FLASHBACK! KEW Episode 39: The Growth Fallacy

“I meant no harm I most truly did not, but I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads, of the Thneeds I shipped out I was shipping them forth from the South, to the East, to the West. To the North, I went right on biggering selling more thneeds. And I biggered my money which everyone needs.” 
― Dr Seuss, from the Lorax

A key tenet in what I think is wrong with the world is the obsession with growth. This quote from the Lorax, and pretty much the whole book, gets at this sentiment. Where did we learn that growth is essential? Or that growth is infinite? Or that NOT growing = death?

Was it in economics courses in school? Maybe. That’s what I assume, but I can’t say I remember (I got a D in college economics anyway, so . . . )

Was it from our parents? Our first jobs?

I guess it doesn’t matter, but suffice it to say the concept of growth being a healthy and necessary thing is something many of us learned somewhere, somehow.

But if we look more closely, I think it’s just incorrect. And that’s what this episode is about.

Here’s the original post with links to the audio and YouTube. Please subscribe and peruse the back catalog of my other 50 Episodes and interviews!