#UncommonSense: the 9-billion tonne hamster and the butterfly

Economic Growth: the Nine-Billion-Ton Hamster and the Butterfly

 In an animated video produced by the New Economics Foundation, the narrator tells the story of an unusual hamster. Like all hamsters, it doubles in size every week between its birth and puberty. But unlike all hamsters, it continues to grow at the same rate after puberty, soon reaching 100, then 200, then 400 pounds. By its first birthday, the hamster has hit 9 billion tons, and is capable of consuming all the world’s corn in a day. With a roar, it sets off on a Hamsterzilla rampage, destroying buildings, eventually consuming the planet and floating off, fat and happy, into space. “There is a reason why in nature things grow in size only to a certain point,” says the narrator. “So why do most economists and politicians think that the economy can grow forever, and ever, and ever?”[i]

Though funny, the video drives home the frightening reality of our economic system. We know of no example of a biological organism or natural system that grows indefinitely—and yet we expect the natural world to support and sustain our indefinite economic growth.

If nature suggests we have a Hamsterzilla problem, we might look to nature for solutions. How do natural organisms, and natural systems, grow? The answer is often via complexity. We recognize this on a human level; long after we have reached physical maturity we continue to become wiser, more capable, and more productive. In the natural world, the term to describe growth via complexity is "intussusception", and its best-known example may be the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The biologist and conservationist Tom Lovejoy, once said to me that “what we need is growth by intussusception—the economic equivalent of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.” 

Obviously, hamsters and butterflies do not explain the global economy, but they can serve as a metaphor for the power of a new corporate form and a new economy. I call this new corporate form "Corporation 2020" (see www.corp2020.net ) and I believe it can be the engine of a new economic model: a green and equitable economy of permanence, a "circular economy" (see https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept )

[i]. Andrew Simms to NEF, February 8, 2010, www.neweconomics.org/blog/2010/02/08/growth-is-good-isnt-it1.