The end of economic growth.

[DBT]

''Tim Jackson states the challenge starkly: “Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must.” This is the core of the debate. Endless growth is a ridiculous notion to the typical ecologist because we live on a planet with finite resources, the mining and use of some of which is undermining our planet’s life-support systems. But the typical economist believes we can “decouple” GNP growth from resource use through the increased efficiency that tends to be intrinsic to capitalism: that we can grow our economies and reverse environmental degradation too. Tesco, as it were, can keep building more stores for ever, provided they are increasingly resource-efficient.''

''Jackson argues compellingly that such “decoupling” is a myth. A key area of argument, as with so much else in the current world, involves climate change. If we keep growing GNP, Jackson explains, then we fail to cut greenhouse gases deeply. This means we stoke destruction of prosperity beyond the short-term horizons – “next quarter’s growth figures” and all the rest – on which we routinely put such emphasis today.''

Prof. Tim Jackson: (SLRG)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Which avoids the point that perpetual growth as the basic economic principle of human society is unsustainable within a world of finite space, arable land, and natural resources (basic physics). At some point perpetual growth is going to hit the wall of supply shock, so it's only a question of when.

It's interesting that people generally don't get this. I suppose it's because the behavior of stripping the local land and the environment of its ability to support an overgrown human population has been the norm. The difference today of course is that we are doing it on a global scale.

So the behavior is not so mysterious. Environmental stewardship is not an old idea.

 

[barbos]

Well, actually, according to physics, purpose of life is to increase entropy at maximum possible rate.
So in a way, all that crap is happening according to laws of nature

Which avoids the point that perpetual growth as the basic economic principle of human society is unsustainable within a world of finite space, arable land, and natural resources (basic physics). At some point perpetual growth is going to hit the wall of supply shock, so it's only a question of when.

If that's your point then it is obvious one and barely worthy of writing a book about it.
My point was that developed world developed beyond simple metric of economic growth and GDP crap.
You can't measure developed economy in amount of cars made and kwh consumed.
I recently learned curious thing that Internet business and such were not included in GDP.
Can you imagine that? Large number of people work and and get income from that, it's get taxed and yet it's not included in GDP.
So they included it. Of course their (politicians) real goal was to inflate GDP, they even went further and included activities which are illegal like prostitution into GDP, I think british did that
Anyway, developed countries are different from China, they do not and can not expand economically, there is
simply no where to expand already, everybody has a car, house, fridge and TV set. They consume the same amount of electricity and milk. The only change is due to innovation. So growth is associated with quality not quantity, and GDP is not designed to measure quality.

 

[skepticalbip]

Which avoids the point that perpetual growth as the basic economic principle of human society is unsustainable within a world of finite space, arable land, and natural resources (basic physics). At some point perpetual growth is going to hit the wall of supply shock, so it's only a question of when.

If that's your point then it is obvious one and barely worthy of writing a book about it.
My point was that developed world developed beyond simple metric of economic growth and GDP crap.
You can't measure developed economy in amount of cars made and kwh consumed.
I recently learned curious thing that Internet business and such were not included in GDP.
Can you imagine that? Large number of people work and and get income from that, it's get taxed and yet it's not included in GDP.
So they included it. Of course their (politicians) real goal was to inflate GDP, they even went further and included activities which are illegal like prostitution into GDP, I think british did that
Anyway, developed countries are different from China, they do not and can not expand economically, there is
simply no where to expand already, everybody has a car, house, fridge and TV set. They consume the same amount of electricity and milk. The only change is due to innovation. So growth is associated with quality not quantity, and GDP is not designed to measure quality.

You could add to that. There are businesses that add to the GDP that reduce resource use. Businesses that plant trees. Businesses that develop GM foods that produces more food on less land, require less insecticides, and less water. Businesses that develop more fuel efficient automobiles. Businesses that design more energy efficient homes. etc. etc.

The predictions of Thomas Malthus and later Paul R. Ehrlich sounded reasonable to anyone who accepted their simplistic understandings but all their predictions have proven to be wrong. We are well past Ehrlich's prediction of mass starvation and food riots in the US before the mid 1980s.

 

[dismal]

So growth is associated with quality not quantity, and GDP is not designed to measure quality.

GDP is the dollar value of all the goods and services an economy produces. Quality affects the dollar value of something.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

 

[barbos]

So growth is associated with quality not quantity, and GDP is not designed to measure quality.

GDP is the dollar value of all the goods and services an economy produces.

That's mathematically perfect definition, which does not include free stuff.

Quality affects the dollar value of something.

That's a thing, it does not, nobody drives a horse anymore so there is no way to see added value in cars compared to horses. Same with pretty much all technology. Nobody buys CRT TVs anymore.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

I know.

 

[dismal]

GDP is the dollar value of all the goods and services an economy produces.

That's mathematically perfect definition, which does not include free stuff.

Quality affects the dollar value of something.

That's a thing, it does not, nobody drives a horse anymore so there is no way to see added value in cars compared to horses. Same with pretty much all technology. Nobody buys CRT TVs anymore.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

I know.

Measured GDP makes no attempt to do anything other than add up the value (as in price paid) of goods and services.

It does not attempt to assess whether a new $500 Model T is more efficient at meeting your needs than a $40 horse. But generally what we spend money on reflects what we value. So we wouldn't buy the Model T if it did not meet our needs better.

Of course our quality of life is very much a function of how effectively our needs are met as opposed to the price of the things we buy. It's just hard to measure that.

 

[barbos]

That's mathematically perfect definition, which does not include free stuff.

Quality affects the dollar value of something.

That's a thing, it does not, nobody drives a horse anymore so there is no way to see added value in cars compared to horses. Same with pretty much all technology. Nobody buys CRT TVs anymore.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

I know.

Measured GDP makes no attempt to do anything other than add up the value (as in price paid) of goods and services.

It does not attempt to assess whether a new $500 Model T is more efficient at meeting your needs than a $40 horse. But generally what we spend money on reflects what we value. So we wouldn't buy the Model T if it did not meet our needs better.

Of course our quality of life is very much a function of how effectively our needs are met as opposed to the price of the things we buy. It's just hard to measure that.

Yes, and this is why GDP growth metric is useless in developed economies.
You know something is wrong with metric, when hurricane which destroys homes is good for GDP
In other words developed economies has already hit the wall of growth.

 

[dismal]

That's mathematically perfect definition, which does not include free stuff.

Quality affects the dollar value of something.

That's a thing, it does not, nobody drives a horse anymore so there is no way to see added value in cars compared to horses. Same with pretty much all technology. Nobody buys CRT TVs anymore.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

I know.

Measured GDP makes no attempt to do anything other than add up the value (as in price paid) of goods and services.

It does not attempt to assess whether a new $500 Model T is more efficient at meeting your needs than a $40 horse. But generally what we spend money on reflects what we value. So we wouldn't buy the Model T if it did not meet our needs better.

Of course our quality of life is very much a function of how effectively our needs are met as opposed to the price of the things we buy. It's just hard to measure that.

Yes, and this is why GDP growth metric is useless in developed economies.
You know something is wrong with metric, when hurricane which destroys homes is good for GDP
In other words developed economies has already hit the wall of growth.

It is what it is. Its failure to do things it was not intended to do is not its fault.

A hurricane may result in an increase in measured GDP in the short run but ultimately spending money fixing broken windows lowers the resources available for other more productive things.

But I agree with your central point, there are certainly divergences between societal well-being and measured GDP. Heck, they even count money spent by government as if it is worth what they pay for things. If they buy a $500 toilet seat or pay people not to grow food it adds to GDP.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

That's mathematically perfect definition, which does not include free stuff.

Quality affects the dollar value of something.

That's a thing, it does not, nobody drives a horse anymore so there is no way to see added value in cars compared to horses. Same with pretty much all technology. Nobody buys CRT TVs anymore.

If someone buys a painting for $10,000 instead of a poster for $10 GDP goes up by $9990.

I know.

Measured GDP makes no attempt to do anything other than add up the value (as in price paid) of goods and services.

It does not attempt to assess whether a new $500 Model T is more efficient at meeting your needs than a $40 horse. But generally what we spend money on reflects what we value. So we wouldn't buy the Model T if it did not meet our needs better.

Of course our quality of life is very much a function of how effectively our needs are met as opposed to the price of the things we buy. It's just hard to measure that.

Yes, and this is why GDP growth metric is useless in developed economies.
You know something is wrong with metric, when hurricane which destroys homes is good for GDP
In other words developed economies has already hit the wall of growth.

Except that "developed" is a relative term. Agriculture arose in an area of the globe which presently no longer supports agriculture unless highly intensive and alternative methods are now used to sustain the present population.

A better metric is needed today, something which has a built in sustainability measurement. We know how much acreage it takes to support cattle but have nothing along those lines about humans. Most people really don't care beyond their lifetimes, unfortunately. If in the meantime they need more pasture they just take it from someone else. That's been the norm historically and continues to be the norm, although there are hints that it is changing.

And yes, we can build vertical farms in our cities, but what of the quality of life? Maybe people will not know and will not care. Maybe they will forget what it is to walk on grass or stand under the shade of a tree or know the sound of flowing water. Who knows?

 

[Bomb#20]

You know, when somebody is looking through his smidgen of familiarity with physics in hope of finding something to back up his conviction that the experts are all wrong because they've all stupidly missed something that's painfully obvious to a non-expert like himself, and he settles on the exact same hard law of physics that is used for the exact same purpose by creationists, he'd be wise to take that as a red flag that he just might be a crackpot.

You haven't read the book? It appears that you have latched onto a paragraph and based your assumptions on an interpretation that suits your own position. Read it first, then offer a reasonable critique.

Why? Do you read every book you can find on the off chance that it will teach you something? Have you read Dianetics? Do you feel you need to read it first before deciding Scientology is a steaming pile of rubbish? That's not how it works. First post a passage where Czech makes a case for his thesis without sounding like an idiot, then tell skeptics to read his book.

 

[DBT]

Which avoids the point that perpetual growth as the basic economic principle of human society is unsustainable within a world of finite space, arable land, and natural resources (basic physics). At some point perpetual growth is going to hit the wall of supply shock, so it's only a question of when.

If that's your point then it is obvious one and barely worthy of writing a book about it.

Obviously it is worth writing about...Universities are pumping out economists who still believe in perpetual growth. It's practically their religion. It not even questioned. If someone brings up the issue of supply shock, that the environment has finite resources, and is the sole source of our economy, etc, they look at you like you've lost your mind.

They, the neoclassical economists, don't question their faith in an ever growing economy. So, yes, books that bring the issue to notice are indeed worthwhile.

My point was that developed world developed beyond simple metric of economic growth and GDP crap.
You can't measure developed economy in amount of cars made and kwh consumed.
I recently learned curious thing that Internet business and such were not included in GDP.
Can you imagine that? Large number of people work and and get income from that, it's get taxed and yet it's not included in GDP.
So they included it. Of course their (politicians) real goal was to inflate GDP, they even went further and included activities which are illegal like prostitution into GDP, I think british did that
Anyway, developed countries are different from China, they do not and can not expand economically, there is
simply no where to expand already, everybody has a car, house, fridge and TV set. They consume the same amount of electricity and milk. The only change is due to innovation. So growth is associated with quality not quantity, and GDP is not designed to measure quality.

According to Neoclassical economics, developed countries cannot stop growing. They believe that a steady state economy is an economy in stagnation. An economy that needs stimulating, immigration, increased birth rates, stimulate demand through ever new models, ipads, cars, endless varieties of nick nacks that end up in land fill, with plastic wrappers forming ever growing islands in our oceans.....

 

[DBT]

You haven't read the book? It appears that you have latched onto a paragraph and based your assumptions on an interpretation that suits your own position. Read it first, then offer a reasonable critique.

Why? Do you read every book you can find on the off chance that it will teach you something? Have you read Dianetics? Do you feel you need to read it first before deciding Scientology is a steaming pile of rubbish? That's not how it works. First post a passage where Czech makes a case for his thesis without sounding like an idiot, then tell skeptics to read his book.

The simple truth is, perpetual growth is impossible within a finite system. That's not idiotic. It's just a fact. The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms. Natural resources are finite, supply of raw materials is limited, systems run down. Perpetual growth is an illusion.

Being both an ecologist and an economist, he is pointing that ''there are serious problems with our current favored indicators of economic well-being, consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. These metrics totally ignore biophysical and ecological realities, implying that growth can continue forever, that it's the solution to all our problems and that its damaging by-products can be shrugged off as “externalities.” As a biologist, Czech knows better, and thus he’s a strong advocate of alternative measures of economic health like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). These alternative metrics take account of important things that GDP does not. For example, a rise in unemployment would have no effect on GDP but likely would bring a drop in GPI.''

You simply label him as a crackpot, but neglect to explain why you believe it. Nor have you explained why you believe the premise itself is flawed.

 

[DBT]

The predictions of Thomas Malthus and later Paul R. Ehrlich sounded reasonable to anyone who accepted their simplistic understandings but all their predictions have proven to be wrong. We are well past Ehrlich's prediction of mass starvation and food riots in the US before the mid 1980s.

Or just miscalculated the timing, albeit by a large margin. The green revolution, etc, extending the period of grace. The problem of perpetual growth within a finite system has not changed. If at some point growth does not stabilize into a steady state economy, we are going to hit the limit of the carrying capacity of our environment. Just basic physics, it's just a question of when carrying capacity of the environment is surpassed.

 

[Bomb#20]

The simple truth is, perpetual growth is impossible within a finite system. That's not idiotic. It's just a fact. The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms. Natural resources are finite, supply of raw materials is limited, systems run down. Perpetual growth is an illusion.

Being both an ecologist and an economist, he is pointing that ''there are serious problems with our current favored indicators of economic well-being, consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. These metrics totally ignore biophysical and ecological realities, implying that growth can continue forever, that it's the solution to all our problems and that its damaging by-products can be shrugged off as “externalities.” As a biologist, Czech knows better, and thus he’s a strong advocate of alternative measures of economic health like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). These alternative metrics take account of important things that GDP does not. For example, a rise in unemployment would have no effect on GDP but likely would bring a drop in GPI.''

You simply label him as a crackpot, but neglect to explain why you believe it. Nor have you explained why you believe the premise itself is flawed.

Okay, first a disclaimer. Comparing your new quotation with the OP makes clear what was not clear before: that the words you're quoting come from a reviewer. The reviewer might be quoting Czech, or he might be paraphrasing: introducing idiocy that Czech isn't responsible for. We'll leave that as an open question.

As to the content itself, there are three issues here.

(1) The appeal to 2LoT is pure quackery. Even if the rest of it were perfectly sensible, including the 2LoT argument discredits the whole thing. You evidently don't understand why it's quackery. In the first place, 2LoT is an assertion about closed systems. The earth is not a closed system. As far as 2LoT is concerned we can keep growing our economy until the sun burns out. And in the second place, when you write "The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms.", exactly which part of "all its forms" don't you understand? The law contains no special exemption for a steady state economy. If 2LoT were a problem for perpetual growth it would be a problem for a non-growing economy too. Duh! These two points are obvious to anybody who learned 2LoT from a physics class. That Czech (or his reviewer) would make those mistakes -- mistakes creationists make too -- shows he's a layman who got his 2LoT "understanding" the same way creationists got it: by osmosis from pop culture. To argue on such a basis is incompatible with serious scholarship.

(2) The portrait of mainstream economics is a caricature. Our "current favored indicators of economic well-being" are a simplified model of complex reality -- an approximation -- and everybody knows it. "Perpetual growth as the basic economic principle of human society" is a windmill for him to tilt at; it isn't a basic principle of actual living breathing neoclassical economists. If you disagree, quote some! You might as well use Mark Twain's calculation that the Mississippi River is going to be a mile and half long in a few hundred years as a disproof of geology. Misrepresenting the views of those you're claiming to refute is also incompatible with serious scholarship.

(3) As you say, that perpetual growth is impossible within a finite system is not idiotic, but simply a fact, yes. As you say, at some point perpetual growth is going to hit the wall of supply shock, so it's only a question of when, yes. Well then, WHEN??? The argument, as stated, is agnostic about whether it's going to be in ten years or in ten thousand years. If it's in ten years, that's a good reason for us to begin winding down our growth; if it's in ten thousand years, then to wind down our growth now is to sentence the human race to unimaginable poverty compared to the sustainable steady-state standard of living we could enjoy. After all, the same argument could have been made ten thousand years ago; do you think we should have accepted the argument back then and remained neolithic hunter gatherers forever? Given that we will have to switch from exponential growth to steady-state economics at some point, I vote that we wait until the economy is so big that all the world's poor people have grown rich, and then switch over. If you're voting against waiting that long, you need to explain why you're voting that way. But not to me -- I'm already rich. You need to explain it to them.

So if you think Czech isn't a crackpot, can you quote him predicting when biophysical realities will put an end to economic growth, and what his reasoning is for that prediction?

 

[DBT]

As to the content itself, there are three issues here.

(1) The appeal to 2LoT is pure quackery. Even if the rest of it were perfectly sensible, including the 2LoT argument discredits the whole thing. You evidently don't understand why it's quackery. In the first place, 2LoT is an assertion about closed systems. The earth is not a closed system.

Solar energy is a given, but in many ways it is a closed system. Arable land is does not come from an external source. Fossil fuels do not come from an external source. Biomass is not wafting down from space, nor is it perpetually expanding (finite planet, a constant solar power input) . The planet Earth is not perpetually growing, nor is it's solar power input. Well it is gradually, eventually making the Earth uninhabitable. Which could be used as a metaphor for the insustainability of perpetual economic growth.

That is the point, we do not support our lifestyle with solar power, wind power, etc, our economic system is based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. And that is not an infinite supply. Being finite, supply cannot be perpetually increased ....

As far as 2LoT is concerned we can keep growing our economy until the sun burns out.

It's highly doubtful that solar power alone can supply the needs of an ever demanding economy. Nor does a finite space, the planet itself, allow infinite growth in production, population growth or demand.

Infinite growth is a pipe dream that's not supported by the physics of a finite system, loss of habitat, biomass, production, waste, pollution, etc.

And in the second place, when you write "The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms.", exactly which part of "all its forms" don't you understand? The law contains no special exemption for a steady state economy.

It's a question of living within the limitations of an ecosystem. Animals that exceed the carrying capacity of their environment collapse to a sustainable level. There are many example that a species is able to live sustainably within its environment. That is the point of a steady state economy: to live sustainably within our environment. Perpetual growth can only takes us to the point of insustainability and beyond. Neither Solar power, nuclear (or anything else) can compensate for sheer numbers within a finite system.

If 2LoT were a problem for perpetual growth it would be a problem for a non-growing economy too. Duh!

Well, duh, sustainability depends on population numbers, technology, demand, lifestyle...a sustainable economy is not impossible. But not in a perpetually growing economy within a finite system, land mass, biomass, etc, because at some point demand exceeds supply.

These two points are obvious to anybody who learned 2LoT from a physics class. That Czech (or his reviewer) would make those mistakes -- mistakes creationists make too -- shows he's a layman who got his 2LoT "understanding" the same way creationists got it: by osmosis from pop culture. To argue on such a basis is incompatible with serious scholarship.

No, at some point an ecologically sustainable lifestyle becomes unsustainable if that lifestyle (economic system) exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment. Basic physics and proven in the field. That's what Neoclassical economist dreamers tend to ignore because it does not suit their needs.

I'll leave the rest. It's just repetition.

 

[Will Wiley]

I vote that we wait until the economy is so big that all the world's poor people have grown rich, and then switch over.

And if that doesn't happen?

 

[dismal]

The simple truth is, perpetual growth is impossible within a finite system. That's not idiotic. It's just a fact. The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms. Natural resources are finite, supply of raw materials is limited, systems run down. Perpetual growth is an illusion.

This is either blindly ignorant or entirely irrelevant. What is and isn't a "resource" depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is human ingenuity. 200 years ago oil was just smelly dirt. It took invention and progress in many areas of human knowledge to magically transform oil into a "resource" that could meet human wants and needs.

But, yes, if you believe most models of the universe we are all hopeless doomed some billions of years in the future. So what.

 

[Bomb#20]

In the first place, 2LoT is an assertion about closed systems. The earth is not a closed system.

Solar energy is a given, but in many ways it is a closed system. Arable land is does not come from an external source. <more of the same snipped>

What we have here is a failure to communicate. I'm writing about what the 2nd law of thermodynamics says, and you're imagining that I'm not really talking about the 2nd law of thermodynamics at all, but instead giving you a stupid argument for why perpetual growth is possible. Yes, arable land can't increase without limit. You could make a valid argument against perpetual growth by pointing out limits on arable land, or on one of the other resources you brought up. The point is, that would not be an argument based on thermodynamics. The 2LoT is not a law about arable land; it's a law about entropy. You don't get to just substitute in anything else you please in place of entropy and assume that what you get is still a law of nature. The 2LoT doesn't imply arable land can't keep growing and growing in pace with our population and our standard of living. All it implies about arable land is that if we ever do find a way to continually manufacture more and more arable land, then when the sun runs out of light elements we'll have to stop; and in the mean time we will not be able to make land any faster than the rate at which the sun manufactures more and more heavy elements, with entropy calculations showing how such and such number of kilos of heavy elements corresponds to one hectare of arable land. (The sun, by the way, manufactures heavy elements very fast.)

So if Czech is right about us running out of new arable land or some other resource, not when the sun burns out in five billion years, but in a hundred years or even in a million years, then it has to be for a reason other than thermodynamics. So he needs to give the actual reason we can't get more of the resource. Saying "it's because entropy increases" is just as nonsensical as saying "it's because electric currents produce magnetic fields." Even if it turns out he's perfectly right that we can't grow for another billion years because land is a finite resource, saying we can't grow for another billion years because entropy increases is going to make him sound like an idiot. Can you understand this?

Which could be used as a metaphor for the insustainability of perpetual economic growth.

This is the underlying problem. You're using the 2LoT not as a law of nature but as a metaphor. Laws of nature are not metaphors. When you use them metaphorically you get invalid arguments.

That is the point, we do not support our lifestyle with solar power, wind power, etc, our economic system is based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. And that is not an infinite supply. Being finite, supply cannot be perpetually increased ....

Actually, it's quite straightforward to manufacture gasoline from solar energy. There was a write-up on the technology for it in Scientific American a few years ago. We currently pump it from pools of fossilized Paleozoic organisms because that's currently cheaper. When that stops being cheaper we'll switch to manufacturing it.

If 2LoT were a problem for perpetual growth it would be a problem for a non-growing economy too. Duh!

Well, duh, sustainability depends on population numbers, technology, demand, lifestyle...a sustainable economy is not impossible. But not in a perpetually growing economy within a finite system, land mass, biomass, etc, because at some point demand exceeds supply.

So that means there must be a difference between a sustainable economy and a perpetually growing one. But 2LoT cannot be that difference. "The second law of thermodynamics applies to economic activity in all its forms." (Your words, my bold.) So why do you and/or Czech insist on dumbing up your argument by going on about thermodynamics?

No, at some point an ecologically sustainable lifestyle becomes unsustainable if that lifestyle (economic system) exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment. Basic physics and proven in the field. That's what Neoclassical economist dreamers tend to ignore because it does not suit their needs.

Why do you believe this about them? Can you quote them? Or are you just insulting people for the sin of disagreeing with you? What evidence do you have that Neoclassical economists are dreamers? What evidence do you have that the reason they ignore carrying capacity is any character defect on their part, rather than simply that they figure it's a problem for the far future?

And if the root of your disagreement with them is simply that you figure it's a problem for the here and now, what evidence do you have as to when growth is going to be stopped by finite resource limits?

 

[Bomb#20]

I vote that we wait until the economy is so big that all the world's poor people have grown rich, and then switch over.

And if that doesn't happen?

If it doesn't happen then we'll have to switch over while some are still poor. But we might as well hold off for as long as possible, so that as few people as possible are still poor when the growth ends.