Thread by @MGSchmelzer

„GDP growth in crisis“ „We need to save the economy and restart growth.“

This crisis shows, how much we take growth for granted: its natural, necessary & good. However, this view is rather new. How did it emerge?

5 years ago, I published a book on this @CambridgeUP. Thread 1/

Yes, modern economies are structurally dependent on economic growth and accumulation. But growth is also an ideology: it unleashes promises, frames thinking, disciplines societies. This ideology only emerged in the 1940s, as did the term in public and academic discourse 👇 2/

What can we learn from this history? A lot🙃
First: „The economy“ is an invention that masks markets and profits as inevitable and natural. GDP statistics were highly controversial among those economists who first invented them. And this has large repercussions, to this day. 3/

Current controversies around #COVID19 posit „the economy“ and its need for rapid reopening and growth AGAINST health, safety and our communities. Should not what we as a society need be the same as what „the economy“ needs? See also by @JKSteinberger👇4/

opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/…

Second: Growth came to be presented as the common good, thus justifying the interests of those profiting from more and more market transactions as beneficial for all. However, growth is not a win-win game – in particular globally and when #ecology is taken into account. 5/

To overcome current crises, from #corona to #climate, we need to undo this ideology & repoliticize „the economy“. Economic policies are not technical, non-political, i.e. how to collectively increase GDP. They embody fundamental conflicts: who benefits and who bears the costs. 6/

Third: growth has not only become the key justificatory ideology of capitalism, but also justifies the devaluation of #care & reproductive activities. #Corona again shows, which work is really necessary: that at the periphery of growth epistemologies, and thus also underpaid. /7

If we want to critically engage economic growth or overcome the growthocene, we need to understand what we're up against. Much more on these arguments in the book. What this means for „The History of the Future of Growth“, we explored in different vol. /8

routledge.com/History-of-the…

I'm so happy the book was well received 🍸🍻🚀 - it got several prizes, including one by the International Economic History Association, Thanks! /9

https://twitter.com/WEHC2021/status/1139158477668962304

And I got the chance to present the book in the OECD in Paris @OECD with @oecd_naec – Video here: /10

video.oecd.org/2134/or/NAEC-T…

Thanks for endorsemts to @g_kallis, @billmckibben, John R. Mcneill, @Tim_Shenk, Patricia Clavin, Hartmut Kaelble and Avner Offer /11

Thanks for all reviews! Among others from/in: @james_forder, @EcHistSocReview, @marieke_lisbeth @laviedesidees, @DianeCoyle1859, @Brototi, @RevueEconomia, @hsozkult, @Fpolitikk, @npl_review, @KirstineDons @Zetlandmagasin, @Salongen_no.
LINKS to all: oecdhistoryproject.net/output/schmelz… /12