History

Western civilisation has been stagnating since the late 1970s - "The Great Stagnation" as Tyler Cowen puts it - see for yourself what happens when we subtract from GDP "bad GDP", things like the GDP generated by crime, drugs, prisons etc. for the United States 1950-2004 (which is the most recent data currently available):

Something went real wrong in the late 1970s in the US. Perhaps this is a clue:

This shows the history of the British pound, beginning in 1265 when records first began to be kept by the British Crown. The thin blue line is the real change in prices for that year, the thick blue line is its hundred year rolling average. As is extremely clear, net devaluation of Britain's currency was almost zero between 1264 and 1900. Then, as if by magic, prices began to start rising each year and have continued to do so ever since. Simultaneously, the green line shows the hundred year rolling average of how much prices move year-to-year (their volatility). Note how the green line follows a power curve almost exactly.

It didn't take long for the rest of world, which was increasingly copying the energy and mining driven economics of the United States, to also tip into net unsustainability around 1989:

As you will see in the Proposals in the Freeing Growth Manifesto, we would not be considered to be part of the "left wing" or "liberal" politics - ours are more generally associated with the "right" or "conservative" politics. However we are not really bothered about what people associate us with. What we care about is:

1. How to increase long term, sustainable, average economic growth into the 8-12% range per annum. Yes, that's for all countries, though we aim our proposals at the Western nations to begin with. And permanently so: we think substantial, ongoing, totally sustainable economic growth is not only possible, but a moral imperative.