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Accounting for the Very Longrun

In: Economics without Time

Author

Listed:
  • Graeme Donald Snooks

    (Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University)

Abstract

A widely-held view amongst historians, economists, and ecologists is that economic growth – defined in terms of a sustained increase in GDP per capita – is a modern invention. While there are exceptions, the vast majority of scholars, both in the social and natural sciences, take it as read that rapid growth began with the Industrial Revolution, and that any growth before 1700 was very slow, and before 1500 was non-existent.1 The conventional wisdom tells us that economic systems in the distant past experienced, over very long periods of time, either the steady state envisaged by the classical economists, or zero-sum fluctuations in GDP per capita. According to both interpretations, ancient and medieval societies were unable to escape from poverty because they were dominated by custom rather than individual self interest. The implications of such a conclusion are fundamental to our view of the past and future of the human race. Ecologists, for example, believe that just as growth was turned on at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so it can – indeed must – be turned off again immediately.

Suggested Citation

  • Graeme Donald Snooks, 1993. "Accounting for the Very Longrun," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Economics without Time, chapter 7, pages 231-269, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-37381-5_8
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230373815_8
    as

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