Critiques of productivism center primarily on the limits to growth posed by a finite planet and extend into discussions of human procreation, the work ethic, and even alternative energy production.
[citation needed] While critics of productivism and its political-economic variants, notably capitalism and socialism, challenge the notions of conventional political economy and argue for an economic policy more compatible with humanity, these views are often dismissed as utopian by economists and political scientists, who hold that there is no conflict between the roles of the worker and the citizen.
[2] According to those who use the term "productivism", the difference between themselves and the promoters of conventional neoclassical economics is that a productivist does not believe in the idea of "uneconomic growth".
In his essays from 1975, the British economist E. F. Schumacher remarked: "Infinite growth in consumption in a world of finite resources is an impossibility.
"[3] In the 1990s, the American public was told that the United States would become a nation of educated managers and specialists, with industrial labor outsourced to less fortunate countries.
According to Samuel P. Huntington, Americans spend more time at work and have worse benefits when compared to similar rich countries.
Scholars have paralleled this belief to John Steinbeck's notable quote that "the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”[10] As academic Tad Delay states, "the fantasy of class mobility, of becoming bourgeois, is enough to defend the aristocracy.
[14][15] Stigma towards welfare recipients has been proven to increase passivity and dependency in poor people and has further solidified their status and feelings of inferiority.
Stigma is a major factor contributing to the duration and breadth of poverty in developed societies which largely affects single mothers.