only way to create enough jobs and security. The present phenomenon of jobless growth is unsustainable. The current trends of economic growth are also associated with increased pollution, over exploitation of non-replenishable natural resources, destruction of ecology etc is a destructive growth. Additional wealth created is grabbed by top 10% wealthiest people. The disparity between rich and poor is widening. This kind of growth is absurd. In an ideally developed world all people should be equal, even though perfection is unachievable. We need to grow to accommodate ever rising population.

The high cost of cheap food

• Never-ending quest for cheap food is the root cause of the transformation of agriculture from a system of small, diversified, independently operated, family farms into a system of large-scale, industrialized, corporately controlled agribusinesses.
• The production technologies that supported specialization, mechanization, and ultimately, large-scale, contract production, were all developed to make agriculture more efficient, to make food cheaper for consumers. Millions of farmers have been forced off the land, those remaining are sacrificing their independence, and thousands of small farming communities have withered and died all for the sake of cheap food.
• The agricultural establishment has boasted loudly that fewer farmers have been able to feed a growing nation with an decreased share of consumer income spent for food. The increases in economic efficiency have been impressive, but not without human costs. 
• There were tremendous savings for consumers from lower food costs, but economists have never bothered to place a value on the lives of farm families that have been destroyed by the loss of their farms, their way of life and their heritage. They have never bothered to consider the value of the lives of rural people with roots in rural schools, churches and businesses who were forced to abandon their communities as farm families were forced off the land. 
• The human costs of cheap food have been undeniably tremendous, but since they couldn't be measured, they have gone uncounted.
• The ecological costs of cheap food is also not measurable and has gone ignored. Today we have degraded the productivity of the land through erosion and contamination, and that we have polluted the environment with agricultural chemicals in our never-ending pursuit of cheaper food. Farms are still losing topsoil at rates far exceeding rates of soil regeneration. Farmers increasingly reliant on herbicides that pollute streams and groundwater and that disrupt or destroy the biological life in the soil.
• All life on earth is rooted in the soil. As farmers destroy the natural productivity of the land, they are destroying the ability of the earth to support life. We are destroying the future of humanity to make agriculture more efficient. What is the value of the future of humanity? We are in fact risking the future of human life on earth just so to have cheap food.
• The globalization of agriculture means that food in future will be grown wherever in the world it can be produced at the lowest cost. High costs of land and labor in the US and favorable urban employment opportunities may keep production costs in the US well above the costs in other food producing regions of the world. The multinational food corporations will produce or buy agricultural commodities wherever they can produce or buy at the lowest cost. Continuing quest for cheap food could mean the end of agriculture in USA.
• The US in the future will become food importer like oil. But imports are subjected huge volatility of prices. Through its military might US might fight wars for maintaining cheap food imports. But what will be the real costs? 
• The costs of making food quick and convenient are no less that the cost of making food cheap. In US, nearly 80% goes to pay for marketing services processing, packaging, transportation, storage, advertising, etc. and only 20% goes to farmers who produce it. So by far the greatest part of the total cost of food is the cost of convenience.
• Most processed foods contain high amounts of sugar, sodium and saturated fat. Consumed in excess they can lead to a myriad of problems, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure. cancer and other chronic diseases.
• Addiction to convenience is placing control of our food supply in the hands of a few giant, multinational corporations.The global food supply today is dominated by a handful of giant agribusiness firms, allied and forming three global food clusters. The greatest cost of convenient food has been the loss of control of food supply.
• The fast food industry has lured low-income consumers, along with the affluent, into paying ridiculously high prices for low-quality meats, potatoes, vegetable oil, and sugar. The true costs of quick food must include the costs of poor health, lost dignity in work, degraded landscapes etc, a tremendously high price for the time saved by choosing quick food.
• As long as people buy the junk, companies will make the junk. Changing a system is harder than changing own habits. There is a high cost to buying cheap food. Poor health comes at a big price: diminished quality of life, fatigue and stress for self & family, lack of productivity, lost work days & income, and expensive medical bills.
• Still there are alternatives at least for many of the things we eat. We can buy from local farmers who are committed to producing foods by ecologically sound and socially responsible means i.e. sustainable agriculture. We can shop at farmers markets, seek out restaurants that buy from local farmers, or buy those few items in the supermarkets that are supplied by local sustainable growers.
• The food we buy from these local people may not be as quick, convenient, or cheap. But, it may well be more than worth the time, effort, and money that we have to spend to get it. It is said that, eating is a moral act. It is the food we choose has an impact upon the lives of other people, upon the earth, and upon the future of humanity. When all of the costs are counted, we simply cannot afford the high costs of cheap food. 

You never fully know how valuable your health is until you lose it.

My View:

In India, agriculture supports 70% of population, less educated & less skilled, living villages with meagre infra and facilities. Even after 25 years of reforms, agriculture is still in the crutches of govt and suppliers and middlemen and farming became risky and non-remunerative. Minimum Support Price, which doesn't even cover input costs, is aimed at looting the farmers to serve vested interest of politicians providing cheap food to lower classes at the expense of farmers. It is imperative to liberate agriculture and enable & empower them recover costs plus 50% as profit margin and lead dignified lives. Otherwise villages and agriculture will perish and that would be disastrous. No country in the world will be able to feed 1.2 billion Indians except Indian farmers.