Growth as Gospel
Growth as Gospel
The power of an unquestioned truth
Is a recession coming?
When I ask the interwebs that question, I am met with a never-ending list of articles speculating about interest rates, job numbers, and soft landings.
What’s the one thing all of these articles have in common? The one metric that matters above all others?
Is the economy continuing to grow?
Growth is the main indicator that determines the health of our economy. All peripheral metrics—unemployment rates, stock market statistics, and price indexes—tie into economic growth.
According to basic economic curricula, “All the world’s economies share three main goals: 1) Growth, 2) High employment, and 3) Price stability.”
The need to make more, accumulate more, to define economic health solely in terms of endless growth is endemic to the capitalist narrative.
This dynamic dictates that endless growth is not only beneficial but should be prioritized above all else.
If the economy isn’t growing, it is dying.
Or, at an individual level, your needs are never met; you can always obtain more.
This unquestioned truth has always nagged at me about our economic system. The idea that something can (and should) grow indefinitely contradicts nature and seems inherently flawed.
“Capitalism thinks it's adaptable, but if it only has one stratagem, endless growth, the limit of its ability is irrevocably set. And we have reached that limit. We are, therefore, at very high risk. Capitalist growth, probably for at least a century and certainly from the turn of the millennium on, has been growth in the wrong sense. Not only endless but uncontrolled—random. Growth as in tumor. Growth as in cancer.”
- Ursula K. LeGuin
It seems like an intuitive truth that growth can’t continue unchecked forever, yet it is rarely questioned as our single metric of economic health. When questioned, detractors are labeled as lazy, Socialists, Communists, and enemies of the state. (Be honest with yourself, if you’ve gotten this far, maybe some of those labels are bubbling up in your mind about me…)
Even when I question it internally, I don’t trust my instincts because all the narratives around me reinforce the idea that endless growth is the only way. Who am I to think that infinite growth isn’t the most important economic indicator when everyone else thinks it is?
The power of the idea has defined truth in a way that can’t be questioned.
The emperor has no clothes
Capitalism (like all hegemonic power structures) operates at the three-dimensional layer of power, elaborated by Steven Lukes and analyzed by discourse scholars like Foucault. It is a power structure where the powerful not only tell the powerless what to do and control the issues that enter the political arena, but they dictate the extent to which the powerless even realize that there are issues or what those issues are.
In this system, there is an intimate connection between power and truth. The concept of truth in this context is an over-arching societal discourse that is produced and maintained through power and simultaneously builds and maintains power itself; power is used to create truth, and the truths created work toward maintaining the interests of those in power.
Michel Foucault describes the relationship between power and truth this way:
“In a society such as ours, but basically in any society, there are manifold relations of power which permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse. There can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth which operates through and on the basis of this association. We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.”
Truth is intimately connected to power through a reciprocal relationship. Its real strength lies in its ability to be accepted as truth and not questioned or revealed. It is an emperor-has-no-clothes situation where the “truth” is so ingrained in us that it feels crazy to question it, so we accept it as true even when our instincts tell us it is false.
Growth for the sake of growth has become gospel.
It is everywhere and nowhere
The problem with three-dimension power structures is that power is a phenomenon of collective action, “where the policy action of a collectivity is manifest, but not attributable to particular individuals’ decisions of behavior.” In other words, as Lukes puts it, “such collectives and organizations are made up of individuals – but the power they exercise cannot be simply conceptualized in terms of individuals’ decisions or behavior.”
Growth for the sake of growth is not unique to one person, party, or ideology; it is the one rule governing our economy. Society has taken it as a fundamental truth for so long and embedded it in the individual narratives of success to such an extent that even if we wanted to question it, we wouldn’t know where to start.
This type of power operates best by preventing people from having grievances by molding their perceptions of preferences to such an extent that they accept their role in the existing order, either because they see no alternative or because they actually believe it to be beneficial.
This aspect of power aligns with Foucault’s view that power, and the truths that maintain it, function best when accepted and not questioned or exposed.
The power lies intrinsically in its invisibility or taken-for-grantedness.
A simple example is that all traditional retirement accounts are invested in the stock market, thereby linking our economic health and ability to retire to an economy that grows unchecked.
If the economy isn’t growing, our ability to retire is at risk.
Truth is relative
Gospel is inherently problematic because it cannot be questioned.
The power of an open society is the ability of its individuals to question what is true and what is possible. Our capability to think differently is what propels us into the future instead of trapping us in the past.
From Galileo to gay rights to abolition, supposed Truths have been questioned and proven false over and over again in history. We look back on these past “truths” and cannot believe that a world once existed where they were never questioned.
During those times, how many people felt those “truths” to be intrinsically false but never questioned them because to do so would go against the norm?
“Objectively, we know nothing at all. Any system of intellectual thought, whether it be science, logic, religion, or philosophy, is based on certain fundamental ideas or axioms which are assumed, but which cannot be proved… However useful, spectacular, or necessary our ideas and experiments may be, they still have nothing to do with absolute truth or authority. Such a thing can only exist for the individual, according to his whim or fancy, or his inner perception of his own truth in being.”
- Jack Whiteside Parsons
That is the nature of three-dimensional power; it removes truth from the realm of the individual and places it in the hands of the system; it dismantles our ability to see alternatives; it cloaks assumptions and biases as unequivocally real.
One-trick ponies
Those in power want us to believe (and likely believe themselves) that simple Truth reinforced from above makes us more secure and stabilizes our society.
In giving our financial system only one metric to define success and reinforcing the idea that that metric can’t be questioned, we’ve limited our ability to adapt and, therefore, our ability to survive.
Capitalism is a one-trick pony, a complicated system governed by one unquestionable rule. One-trick ponies are easy to train and control but don’t do well in dynamic, chaotic environments.
Likewise, being “anti-capitalism” is too simple. Denying our innate desire to create, build, and grow has also yet to play out well in history or current society.
No matter what ideology is in power, individuals must be empowered and encouraged to question Truth because new paradigms will come no matter what; the question is how hard must we fight to bring them forth, and how hard will the old paradigms fall?
Growth as gospel is just one example of how we are trained not to question some of the most fundamental “truths” about our society, which lets others decide what we want, who we are allowed to be, and how we define a successful life.
To have/make/earn enough is a transgressive act.
So is working for the sake of joy, not settling, being a work of art in a world of widgets, and worshiping rest.
The nature of power is to reinforce power constantly. Every time we choose to question a known “truth,” we are taking some of that power back and making ourselves more resilient in the process.
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© Sarah Duran 2023
The Obvious Disclaimers…
This information is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional advice. What you decide to do with this information is up to you and all repercussions are on you.