The Myth of Infinite Growth

Chapter 2 From My Book, The Ten Myths of Progress

Welcome to the 2nd chapter of my new book, The Ten Myths of Progress. Each new chapter is published once a week. Thank you for supporting my work.

“We have a finite environment—the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.”¹
— David Attenborough

The Myth of Infinite Growth Defined

If you paused and looked, you would notice that dominant voice, whether in the media, in the speeches of politicians, in the word around town and whispers at the airport say that the most important thing is that the economy must grow. Always.

Growth is health. Growth is progress. Growth is life itself.

So every quarter must outperform the last. Every nation must chase rising GDP. Every person must produce more, spend more, consume more, want more. If not, we use the dreaded name that must not be named: RECESSION. If we do that for a few years… it’s a DEPRESSION. Oh the humanity! That must be avoided at any and all costs.

Do we ever question the logic of this insanity? No… we’re too busy obeying it.

The myth of infinite growth is not questioned because it’s sacred. It is the economic theology of the modern world.

And like all theologies, it demands faith… even as the world it builds begins to burn.

Growth, in its current industrial form, is a pathology. And we built our entire civilization around it. We sacrificed rivers, forests, children’s futures, and our own sanity, to a logic that says more is always better.

And what do we have to show for it? Mountains of debt. Oceans of plastic. Forests turned to monocrop timber factories. Towns emptied of meaning. Workplaces that grind down the soul. And a planet that groans beneath our expanding footprint.

We have to have the courage to recognize that this isn’t just a culmination of poorly thought out public policy decisions. The ideology of infinite growth is purely a delusion at the heart of modernity.

It is unhinged delusion to believe we can pull endlessly from the Earth without giving back. That we can exceed planetary boundaries, then innovate our way out of the consequences. That the solution to the problems caused by growth… is more growth!

This is the myth that keeps the machine running, even as the wheels fall off. It is the operating system of empire, masked as common sense. And unless we confront it, every effort at reform, sustainability, or justice will be swallowed by its appetite.

Where the Myth Came From

The myth of infinite growth rose up through conquest, enclosure, empire, and industry. It was baptized in Enlightenment philosophy, weaponized by colonial expansion, and perfected by capitalism.