Abstract
It is still common wisdom among economists, politicians, and lay people that economic growth is a necessity of our social systems, at least to avoid distributional conflicts. This paper challenges such belief moving from a purely physical theoretical perspective. It formally considers the constraints imposed by a finite environment on the prospect of continuous growth, including the dynamics of costs. As costs grow faster than production, it is easy to deduce a final unavoidable global collapse. Then, analyzing and discussing the evolution of the unequal share of wealth under the premises of growth and competition, it is shown that the increase of inequalities is a necessary consequence of the premises.
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Notes
This mechanism should not be confused with the greenhouse effect. The former produces an increase of the global temperature as seen from outside; the latter leaves the temperature seen from faraway unchanged but modifies the temperature profile from the low layers to the high atmosphere.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Antonino Bonan, Roberto Burlando, and Luca Mercalli for reading the manuscript and giving valuable suggestions for its improvement.
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Tartaglia, A. Growth and Inequalities in a Physicist’s View. Biophys Econ Sust 5, 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41247-020-00071-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41247-020-00071-6