Growth: Also
- Outgrowing the Growth Imperative
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Outgrowing the Growth Imperative
Dear Reader,
I was an economics major in college. When I was taught that economies had to keep growing or face a spiraling collapse, I had questions. Under capitalism, economic success demands growth in production and consumption, but the laws of nature say that matter can’t be created or destroyed. This gap in logic nagged at me, but growth’s allure remained strong. I went on to get my MBA, and my first “real” job with a dot-com startup in the mid ’90s operated under that growth mindset—we wanted to go public, get acquired, cash out, and get rich. After we’d secured a round of venture capital, I remember the founders ordering a celebratory cake, with garish icing declaring our mantra, “GBF.” Get Big Fast.
But the nagging thoughts persisted. Reading Beyond the Limits by Dennis and Donella Meadows and Jørgen Randers confirmed my suspicion that economic growth only “works” in the short term. Long-term, it’s simply not sustainable. This was the beginning of my search for economic models that made more sense, including localization, cradle to cradle, steady state, circular economies, biomimicry, and donut economics. Most of these models rely on the idea that healthy economies mimic healthy ecosystems—lots of diverse players performing only necessary functions, with no single player so big as to dominate the system. Any “waste” is actually an important input to another process in the larger system. In theory, these models are elegant and resilient, with each player bolstered by a dense pattern of symbiotic relationships.
But I confess, the cultural narratives in the United States about the growth imperative run deep. I feel it even in stewarding the organization of YES! Because our mission is essential and urgent, my instinct tells me we must grow—expand our audience, our donors, our staff, expand our impact. But what if we didn’t? What if, instead, we intentionally participated as part of an ecosystem of values-aligned media and movement networks, each individual organization playing a necessary function, working symbiotically with many others to transform our society? What if those connections were much more visible and purposeful? These are the questions we’re excited to explore as we reconsider what it means to grow—both within and beyond YES!
In community,
Christine