Without growth, won’t the poor be abandoned to their poverty?
This is one of the first ripostes to anyone who questions growth. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true – the growth model of economics cannot solve poverty. Poverty is relative, and growth is distributed unequally, which means that when the economy grows, the rich get richer much faster than the poor get less poor. Even if distribution was equal, a rise in incomes for everyone means the proportions would stay the same. As I’ve shown elsewhere, Britain’s economy has grown fivefold in the last thirty years without reducing the number of households living in poverty.
