Growth and Economics

Our free-market economic model assumes constant growth, and our companies are happy to incorporate that model as a basic assumption. Almost every manager in a commercial enterprise is expected to grow revenues and profits.

This is a mistake in the long term. Growth is not sustainable without raw materials, and we are starting to see these limitations bounding our economic future. It is already obvious that the American path to national affluence cannot be imitated by the rest of the world -- there just aren't enough resources on Earth to make that possible, and the environmental impact is already significant.

The model of growth needs to be replaced, but with what? A good candidate is a corporate goal of achieving a sustainable steady-state, targeting continuing improvements in product longevity, efficiency, and quality, rather than quantity. It will be hard, though, to get funding for this enterprise...