Imagine an economy in perfect stasis, no growth, no shrinkage, just the same stuff year after year. Now introduce some efficiency improvement, like shaving some weight from a car design, or a computer chip that performs the same computation for less power, or an agricultural technique which requires less land for the same yield. Voilà, growth without consuming additional physical resources.
Of course, this is not our main source of growth at the moment. But surely it could be?
It makes me so happy to finally start seeing others on HN post links from the Do The Math blog. If I could make one website mandatory reading for all policy makers, economists, etc., this would be it.
Of course, this is not our main source of growth at the moment. But surely it could be?