Title:	The Reluctant Economist
Authors:	RICHARD A. EASTERLIN
Keywords:	Economist
Issue Date:	2004
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Description:	This book is my attempt to make sense of these and other striking changes in human experience – some of them worldwide in scope, others largely or wholly American. The first substantive chapter (Chapter 3) reviews the recent history of modern economic growth, which is a phenomenon that in the past two centuries has totally transformed material living levels in such areas as food, clothing, and shelter. The unabated rate of advance raises the question of where economic growth is taking us. Some would answer in terms of a happy postmaterialistic society; others would stress presumed adverse effects such as environmental deterioration or globalization. I suggest that there is no movement toward higher nonmaterialistic ends, nor are the “bads” commonly attributed to economic growth the principal concern. Rather, the fundamental problem is systemic: that we are caught up in a process of unending economic growth. This process drives us onward toward ends that are not rationally considered, but instilled by economic growth itself.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/54529
ISBN:	978-0-511-19455-9
Appears in Collections:	Regional and Local Development Studies

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