Growth May Be Good for the Poor — But are IMF and World Bank Policies Good for Growth?
] This is a classic example of society with substantial inequality seeing the benefits of growth accrue to the already rich. To state the obvious, how the benefits of growth are distributed cannot be ignored. In addition, consumerism may not lead to the happiness or the “better society” which many economists imply to be its results. If consumerism is an attempt to fill an empty life, it is clearly doomed to failure. If capitalism results in an alienated, isolated existence, consuming more will hardly change that. The problem lies within the individual and the society within which they live. Hence, quantitative increases in goods and services may not lead to anyone “benefiting” in any meaningful way. Similarly, there is the issue of the quality of the production and consumption produced by economic growth. Values like GDP do not tell us much in terms of what was produced and its social and environmental impact. Thus high growth rates could be achieved by the state expanding its armed fo
