Economists and politicians talk about the improvement of growth, but they are rarely asked to answer the questions…..”growth of what?” and “growth for whom?”
The assumption seems to be that what’s needed is just more stuff….more produced, more consumed. It doesn’t seem to matter too much what the stuff is. No doubt because the capitalist system we live in makes money the main goal, and more stuff sold means more money for the owners.
But isn’t this a crazy way to organise a society? Can’t we do better than that? After all, we live on a finite Earth, so it’s just a matter of time before the “stuff” runs out. Unless you don’t care about future generations, your grandchildren’s grandchildren, this short term, blinkered dash to consume makes no sense. And that’s before we even consider the issues of pollution, waste, species extinction and climate change.
I think growth is a great idea, but only the way we see it in Nature. Look at these Colchicum…..they are flourishing, and flourishing is the kind of growth we can all aim for. Development in the sense of maturity and the realisation of potential is a fundamental of natural processes.
Can’t we organise our societies around this concept of growth instead? Not growth based on greed, but growth based on nurture. After all, a child flourishing or a plant blooming, is both beautiful and wonderful.
Heroes Not Zombies 
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