@kensanata Cowan's key comment is here, though there are nearly 90 references to "growth" in the transcript:

EZRA KLEIN: So, like a lot of liberals, I worry a lot about climate change. I worry a lot about poverty. I worry about more people having good health care. Why should I worry directly about economic growth?

TYLER COWEN: I think of economic growth as one good way to address all of those concerns. So for instance, take poverty. The societies that have partly fixed their poverty problems are those that have seen high rates of economic growth: Japan, South Korea, to some extent China, Singapore, earlier Hong Kong, the United States. There’s not a way to fix poverty that does not center around economic growth.

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@kensanata There's also the point where Cowan argues that even a small change in growth percentages has a huge outcome in an exponential function.

The problem with that line of thinking to me is:

• It assumes growth, and assumes unlimited growth. You cannot have an unlimited exponential function without unlimited growth.

• It's an appeal to consequence. "Growth is good" and "no growth is bad" do not prove "growth is inevitable".

• If the growth function is not exponential, if growht is limited, and if the appropriate mathematical model is, say, a logistic curve, then a change in rate of growth does not change the long-run level of attainment. It changes how long it takes for that level to be reached. It may also change how easy or hard it is to change course if the trajectory turns out to be unsustainable and subject to complex effects: feedback, lags, or interactions.

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