The Idea Of Growth Was Planted

Economic growth is now sacrosanct all over the world. All governments adopt it and most citizens just accept it. Governments don’t pay the price and keep doing the easy sell to their citizens.

Economists do creative accounting and externalise all the social and environmental costs that citizens bear. If all the externalities are added (or rather deducted), in the calculation of GDP, the so-called economic growth may be negative. Uncontrolled or unmanageable growth is like cancer. We are paying the price now.

Economic growth is so normal now that we cannot see other ways of living without it. We have to learn how to live and care for our neighbours, other creatures and with all that is surrounding us. No man is an island, but we are living as if we are on an island.