THE STEADY-STATE: I T ’ S T IME TO RU S T L E SOME J IMMI E S encompassing. Steady-state policies have yet to be introduced on a large scale in any country but programs like a four day work week are promising in achieving the goals of a steady-state. A state in which there is no economic growth, positive or negative, was pondered by many economists before Mill including Adam Smith. Smith, a classical liberalist, recognized that the natural world would halt economic growth at some point (6). However, John Stuart Mill, an economist of early nineteenth century Britain, was first to write about the stationary state in a positive light. Up until his work, Principles of Political Economy, the no growth state was seen as a negative stage that should be avoided at all costs as the general belief was that growth benefited everyone in society (6). Mill took the opposite view on the stationary state. He believed this state would be beneficial and almost a reward for society (5). Mill believed there would be no need for continued growth once everyone had their necessities, that people would instead have more time for “the art of living” (5). BY SOF I A ZAS I EB I DA The steady-state is a political and economic theory that recognizes many of the detrimental problems caused by capitalism, while not accepting socialism as the solution. The steady-state paves its own way as a political theory with the main goal of consuming resources sustainably to save the planet and improve the lives of the public. The stationary state, as he named it, was first written about by John Stuart Mill in the early nineteenth century and was expanded upon to include action policies by Herman Daly in the late twentieth century. In a steady state, resource use stays constant so that humans do not overconsume Earth’s natural materials. In order to keep resource use constant, population must also stay constant and subsequently, there will be no GDP growth, the economy must remain the same size year after year. In the steady-state, progress in the sense of intellectual innovation is preferred to economic growth, heavy government involvement in the markets is necessary, and equality must be allPAGE 26 VOL. 1, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST
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