Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals

by Tyler Cowen

Even if you don’t regard material wealth as central to human well-being, economic growth brings many other values, including, for instance, much greater access to the arts and education. Economic growth also gives individuals greater autonomy and minimizes the chance that their destiny will be determined by the time and place in which they were born. It remains true that many individuals are born poor or are born into families that do not much respect formal education or are born far away from cities. Still, ask yourself a simple question: has there ever been a time in human history when so many individuals had such a good chance of becoming world-class scientists? Individuals today are more able to shape their futures, choose their friends, communicate with the outside world, and weave together diverse cultural strands when building out their personal narratives. Benjamin M. Friedman, in his brilliant The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, shows just how many of the virtues of the modern world depend on higher and indeed growing levels of wealth.17 The bottom line is this: the more rapidly growing economy will, at some point, bring about much higher levels of human well-being—and other plural values—on a consistent basis. If some set of choices or policies gives us a higher rate of economic growth, those same choices or policies are akin to a Crusonia plant.

e/o good is growth anyways?