Growth

Surprisingly, it still shocks me that the “elite” are so often intellectually shallow. They happily believe any just-so story that justifies their power and wealth. It has, of course, always been so, I guess expecting it to be different in this day and age is just naive.

Recently, I read a rant on growth by an otherwise well-balanced person. “Growth,” he intoned, “is the opposite of death.” He went on to claim that without massive capitalistic growth we would all end up in stupefied poverty.

I like free enterprise, and I understand the need for capital, and I do not want to return to the medieval life. But growth? Any rational person can see that growth does not drive nature. 

Like all creatures, we rapidly get as big as we are going to be and remain so the rest of our lives. And the largest organisms are not necessarily the most successful. 

In ongoing “creative destruction” life constantly replaces cells, eliminating any old ones. Ecologies stabilize. Out-of-control growth, like cancer, is not good.

The apologists for concentrated extreme wealth are horrified by the lessons of biology and ecology. They worship the creed of more. They thunder sermons of socialistic status and decay, which would, they claim. be heralded by people who are unfortunately more satisfied than striving.

I don’t know how it will turn out. But the mantra of economic growth is no more true than any other religious mythology. And just as ignorantly blind.