

Do the Math: Can Economic Growth Last? - nkurz
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/

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glimcat
Sort of? It depends a lot on how you frame the question. To first-order,
modern economics goes as the number of connections between nodes. There is
quite a lot of potential growth between the current status quo and the
maximized economic state for a population at planetary carrying capacity
(whatever that is).

The things is, economies scale according to the sort of activities which are
being conducted. Primitive agrarian economies are fairly linear. Modern
economies are fairly exponential. There are many cases in between, and the
degree of local self-sufficiency also varies greatly.

Can economic growth last? Well, there are ups and downs. Events can create
setbacks. Geographic localities can experience recession while the global
picture is one of growth, and the same is true in the time domain. The current
types of economic activities can probably show a general global trend of
growth for quite some time to come.

But in the long term, it is likely that a phase transition of some sort would
occur, making the question rather moot.

tl;dr: The answer depends heavily on how you frame the question.

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nasmorn
The article never claimed that status quo can't continue for some time.

It showed quite clearly that this time is bound to between half a century and
a few hundred at most.

After that our economy ceases to function even though we would be enjoying
incredible prosperity.

tl;dr The party is going to end but you might die before it does.

~~~
glimcat
Resource scaling is likely to be a problem long before theoretical economic
maximum anyway. The entire question is just an exercise to play with the math.

