Here is a beautiful quote on ‘growthism’ and how detrimental it is to our ability to think:
Growthism is anti-intellectual in the sense that it prevents us from thinking about what we actually want the economy - and our society - to achieve. GDP comes to stand in for thought itself.
Most people don’t think any more. They confuse consuming information with thinking and spreading gossip with debate. Our society is driven by the sick notion that infinite growth of the GDP is the core of our very existence. This has to end because eventually this will lead to all of our natural resources getting plundered by a few mega rich such as Bezos who might become the first person ever with a net worth of one trillion dollars. Sick is the only word that comes to mind when thinking about this.
What makes me angry is that the vast majority of people just don’t care about this. Or if they do, they say stupid things like: “But what can I do? I’m just a little guy who can’t change anything”. 8 billion ‘small little helpless creatures’ – that’s our problem, not the handful of sick Bezos.
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Reluctance or failure to respond to a situation is the normal tendency with most of us. It is said that indifference is an accomplice to the crime.
“But what can I do? I’m just a little guy who can’t change anything”. It’s the attitude that often matters. If we take these two concepts – ‘Public property is everybody’s property’ and ‘Public property is nobody’s property’ – we will find that both mean apparently the same. But there is a difference between ‘everybody’s property’ and ‘nobody’s property’. While the former is inclusive of ourselves in that we nurse a sense of duty to protect the property, the latter generates a sense of alienation and indifference paving the way for vandalism.
So, as you suggest, it is time we locked up ‘growthism’ and started thinking during this lock-down!
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We need to stop buying the lies about infinite economic growth because we are already living in world of abundance where every single person can have enough to live a decent live without being exploited.
Quote: We live in a world where there is enough of everything we need for us all to live well, and to do so within the ecological limits of the planet. And yet, as the Covid-19 crisis has laid bare, the social systems we live in lead to grotesque wealth for some, extreme devastation for many, dangerous underinvestment in the public infrastructure we need to be safe, and political systems controlled by those who profit from destruction of our environment and shared social fabric.
*As we work to keep people safe from Covid-19, while protecting their livelihoods, we can shift our economies to build a world where we all have enough.
If we keep ourselves focused on tackling our inequality crisis, even as we build toward environmental sustainability, we can develop an economic system that meets our human needs, without anyone needing to die for it.*
Again, the biggest problem is that the vast majority of people either don’t care about these questions or don’t understand that are alternatives to the existing system. That’s the reason why any change takes so long. It’s not because of a handful of corrupt politicians. It’s because billions of people don’t think they can change anything.
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