The Myth of Growth

There are several things that an economy can do. It can get bigger, get smaller, or stay the same. Oddly enough, anything aside from getting much bigger all the time is considered to be a bad thing.

What once was merely a perverse belief of economists (and various other pseudo-scientists) is now approaching the status of common sense. In any other sense, ‘stagnation’ means no growth…but just thinking about no growth makes economists shudder in nameless terror, so they redefine it as meaning ‘slowed growth’.

Any half-bright child can tell you that there is Only So Much of anything — and the quicker you use it, the quicker you’ll run out.

Of course, it’s so much more complex than that. By the time economists get done telling you how much more complex it is, you may end up agreeing with them — either to shut them up, or because they really have convinced you, somehow.

How? Well, maybe because they are ‘experts’, and you are a ‘layman’…maybe because the argument itself takes so many twists and turns that you end up believing that you’re facing south when you’re really facing north. Or, you may just not be equipped to tell the difference between words that are true and those that are merely persuasive. All sorts of factors may be involved.

But simplicity really is a valuable concept, too. And simplicity will tell you that you can’t just keep growing. Nothing works that way. Well, that’s not entirely true — cancer works that way. Cancer just keeps growing and demanding more and more resources until everything dies.

Hmm, nearly out of room. I haven’t yet mentioned that few economic theories (or business models, or religions, or political party platforms) do not immediately assume that continuous and ever-increasing growth is a Very Good Thing. Solid state economics is one of those few, but that’s a tale for another time.