Japanese Logic

To say, with Mr Turnovsky, that manufacturing has the growth potential to generate wealth to combat pollution is a "Mitsubishi" argument. Mitsubishi create industrial complexes, and then get the contracts to build the motorways to facilitate the Japanese government's policies of decentralisation. Mitsubishi are the pillar of Japanese heavy industry, but in one year, 1972, they sold $170 million worth of anti-pollution equipment in Japan alone. But Mr Turnovsky thinks that it is good business for the polluters to make profits out of combatting pollution — after all, it is necessary for the survival of Tokyo.

Another reason advanced for the necessity of economic growth, especially in manufacturing, was the reduction of dependence on agricultural exports that would result. Mr Turnovsky managed to give a good reason for economic growth, even if he was not able to explain the argument behind it. The problem is that New Zealand has what might be descibed as a colonial economy, since it is primarily an exporter of raw materials. This means that, because of the economic growth that is taking place in the countries that are our markets, the proportion of agricultural produce consumed in these countries is declining, and hence the relative prices of New Zealand's agricultural exports must be declining. But a policy of zero economic growth will preferably be implemented in the world's most advanced countries first, or otherwise the extremes in wealth that already exist throughout the world will be accentuated.