Herman Daly is Professor of Ecological Economics, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, USA.
For thirty years he has been a voice in the wilderness detailing the flaws in the growth economy, examining promises of prosperity that neither technology nor resource manipulation can ever fulfill. Not only are there limits to growth, growth does not feed our spiritual or moral lives, a reality almost completely ignored by neo-classical economists.
Daly wants people to realise why some of our most basic assumptions of economics are wrong.
Daly’s book Steady-State Economics is still iconic for those who see the advantages of small scale production, decentralisation, increased durability of products, and increased long-run efficiency in the the use of scarce resources.
He also founded CASSE (the Centre of the Steady State Economy) – an organisation that explores economic growth in earnest, including its downsides. CASSE work to confront the truth that there are limits to growth, and examine other possibilities for managing our economic affairs.
For decades we have been brainwashed into believing that unlimited growth is good.
The Green New Deal is painted as an unaffordable far left pipe dream but how much is it going to cost us not to do this?
Are universities educating our best people or have they become mere networking facilities for big business and politics?