1 1 From growth to sustainability Brett Dolter and Peter A. Victor OVERVIEW In Paris, on 14 December 1960, the member governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development signed a convention which opened with the commitment “to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries” (OECD 1960, Article 1a). In the mid- twentieth century this prioritization of economic growth was still novel for governments but has since become the norm, not just for members of the OECD, but for virtually all governments around the world. The dominant belief is that ever-expanding economic output can provide the means to tackle most if not all of the problems confronting society, such as unemployment, poverty, and environmental degradation, and provide funding for transit, education, health, the arts and more. Indeed, without growth, the concern is that these problems and funding requirements will only get worse. So the pursuit of economic growth provides a compelling narrative for all those interested in economic policy and the future direc- tion of society. About a quarter of a century after the OECD Convention, the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) questioned whether and under what conditions economic growth could be sustained. The Commission envisaged a future characterized by sustainable develop- ment rather than unrestrained economic growth. While sustainability has not replaced growth as the order of the day, at least as far as governments are concerned, it has entered the vocabulary of public discourse where a key division exists between those who think that growth and sustainability are perfectly compatible and those who think that a choice must be made between them. Nourishing this ongoing debate is rich intellectual discussion around the relationship between economic growth and sustainability dating back at least as far as Mill (1848 [1970]). In 1972 the discussion entered public and political discourse with the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972) which posited a conflict between growth and sustainability. Their simulations of the world system suggested that if trends continued, economic growth would seriously deplete the world’s Brett Dolter and Peter A. Victor - 9781783473564 Downloaded from Elgar Online at 07/08/2020 11:16:46PM via free access