Growth as Gospel: Why We're All Addicted to "More"

Is a recession coming?

Google that question and you'll drown in articles about interest rates, unemployment numbers, and consumer confidence. But they're all really asking the same thing: Is the economy still growing?

Growth has become our economic religion. If GDP isn't climbing, if companies aren't expanding, if your salary isn't increasing year over year—something must be wrong. The economy is "healthy" when it's growing, "sick" when it's not.

But here's what's been bothering me: Nothing in nature grows forever. Trees don't get infinitely tall. Animals don't get endlessly bigger. So why do we expect our economy to?

When Growth Becomes Cancer

Think about it. A healthy cell grows to a certain size, then stops. Cancer cells? They never stop growing. They consume everything around them until they kill their host.

Yet we've built an entire economic system on the cancer model.

Your 401k depends on the stock market going up forever. Your company needs to hit growth targets every quarter. Your house needs to appreciate. Your career needs an upward trajectory. Always more, always up, no exceptions.

This singular focus makes our current system inherently unstable. If you have only one strategy and one metric for success, adaptation becomes impossible. 

What innovations have we missed out on because we only focus on growth? 

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Here's the weird part: even when this growth obsession feels wrong, we don't question it.

The need to produce more and accumulate more, defining 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.

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.

The Retirement Trap

Want a concrete example of how deep this goes? Look at your retirement account.

Every financial advisor will tell you the same thing: invest in index funds that track the overall stock market. Your retirement depends on the market increasing year after year for decades.

Your retirement is literally betting that we can extract more resources, consume more products, and expand more businesses forever. 

And if that bet fails? If you decide to consume less, make less, and rest more, your future self pays the price. 

Our ability to retire is inherently dependent on our ability to produce and consume. 

The Emperor's New Economy

Remember the fairy tale about the emperor's new clothes? Everyone pretended to see the beautiful outfit because they were afraid to admit they saw nothing.

Our growth obsession is similar. Deep down, many of us sense that something is off. We see climate change accelerating. We watch people burning out from endless hustle culture. We notice that, despite decades of growth, many people still struggle to afford basic necessities like housing and healthcare.

But we don't say anything because everyone else seems convinced that growth equals progress.

I'm not saying we should stop working, building, and creating. Humans naturally want to solve problems, expand their capabilities, and improve their surroundings. That's not the problem.

The problem is when growth becomes the only measure of success.

What if a business could be considered successful for providing good jobs and serving its community well, even if it stayed the same size for years?

What if your career could be considered successful because you found work you enjoyed and earned enough to live comfortably, even if your salary plateaued?

What if an economy could be considered healthy because it met people's needs sustainably, even if GDP stayed flat?

These aren't radical ideas in most of human history. The obsession with endless growth is actually pretty new.

Breaking the Spell

Here's what I've learned: the first step to changing any system is acknowledging that we've got other options.

Every time you catch yourself thinking "I need to earn more," ask: "More than what? For what purpose?"

Every time someone talks about economic growth as obviously good, ask: "Growth in what? At what cost?"

Every time you feel behind because you're not climbing some ladder fast enough, ask: "Who built this ladder? Where does it lead?"

The people who benefit most from our growth addiction are those who own the most assets. For everyone else, the endless climb is exhausting.

What if success meant having enough time for the people you love?

What if it meant doing work that felt meaningful rather than just profitable?

What if it meant living in a way that didn't require the planet to be strip-mined for your comfort?

These aren't questions our growth-obsessed culture encourages us to ask. But they're worth asking anyway.

Because maybe, just maybe, the emperor really is naked. And maybe it's time someone said so.