Does our society need growth?
One can answer this question looking at both sides of the income equals outcome equation.
I will try to treat the income side. Therefore, I´ll specify the question a little: do we need steady growth to guarantee a certain minimum life standard for all human beings?
The other rather philosophical question would be whether we need technological growth, resulting in more work efficiency, more comfort and also longer estimated life times.
Keynes wrote in his standard work that he expected us to nowadays live in a perfect world without any unemployment – he underestimated the rising human pursuit of comfort and luxury: despite the exponential growth of work efficiency, increasing human desires have resulted in not only constant but even rising unemployment rates.
To facilitate the question, I will divide up our society into two parts: the employees and the capitalists. All assumptions are based on a solow model with integrated work efficiency affecting technological progress.
Additionally, I will assume that our international economy is more or less pretty close to the stationary point: the accumulation of capital has pretty far reached its maximum.
As I want to answer the question whether growth is required and possible when the global economy is saturated, I will assume the following scenario:
