Growth towards Death

Agamedes sees that continued growth may lead to death by suffocation.

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"It is also one of the most basic laws of nature that anything that is not growing is dying." That's from a letter published in The West (2 Nov 10), a letter supporting the right of and necessity for banks to make as much profit as they can. It is also a standard economic mantra in favour of continued growth. Growth of national economy, growth of business scale, growth of population.

A website called TeamRocks uses an analogy: Cut a rose off its bush and the rose immediately stops growing and begins to die.

Let's look a bit more closely at that idea, that you are either growing or dying.

Cut a rose off its bush and yes, it immediately begins to die. But what happens to the bush? The bush continues to both grow and live.

The rose gardener wants to have more roses -- the flowers -- next year. So what happens to the rose bush? It is pruned! Heavily!

The reason for growing a rose bush is to get rose flowers. In order to get better and more flowers -- the bush is regularly cut back. Yes, the rose bush continues to grow but it is not allowed to grow any bigger. A rose bush grows and then is cut back... reduced in size.

Strict limits on growth provide the best results in terms of what we want from the rose bush. Because what we want is not thorns, not size, not green leaves and solid stems. What we want from a rose bush is flowers. And to get the most and the best flowers -- we prune and control.

For those who do not understand the analogy

What do we want from the population of Australia? We do not want growth, numbers, increase just for the sake of it. What we do want is a good -- or better -- quality of life.

Quality of life may improve with more money, with better (or more) houses, with cleaner air... Feel free to choose your preferred improvement.

Did anyone say, "All I want is more and more people living in Australia?"

I doubt it. (If you did, please let me know.)

Our preferred quality of life improvement may require growth of some kind. A growing population may be seen as a simple means to the actual preferred end. But a growing population brings problems. In particular, a growing population means that we need to share our gains with more people... which reduces the effect of our gains.

Is there a better way?

Is there some way by which we can improve our quality of life without a growing population? The rose bush produces more and better flowers when its size is tightly controlled. Is there an equivalent way in which we can stop population growth -- and still gain quality of life?

Like the rose bush, our population will grow and grow... unless we control it. As the population grows, it will produce less and worse of what we really want and need. Like the rose bush, we can improve our quality of life by limiting growth.

Stop encouraging rampant growth of thorns, leaves and stems. Control the population and produce more -- and better -- beautiful flowers.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com