Deck 12: Inequality and Growth: Prosperity for All Part IV: Shifting the Focus to Results

Question 1

Which of the following is an example of planned obsolescence?

A) When a car manufacturer updates a model of car and makes it look noticeably different from the earlier model.
B) Shifting from coin operated to credit card operated vending machines.
C) Buying things on layaway.
D) All of the above

Answer 1

A

Question 2

As discussed in Society and the Environment, happiness:

A) Is correlated to one's income.
B) Is not correlated to one's income (after a minimal threshold is reached).
C) Is considerably higher today among the general public than a generation ago.
D) All of the above.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

In the context of measuring "development", what does the HDI stand for?

A) Human Death Index.
B) Hungry, Dire, and Inadequate Index.
C) Homeland Department of Inventory.
D) Human Development Index.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The famous ecological economist Herman Daly has written about a "factor of ten" as an inequality ceiling. What does that speak to?

A) That the highest paid individual in an organization or firm should only make roughly 10 times what entry level full time employees get.
B) That an outrageously high salary does not sufficiently motivate to justify its existence.
C) That a really high level of inequality in a society is a resource allocation inefficiency.
D) All of the above.

Question 5

Thorstein Veblen talked about conspicuous consumption in the context of:

A) How we tend to consume to display to others our status.
B) How consumption is sociological.
C) How consumption gives us part of our identity.
D) All of the above

Question 6

This concept speaks to the fact that having more of something eventually provides less additional satisfaction:

A) Diminishing marginal utility.
B) Marginal market breakdown.
C) Economism.
D) Stratification.

Question 7

Which of the following is an example of environmental racism:

A) Racial discrimination in environmental policy-making.
B) Racial discrimination in the enforcement of regulations and laws.
C) The targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and siting of polluting industries.
D) All of the above

Question 8

Who is the author of Dumping in Dixie, the work that represents the first comprehensive assessment of environmental racism?

A) William Kuznets.
B) Jerome Bentham.
C) Robert Bullard.
D) Michael Carolan.

Question 9

Which book linked the citing of hazardous facility and hazardous waste dumps with poor black communities across the south?

A) Silent Spring.
B) Dumping in Dixie.
C) Environmental Racisms in the South.
D) The Limits to Growth.

Question 10

Which book warned about the "limits" and dire consequences of constantly expanding growth and GDP and stressed the consequences on our stocks of natural capital?

A) Silent Spring.
B) Dumping in Dixie.
C) Environmental Racisms in the South.
D) The Limits to Growth.

Question 11

The total capital stock of the world (most notably natural capital) is degrading faster than wealth created in the formal economy.

Question 12

The link between economic growth and happiness is strongly positively correlated until a country's average income hits roughly US$55,000.

Question 13

The wealth of a country is directly correlated to its level of happiness, well-being, and life expectancy (thus the wealthiest is the happiest and has the longest life expectancy).

Question 14

Silent Spring is the book that sparked the modern environmental movement.

Question 15

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement (UN Convention on Climate Change) that sets target levels for GHG among industrialized countries with 37 signatories, including the U.S.

Question 16

Conspicuous consumption was a term coined by Thorstein Veblen in 1899.

Question 17

According to Veblen, we consume, in part, to display to others our social position, status and power ("social comparison").

Question 18

Planned obsolescence limits the cycle of consumption under capitalism.

Question 19

Environmental justice is the ethical principle that all are entitled to live in a healthy environment and community.

Question 20

Economism leads to siting of polluting facilities in low-income areas that need the economic revenue and promotes environmental racism that becomes built in (inherent) to system.

Question 21

Describe the Silent Spring.

Question 22

Define Diminishing marginal utility.

Question 23

Describe the Human Development Index.

Question 24

Define the Happy Planet Index.

Question 25

Describe negative vs. positive justice.

Question 26

At the start of this chapter, Carolan discusses "uneconomic growth." What does he mean by this? Explain in light of the chapter introduction to inequality, growth and prosperity.

Question 27

Which Fast Fact from Chapter 12 would you use to talk to and educate others about economic growth and current patterns of inequality? Why and what would you say?

Question 28

Do pro-growth economic policies benefit the poor? Reference Chapter 12

Question 29

According to Carolan, what is the relationship between growth and inequality and between growth, inequality and innovation? Reference Chapter 12.

Question 30

What is environmental justice? What is environmental racism? Reference the chapter in your explanation of both.

Question 31

What is meant by a "post growth" society? Reference and cite the economists and economic rationale that led to this thinking.

Question 32

Carolan contends that a postindustrial society doesn't necessarily mean a post pollution society. What does he mean by that?

Question 33

According to the chapter, many people consider leisure and vacations as an opportunity to "get away." How might we think and do things differently? Reference the text.

Question 34

What could you change about your own life that would both improve your well-being and reduce your ecological footprint? What's stopping you from making that change?

Question 35

As long as we create waste, we are going to have to put that waste somewhere. How do we keep that waste from findings its way into the backyards of any marginalized populations?

Question 36

What do "progress" and "prosperity" mean to you? Reference the text in your response.

Question 37

What conditions would have to be met for an economy to grow indefinitely? In such a scenario, would our happiness and well-being increase indefinitely too?