Fred Hirsch was no big-time economist.  His brief academic career was cut short by ALS, the same disease that killed Tony Judt. Yet, his Social Limits on Growth is a masterpiece, probably not a book you could read for fun lying on the coach, but definitely worth the time and effort.

According to Hirsch, capitalism is doomed to trap everyone in counterproductive competition for positional goods such as Ivy League education and elite jobs.  This phenomenon may be best described as “involution” （内卷）, to borrow a popular Chinese Internet Meme.   Economic growth cannot solve the involution trap. On the contrary, growth is bound to fortify it, by fulfilling the ever-increasing demand for material goods. Nor could redistribution overcome the scarcity of position goods. As Hirsch noted, “there is no such thing as leveling up” when reward is set by the position on the slope, because “the slope itself prevents a leveling”.    Therefore, the image of “a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats” is an illusion because the tide cannot keep rising and not all boats could stay above the water at the same time.

Hirsch seems rather pessimistic about finding any operational solution to the social limits on growth. In the end, he wonders whether the belief in incremental progress itself is but a pipe-dream, “a nonfiction version of the happy-ending”, or “a faith that is as utopian as the Utopianism it seeks to replace”.