Economic growth in developed countries is driven by population growth, and this is why they all have a decent amount of immigration, to sustain that growth. In developing countries, they can grow by development - adding more subsistence farmers doesn't really grow the economy.
Australia has just taken the record for the longest period without a recession (26ish years), and this has been done on the back of immigration - since 1999, we've increased our population by a quarter, and our birthrate is only replacement-level. Population growth in developed countries != population growth globally.
[1] The only large Western nations with higher immigration rates are Spain and, surprisingly, Norway.
Right, and both are unsustainable long-term.
To me, the question is: can their high quality of life be maintained if there is no economic growth? Is it possible to print money/borrow indefinitely to support this quality of life?
Especially with regards to the article, I think these are valid questions.
My question is: why do you suspect that economic growth is necessary for quality of life? What is the exact connection there that you are thinking about?
If they were to stop borrowing money without a substantial leap in technological progress, would the economy go into a deep recession? I do not know enough about economics to say, but I am basing my assumptions around this reasoning. Am I missing something?
I'm then assuming that if the country went into a deep recession, that quality of life for the average person would decrease.
How so?
From where I sit, Japan's borrowing is funding infrastructure rebuilding and quantitative easing. The infrastructure, including energy production, is necessary for future economic and human activity. Quantitative easing combats deflation and keeps monetary policy functional when interest rates are low. This borrowing looks neither unsustainable nor does it look like a measure to artificially prop up the economy.
> If they were to stop borrowing money without a substantial leap in technological progress, would the economy go into a deep recession?
If you suddenly stop borrowing money, it would cause economic turmoil, just because everything is economically connected and everyone's economic forecasts would change. The borrowing is being used to support QE which causes inflation, without it Japan could be at risk of deflation. Deflation would mean that goods and services would get cheaper (and maintaining quality of life would also get cheaper), but there are also negative consequences—people who save money win, people who borrow money lose, people who invest money have a hard time making good investments, lack of investment causes problems down the road, etc.
To reiterate, the question was:
Why do you think quality of life is tied to economic growth? What do you base that assumption on?
Why do you need to print or borrow money to sustain a quality of life?
I've heard this same argument made using energy instead of mass. That article correlated economic growth with increased energy usage. It does make sense, our universe might be expanding but it is finite.
However, what if this is a social and not a physics problem? Maybe more and more new people are required to keep human social structures functioning optimally. Maybe the solution is virtual reality.
So, this is a fact: we cannot grow exponentially for very long. Also a fact: humans have survived the vast majority of human history with near zero population growth, if we consider human history to be 200 millennia old and population growth to be a factor of a million during that time, average growth is 0.007% per year.
Economic growth is also the wrong thing to measure. Surely something else, like quality of life, would be more appropriate. You say that "no amount of economic/financial manipulation has helped [Japan]" but does Japan really need help, or are their citizens enjoying a relatively high quality of life?