Peering into the rubble of the great financial crash of 2008, economists, politicians, the media and the public have been looking for signs of recovery in terms of lasting growth. Not so much stability, mind, but growth – an expanding economy is a living economy, goes the logic, bringing its munificence as jobs and prosperity. Thus every flicker of growth is seized upon with hopeful optimism – ‘Are things finally on the mend?’
But here’s the thing – between 1900 and 2008 world population quadrupled and the economy more than kept up, with GDP per capita increasing sixfold. If one looks at GDP increase for the world as a whole (factoring in the population increase and adjusting for inflation), it has leapt up more than 25-fold.1
