The Growth Illu$ion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet [Paperback]

Richard Douthwaite (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1999

An exposé of traditional economics that shatters the myth of economic growth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

After reading Douthwaite's vivid and convincing case studies it becomes impossible to hear a politician promising recovery (and hence a new bout of consuming) without feeling mingled pity and contempt. Rowland Morgan, The Independent on Sunday Brilliant and highly documented ... Richard Douthwaite's book is of the greatest importance to us all Edward Goldsmith, founder and co-editor of The Ecologist --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

The title and subtitle encapsulate the author's argument, which he backs up with persuasive data. Douthwaite is an economist and a writer. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers; Rev Upd edition (May 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865713960
• ISBN-13: 978-0865713963
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,617,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Growth Delusion Exposed, December 21, 1999

By 

Kenneth F Meyercord - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Growth Illu$ion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet (Paperback)

Richard Douthwaite has written an important book. In this updated version of his 1992 classic of the same name, he brings the evidence he has amassed of growth's downside up to the present. If anyone reading the book does not come to question the unexamined assumption most of us hold that growth is a good thing, then he is indeed delusional. Though other growth heretics, such as Herman Daly, have made many of the same arguments as Douthwaite, I know of no book which covers so many of growth's unfortunate side effects or documents them so well, from the inadequacy of GNP as a measure of well-being through the decline in public health in recent decades to the slap in the face of our growth-oriented society administered by the refugees from Tristan da Cunha. Douthwaite uses the history of Britain over the last 200 years to document growth's ambivalent contribution to human betterment, finding it as instructive a guide as Marx found it to be for analyzing capitalism 150 years earlier. Included in the book are chapters on the consequences of growth in his native Ireland and in contemporary Holland and India, chapters enlivened by his direct personal involvement in these countries. It is regrettable that more of his insights do not come from the American experience, both because of the United States' remarkable history of growth and because of its premiere position in the world today as the foremost proponent and most dogmatic practitioner of the growth doctrine. Apparently, this is not where Douthwaite's life experience led him to direct his attentions. Hopefully, in a future book he will.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Growth - A false God, February 17, 2000

By 

John B. Gilmore (Dundalk, Co. Louth Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many, and Endangered the Planet (Paperback)

This marvellous book should be compulsory reading for every government leader and every economics student, since we seem to have already exceeded the guidelines established in Kyoto for global warming . The phrase "grow or die" will take some time to fade. Douthwaite's book could help to achieve this paradigm shift.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compulsory reading for every citizen of the developed world, May 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Growth Illu$ion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet (Paperback)

Would like to express that this book should not only be compulsory reading for every government leader but for every citizen in the developed world, particularly the United States. Excellent book and very well supported by data. A thriller with no foreseeable end!