Why growth is good Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Why growth is good - Essay Example This essay discusses that in the beginning of the article Why Growth is Good, the author frankly asserts, â€Å"Economic growth is slowing in the United States. It’s also slowing in Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and Canada. It’s even slowing in China.† Apparently, this claim has not been statistically interpreted or supported in the article which may be regarded as a significant drawback. Yet, the claim is simple and has a well defined argument. We can see in our day-to-day experience that in the developed countries, demands are lowering, unemployment is increasing and no significant industrial start-up is taking place. The next important claim is that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a very important standard in measuring the socio-economic situation of a country. Unfortunately, the writer has not provided with a contextual definition of GDP anywhere in the article. Also, the writer is apparently not much worried about the controversies regarding GDP, whi le academicians are debating over it more and more. However, Reich (2010) forthrightly writes, â€Å"Nations with high and growing GDPs have more overall capacity; those with low or slowing GDPs have less.† This argument reflects that the author tries to establish a proportional relationship between the GDP of a country and its overall prosperity. The author argues, â€Å"The United States has the largest capacity in the world. But relative to other rich nations it chooses to devote a larger proportion of that capacity to consumer goods, health care, and the military.†... Further, Reich (2010) has put significant blame on the United States for today’s gloomy economic situation. The author argues, â€Å"The United States has the largest capacity in the world. But relative to other rich nations it chooses to devote a larger proportion of that capacity to consumer goods, health care, and the military.† (Reich, 2010) In this way, the author tries to focus at the irresponsible behaviour of the United States and indirectly regrets that it did not take up a proactive role in handling the global economic slowdown. Evidences The author avoids providing statistical evidences in favour of his claims in the article. However, circumstantial evidences have been put forward. In the context of slowing growth, Reich writes that if the governments continue to hack away at their fiscal policies and budgets while the consumers are becoming more watchful about their expenses, â€Å"global demand will shrink to the point where a worldwide dip is inevitableâ €  (Reich, 2010). This tendency of the governments have sent shockwaves across the corporate sector, who are now trying to downsize their organisations leading to job cuts (Kumar and Pranjal, 2009). Similarly, Howitt (2007, p. 10) points out that â€Å"the speedup of productivity growth since the mid-1990s† is gradually slowing down. Nell (1998) has focussed on the interfaces between growth driven economic models and social economic theories. His rejection to conservative economics has not found much practical implication. Unplanned chasing of profits has finally resulted into a sort of global economic slump, which was gradually becoming evident since the 1960s with plummeting trends of growth. Figure – 1: Falling GDP growth