“the best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.” Growth was still needed, he stated, in many poorer countries, but the richer countries were more in need of a better distribution of wealth. With basic necessities taken care of, the task for them was to live more fully rather than to keep acquiring more material wealth. A stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much
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