The study of growth is fast becoming its own area of academic inquiry. Contributions have come from a variety of scholars interested in both the history and future of economic growth, including historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and economists. We can trace this recent, cross-disciplinary interest to two distinct historical developments. First, the financial crisis of 2008 led to increasing concerns regarding inequality and shrinking opportunities for all but the wealthiest of the wealthy. Second, the climate crisis has prompted many to rethink the obsession with economic growth in light of planetary limits. Whereas orthodox economists seek out strategies to maximise growth while simultaneously cutting greenhouse gas emissions, activists like Greta Thunberg accuse them of magical thinking, of believing in 'fairy tales of eternal economic growth'.
This course will excavate the history of contemporary debates regarding growth, planetary limits, and the climate crisis. Starting with the eighteenth-century rise of quantitative thinking as a dominant mode of statecraft, students will work their way through the expansion of colonial empires and the fossil fuel revolution, before concluding the course with more recent calls for an end to growth. Geographically and chronologically we will range from early modern Britain and nineteenth-century America to post-war Japan and postcolonial Botswana. Methodologically, students will be asked to consider the thorny problem of how ideas are translated into action, as well as the equally vexing issue of how language is (or is not) tied to practice.
