Eric Weinstein refers to this as an Embedded Growth Obligation (EGO), whereby organizations and economies at large assume perpetual growth, and that things really start to unravel when that growth inevitably slows. It is pretty mindblowing how we have basically accepted growth as the default state, it is not at all a given that things always grow and get better.

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zahlman 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> It is pretty mindblowing how we have basically accepted growth as the default state

It is completely to be expected, exactly because it is not new.

It's been scarcely a generation since the peak in net change of the global human population, and will likely be at least another two generations before that population reaches its maximum value. It rose faster than exponentially for a few centuries before that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:P...). And across that time, for all our modern complaints, quality of life has improved immensely.

Of all the different experiences of various cultures worldwide and across recent history, "growth" has been quite probably the most stable.

Culture matters. People's actions are informed by how they are socialized, not just by what they can observe in the moment.

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spwa4 3 days ago | parent [-]

The reason people don't accept this is that it fundamentally changes society, it is because of what it means, not because it is or isn't possible.

Net-growth society: new wealth is being created, if you can be part of the creation you get wealth

No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else

Oh plus because essentially every society that experienced it legislated it's way into a no-growth situation. The problem was not that growth was not possible, it's that people used state power, for a lot of different excuses, to prevent growth (and of course really to secure the position of the richest and most powerful in society)

The excuses range from religion, morality separate from religion, wars, avoiding losing wars (and putting the entire economy in a usually futile attempt to win or avoid losing a war) and of course the whole thing feeding onto itself: laws protecting the rich at the direct expense of the poor (that can happen even if there is economic growth, though of course, the more growth the less likely)

Btw: "futile attempt to win or avoid losing a war" these attempt were futile not because they lead to a win or a loss, but because the imposed cost of a no-growth society far exceeded any gains or even avoided losses ...

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vkou 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else

Wealth is created by work. In any society, be it growth or no-growth, you can create and acquire wealth by working. (Not necessarily for a wage. Working for yourself also creates wealth. Every time you make yourself dinner, or patch a torn pant leg, or change your car's oil, you are creating wealth.)

The problem is that non-working parasites (investors, rent-seekers, warlords) can't acquire wealth in a no-growth society without taking it from someone else.[1] (Because in a no-growth society, investing on the net is ~zero-returns, ~zero-value.)

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[1] They take it from someone else in a growth society, too, but a person who works and loses half their productive surplus to a rent seeker is still getting the benefits of growth. In a no-growth society, the rent-seeker's gain is 100% someone else's net loss.

	▲	spwa4 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why this focus? Rent-seekers aren't anywhere near the biggest group of non-working people. Not in money and certainly not in number. And if you include non-productive then you have to add the whole government too (because the government does work, but not for wealth production, not saying it's not necessary, but in your model, it's not wealth production)

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strogonoff 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In a no-growth (or even degrowth, which I have recently learned is a thing) society taking what you need from someone else is not the only option: someone can also choose to share it.

A society like that may be quite different in innumerable ways, of course, and the idea of “wealth” in the way we understand it may not make sense.

	▲	2 days ago \| parent [-]
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mayhemducks 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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