Open Access Journal Article

How to stop economic growth

by F. L. Van Holthoon a,* orcid
a
Emeritus Professor, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
JEA  2024, 54; 3(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03020002
Received: 24 May 2023 / Accepted: 19 July 2023 / Published Online: 15 June 2024

Abstract

The answer to how to stop economic growth must be political rather than economic. Economic growth made by men has an impetus which can only be stopped by a deliberate choice. It takes national and international decisions to stop it. In order to organize a moratorium on economic growth (which eventually must lead to a stop on growth) I suggest to create blocks of nations in the world. The European Union can function as a model for such a block. The E.U. is on its way of becoming a supra-national government which was created to ensure a level playing field for its members. Now it is meant to create economic growth for its members, in the future its administration should be used to stop it. Blocks should agree on the targets to reach a durable economy. Globally or between certain more advanced blocks a date should be set to stop economic growth after that date. Each block should implement the goals to reach a durable economy and prevent products reaching its market that violate the goals of durability. Blocks in developing countries cannot be expected to stop economic growth. They need that growth for two reasons. Eventually they must reach the level of existence in the more advanced block and secondly they must have the time to improve the standard for durability of their products. They need the aid of the developed countries to reach a higher but also more durable level of production, but this aid comes with a quid pro quo, In the meantime they must do their utmost to stop wars in their regions and conduct a responsible population-policy to reduce the growth of their population and let it reduce on the long term.


Copyright: © 2024 by Holthoon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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ACS Style
Holthoon, F. L. V. How to stop economic growth. Journal of Economic Analysis, 2024, 3, 54. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03020002
AMA Style
Holthoon F L V. How to stop economic growth. Journal of Economic Analysis; 2024, 3(2):54. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03020002
Chicago/Turabian Style
Holthoon, F. L. V. 2024. "How to stop economic growth" Journal of Economic Analysis 3, no.2:54. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03020002
APA style
Holthoon, F. L. V. (2024). How to stop economic growth. Journal of Economic Analysis, 3(2), 54. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea03020002

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