"Growth is good. Like a sunny day. But having an economy that assumes all sunny days is a recipe for disaster."
This is one of the central insights from this week's podcast, featuring our very special guest, Tomas Sedlacek.
Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has described Sedlacek, a celebrated Czech economist and the author of The Economics of Good and Evil, as one of the greatest influences on his thinking.
In this week's episode of the Strong Towns podcast, Marohn and Sedlacek dive deep into our economic system, which venerates the "cruel deity" of "the god of growth." Growth capitalism, as Sedlacek describes it, esteems growth above all else — even over values like democracy, stability and neighborliness. In such a system, the previously unthinkable either subtly or suddenly becomes credible.
We see the fruits of our economic system not just on our spreadsheets but in our built and social environments. In fact, says Sedlacek, our spreadsheets may be obstructing our view of the truth, which is that the economy, like almost everything in nature, goes in cycles. "I'm not against growth," he says. "I'm just against expecting that every year will be a growing year."
Economics, he says, is too human to be studied as a hard science, like chemistry or physics. We should approach it like we would psychology, sociology and philosophy. Appropriately then, Chuck's conversation with Sedlacek ranges from discussions about the 2008 financial crisis and modern monetary theory, to a story from the Hebrew Bible, the etymology of the word "credit" (from the Latin credere, meaning "belief"), and Aristotle’s take on interest rates. Sedlacek also talks about what a society could look like it if it didn't have, at its center, unrealistic expectations of ceaseless growth.
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Most Comprehensive Resource Strong Towns Offers
A Whole New Framework for Analyzing Car Crashes
This Is How the Strong Towns Movement Becomes “Unignorable”
The Power of Talking Locally Over the Noise of National Politics
The Strong Towns Strategy
Water System Crises and Solutions
The Highway Boondoggles Report
What Customer Service Should Mean for a City
Hawaii’s Suburban Experiment
The Jackson Water Crisis Is Not a Fluke—Your City Could Be Next
Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns Discuss Public Transit in North America
“Bias Writ Large” in the Property Tax Assessment System
One of the Most Dangerous Assumptions We Have Made
The Drip, Drip, Drip of Traffic Deaths
An Update on Strong Towns’ Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure
Majora Carter: Reclaiming Your Community
Nolan Gray: Exposing the Arbitrariness of Zoning Codes
End the Parking Mandates and Subsidies That Are Hurting Our Cities
Legalizing Incremental Change—Everywhere—To Meet America’s Housing Needs
Your City’s Accounting Is Unnecessarily Obscure. It’s Time To Pull Back the Veil.
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