This page: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2025/pre... explains in more detail what they mean. It's a pretty clean and effective explanation.
> Technology advances rapidly and affects us all, with new products and production methods replacing old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth, which results in a better standard of living, health and quality of life for people around the globe.
> However, this was not always the case. Quite the opposite – stagnation was the norm throughout most of human history. Despite important discoveries now and again, which sometimes led to improved living conditions and higher incomes, growth always eventually levelled off.
...
> Technology advances rapidly and affects us all, with new products and production methods replacing old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth
since the end of the 19th century...
Am I missing something?
How can they assert that the current trajectory of economic growth won't end in stagnation, like every other growth spurt throughout history?
Sure, the economic growth of the last 150 years is unprecedented in history. But so was the second most significant period of economic growth before it stagnated.
> How can they assert that the current trajectory of economic growth won't end in stagnation, like every other growth spurt throughout history?
Straw man. Nobody argues this.
There was more likely a series of 2K-4K golden ages diffused across areas globally 5-1K BCE where stagnation wasn't the rule.
We've probably yet to even come close to that eden-like experience.
Stagnation is environmentally sustainable. Constant creation-destruction cycles will ultimately deplete the environment
> Stagnation is environmentally sustainable
We know this to be false given the number of civilisations that depleted their soil due because they didn’t know (or care) about crop rotation. Stable-state economies which nevertheless collapsed because they missed a key technology.
Innovation is such that efficiency increase requires fewer resources and land. Population growth is stagnating and will peak in less than 100 years.
Neo-Malthusianism is as bunk as Malthusianism was
> Innovation is such that efficiency increase requires fewer resources and land.
...to produce the same output. Growth requires greater output though.
Just look at the timeline of energy consumption [0]. Either you're wrong and innovation requires more resources, or you're right and there's no direct relation between innovation and overall resource usage.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
The metric you’re looking for is energy intensity of GDP [1]. How much energy does each unit of GDP cost. It’s been going down, and it’s lower in rich countries than less developed ones. (Its material counterpart is material intensity of GDP.)
[1] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/total-energy/world-energy-inte...
Thanks, that's an interesting reference.
I'm not sure that's what I was looking for though. That's unit consumption per GDP, so it may look stable or even declining regardless of actual consumption of resources.
In a way, it indicates the potential for a more sustainable living but unless it goes down by greater amounts than GDP growth, it's still net positive environmental damage.