
Why does society value growth above all else? - sjwalter
http://stephenwalters.posterous.com/what-i-thought-about-a-book-small-is-beautifu/
======
anigbrowl
Because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I'm not particularly
driven to accumulate wealth, but if my income doesn't keep pace with inflation
my purchasing power will diminish, and if I don't save then I have no hedge
against the possibility of unemployment or inability to work.

now, you might argue that things don't grow forever in nature, and you'd be
right. But the natural world is not just about beautiful vistas and flowers
every spring. From bacteria to blue whales, competition in nature is intense
and unforgiving, and even dominant populations are subject to occasional
catastrophic busts. Left to itself (as in a few unusual environmental oases) a
population will expand to use all the available resources, even if the
individual members of the population are limited by growth. Organisms
generally grow to the extent that they have a good chance of reproduction.
they will evolve through successive generations in whatever direction
maximizes reproductive fitness.

Schumacher was an interesting theorist, but (like many other idealists) his
vision of an ideal world depends on mutual abandonment of competition. I'm a
big fan of mutuality, but there are limits to its scalability.

