The canonical growth imperative

from Gregory Daneke and RWER issue 102

Emerging ecological ideas . . .  rushed headlong into the canonical growth imperative of the mainstream. Anyone who uttered ecology and economics in the same breath was bullied and harassed going as far back as the 19^th century, but the battering became more intense in the late 1970s as Neoliberalism was fully asserting itself in the halls of power (Reagan, Thatcher, etc.). The unrelenting and scurrilous ad-hominem attacks on the scholars associated with The Limits to Growth (Meadows, et al., 1972) and/or other Club of Rome studies is a clear case in point. Unlimited growth is so essential to the mainstream’s systems of power, it was cardinal sin to even broach the subject. One need not, apparently, concern themselves with distributional dysfunctions and the fraudulent nature of financial systems if the pie is always expanding.

Besides the magical device of yet undiscovered technological substitutions could be relied upon to replace all finite resources. Like the joke about the economist, physicist, and engineer stranded on a desert island confronting their only can of beans. “No problem” says the economist, “we’ll just assume we have a can opener, and more cans will simply appear from the ether”. 
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