Here's why growth is equivalent to progress --
The meaning of socio-economic growth is not an increase in mass since, quite obviously, the mass of available material on Earth is relatively fixed. Development can only mean reorganization of existing elements. Progress implies an improvement in our capacity to reorganize the available components. What can such an improvement mean? An increase in the speed, diversity, fluidity, mutuality, reliability & intelligence of our control systems. This is precisely what the general indicator of "economic growth" symbolizes.
Growth does not behave like a "cancer." A cancer is a regressive local establishment of patterning control which sequesters the body's resources in order to replicate itself in a manner that does not proceed toward the general Good. Conversely, social growth is the measure of our capacity to reorganize ourselves fluidly in the direction of spontaneously patterned coherence.
Nations with greater "growth" have historically been those in which slavery was abolished, women gained legal inclusion, famine & overt tyranny were abolished, diseases are combated, ecology becomes a significant concern and the cultural development of citizens arises as a potent demand. Alternatively, archaic regimes which are concerned with the "sustainability" of their way of life are generally tyrannical, repressive, regressive & lethargic.
The philosopher Karl Marx was well aware that his futuristic Socialist regime was not the contemporary adversary of growth markets but the inevitable outcome of their fulfillment. Of course this fulfillment is identical to the revelation and transcendence of the internal contradictions inherent in the system but it is still also an extension of the system. Only where "unchecked growth" reins have we see a proliferation of citizens who grow sensitive to the failure of unregulated markets, the toxic effects of greed, the need to expand our flow of socio-symbolic power beyond even the boundaries marked by our previous successes.
All life is a continuous reorganization of elements through consumption and redistribution controlled by the interplay of the communal structures. More life and better life consists of an increase of the potency of this capacity -- primarily at the social level. Improvements of quality depend upon improvements in the ability to handle quantity.
The very concept of an abundance economy signifies an increase of symbolic "mass" in which the old inequalities are abolished. Tomorrow even the slaves must live as kings -- and the kings must extend their desires to the point at which an even greater abundance emerges past the threshold of instability.
Sustainability is a foreign concept in all non-growth societies. It does not represent an alternative to growth but rather an outcome -- an operation of growth to the point that abundance becomes widely distributed. If this sounds like "top-down" trickle economics that is only because people fail to acknowledge that all effects, even the most "grassroots" take effect under the guise of top-down modifications.
The meaning of socio-economic growth is not an increase in mass since, quite obviously, the mass of available material on Earth is relatively fixed. Development can only mean reorganization of existing elements. Progress implies an improvement in our capacity to reorganize the available components. What can such an improvement mean? An increase in the speed, diversity, fluidity, mutuality, reliability & intelligence of our control systems. This is precisely what the general indicator of "economic growth" symbolizes.
Growth does not behave like a "cancer." A cancer is a regressive local establishment of patterning control which sequesters the body's resources in order to replicate itself in a manner that does not proceed toward the general Good. Conversely, social growth is the measure of our capacity to reorganize ourselves fluidly in the direction of spontaneously patterned coherence.
Nations with greater "growth" have historically been those in which slavery was abolished, women gained legal inclusion, famine & overt tyranny were abolished, diseases are combated, ecology becomes a significant concern and the cultural development of citizens arises as a potent demand. Alternatively, archaic regimes which are concerned with the "sustainability" of their way of life are generally tyrannical, repressive, regressive & lethargic.
The philosopher Karl Marx was well aware that his futuristic Socialist regime was not the contemporary adversary of growth markets but the inevitable outcome of their fulfillment. Of course this fulfillment is identical to the revelation and transcendence of the internal contradictions inherent in the system but it is still also an extension of the system. Only where "unchecked growth" reins have we see a proliferation of citizens who grow sensitive to the failure of unregulated markets, the toxic effects of greed, the need to expand our flow of socio-symbolic power beyond even the boundaries marked by our previous successes.
All life is a continuous reorganization of elements through consumption and redistribution controlled by the interplay of the communal structures. More life and better life consists of an increase of the potency of this capacity -- primarily at the social level. Improvements of quality depend upon improvements in the ability to handle quantity.
The very concept of an abundance economy signifies an increase of symbolic "mass" in which the old inequalities are abolished. Tomorrow even the slaves must live as kings -- and the kings must extend their desires to the point at which an even greater abundance emerges past the threshold of instability.
Sustainability is a foreign concept in all non-growth societies. It does not represent an alternative to growth but rather an outcome -- an operation of growth to the point that abundance becomes widely distributed. If this sounds like "top-down" trickle economics that is only because people fail to acknowledge that all effects, even the most "grassroots" take effect under the guise of top-down modifications.
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