These critics accuse growth of being responsible for pollution, congestion, environmental degradation, resource depletion, stress, etc. None of these accusations are true. To successfully deal with the charges that the Greens have levelled against economic growth it is vitally important to define growth, the reason for this will be made clear at a later stage.
Growth is the increasing accumulation of capital per head of the population.
Therefore economies are growing when capital accumulation proceeds faster than population growth. This definition, however, brings us in turn to the nature and role of capital. These means form an intricate interwoven heterogeneous structure consisting of roundabout stages of production. The economy grows by adding more complex roundabout stages of production to the structure. Despite erroneous views to the contrary, growth can only be fuelled by savings.