ABSTRACT
Since Malthus, economists have been debating the “limits to growth” in an attempt to identify those factors that might lead to an inexorable slow-down in growth, or even to a “steady state.” At the beginning of the 1970s, the studies carried out by the “Club of Rome” brought the terms of the debate up to date again, drawing on analyses of the increasing scarcity of natural resources. We will not engage with this debate, which is undoubtedly worthy of interest, for two reasons. First, history can be said to have decided the matter, at least up to now: capitalism has repeatedly pushed back the limits in question and given the lie to prophesies inspired by the Malthusian approach. Second, and more importantly, it seems to us that the main question raised by the virtually unanimous assertion that growth needs to be as strong as possible concerns not the rate of growth, but rather the concept itself and the tools used to measure increasing wealth. The issues addressed in debates on the limits to growth seldom include the limits of the concept itself.
