Thanks for this thoughtful post. It and the comments raise some important issues. One of the reasons we focus so much on job creation is that technology has been making us more efficient but we keep on working as many hours or more than we used to. So our solution has been to try to increase consumption, to put all these extra people to work (people no longer needed to provide our basic necessities and people created through unabated population growth).

Contrary to one comment, innovation and technology cannot enable perpetual economic growth. We have a finite supply of natural capital (resources) and we are in the process of liquidating them right now, because of our obsession with economic growth and our ignorance of population growth. Economic growth unfortunately consumes these resources.

I also think that economic growth is an inefficient means of bringing people out of poverty. Look at how much poverty remains in the world and how many uber-rich we have. If we keep growing until everyone is out of poverty, we'll have consumed several Earths in the process. The growth profiteers do love to trot out the notion of ending poverty as a defense of their excess, but I don't think we should buy it. They spend very little of their time and money trying to eradicate poverty (in fact, they spend most of their time exploiting the impoverished, who interest them only as a source of cheap natural resources and as a potential market to buy their products).

Your notion of stability is on the money. There are economists (a few) and even organizations promoting a steady state economy. Rather than list them here, I'll suggest you visit my documentary website and look in the economic growth section for some excellent books and organizations.

I applaud the excellent use of logic here! We need more of that.

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com