No More Growth

I think there is something to be said about Thomas Homer Dixon’s article “Economies Just Can’t Keep Growing”. He hits an issue that we all should be looking at and that the current growth that we are used to seeing in markets that are based off of the Earth resources is going to come to an end as we deplete more of these resources. Take for example the United States dependency on oil. Oil is not an unlimited resource and someday oil is going to be depleted. And with its depletion leading to new hard ships, sure there are those who say we can switch to other resources. But someday those resources are going to run out. This argument can be said with not just oil but with also coal and other natural gases.
What I find refreshing about Dixon’s article is he does not only present us coming to a shortage of these raw materials as being an environmental problem, but an economical problem and a development problem. All of our economies are based off of what we produce and if a country is unable to produce anything because they no longer have any resources. Then their economies are not going to be able to grow, leading to economic decline or just flat out stagnation.
Dixon also shows how this is going to be a problem for the developing nations who are looking to advance economically on the global stage. With a decrease in raw materials this will be even harder for these countries to get a footing, keeping them in the same position that they are in now. And for developed countries a decrease in raw materials will lead to people having to readjust their lives and learning to accept the fact that they are not going to be able to live the life style that there use to. In a board sense Dixon is alluding to a world where we are always in an economic recession, with no outlook of growth every again.