Productivism or growthism is the belief that measurable
productivity and
growth
Growth may refer to:
Biology
* Auxology, the study of all aspects of human physical growth
* Bacterial growth
* Cell growth
* Growth hormone, a peptide hormone that stimulates growth
* Human development (biology)
* Plant growth
* Secondary grow ...
are the purpose of human organization (e.g., work), and that "more production is necessarily good". Critiques of productivism center primarily on the
limits to growth posed by a finite planet and extend into discussions of human procreation, the
work ethic
Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination o ...
, and even alternative energy production.
Arguments for productivism
Although productivism is often meant pejoratively as a general problem in politics and economics, most countries and economies are productivist in nature. While critics of productivism and its political-economic variants, notably
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...
, challenge the notions of conventional
political economy
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
and argue for an economic policy more compatible with humanity, these views are often dismissed as utopian by economists and political scientists, who hold that there is no conflict between the roles of the worker and the citizen. That is, that conventional
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
, particularly
macroeconomics
Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.
For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
, already accounts for the relationship between productivity and the freedom to enjoy that productivity.
Criticism of productivism
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is ...
defines productivism as:
:an ethos in which “work”, as paid employment, has been separated out in a clear-cut way from other domains of life.
He further states:
:
orkdefines whether or not individuals feel worthwhile or socially valued.
Although "productivism" can be considered pejorative, as it is unacceptable to many individuals and ideologies that it describes, these same individuals and ideologies often use phrases like "productivity", "growth", "economic sense", and "common sense" without argument, presupposing the primacy of industry''.
[''
According to those who use the term "productivism", the difference between themselves and the promoters of conventional ]neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
is that a productivist does not believe in the idea of " uneconomic growth". That is, the productivist believes all growth is good, while the critic of productivism believes it can be more like a disease, measurably growing but interfering with life processes, and that it is up to the electorate, worker, and purchaser to put values on their free time and decide whether to use their time for production or their money for consumption.
A key academic critic of productivism is Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economi ...
, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Economics
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
. His theory of "development as freedom" is one of several human development theories that state that the growth of individual capital—that is, "talent", "creativity", and "personal ingenuity"—is more significant than the growth of many other measurable quantities, such as the production of products for commodity market
A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investin ...
s.
In his essays
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
from 1975, the British economist E. F. Schumacher remarked:
:''Infinite growth in consumption in a world of finite resources is an impossibility.''
and:
:''When my child grows, I am pleased. When I grow, less so!''
See also
* Agricultural productivity
Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to inputs. While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known as crop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficu ...
* Anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
* Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
* Critique of political economy
Critique of political economy or critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and ...
* Critique of work
Critique of work or critique of labour is the critique of, and wish to abolish, work ''as such'', and to critique what the critics of works deem wage slavery.
Critique of work can be existential, and focus on how labour can be and/or feel meaning ...
* Degrowth
Degrowth (french: décroissance) is a term used for both a political, economic, and social movement as well as a set of theories that critique the paradigm of economic growth. It can be described as an extensive framework that is based on crit ...
* Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism (also known as green socialism or socialist ecology) is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansi ...
* Green anarchism
Green anarchism (or eco-anarchism"green anarchism (also called eco-anarchism)" in '' An Anarchist FAQ'' by various authors.) is an anarchist school of thought that puts a particular emphasis on ecology and environmental issues. A green anarchi ...
* Green growth
Green growth is a term to describe a hypothetical path of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable. It is based on the understanding that as long as economic growth remains a predominant goal, a decoupling of economic growth from resou ...
* Green parties
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
* Gross national happiness
Gross National Happiness (GNH), sometimes called Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross Na ...
* Happiness economics
The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typicall ...
* Human development theory
* Humanistic economics
Humanistic economics is a distinct pattern of economic thought with old historical roots that have been more recently invigorated by E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973). Proponents argue for "persons-fir ...
* Individual capital
* '' The Limits to Growth''
* Money-rich, time-poor
__NOTOC__
Money-rich, time-poor, is an expression used to describe groups of people who have relatively little leisure time despite having a high disposable income through well-paid employment. Time poverty has also been coined as a noun for the ...
* Post-growth
* Post-work society
* Refusal of work
Refusal of work is behavior in which a person refuses regular employment."Refusal of work means quite simply: I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of technology, of progress. Auton ...
References
{{reflist
Economic ideologies
Political terminology
Economic growth
Production and manufacturing