Why Growth? Between Necessity and Reckoning

Ask a minister how we’re going to pay for pensions, fund healthcare, equip the armed forces, support innovation, or build green infrastructure, and the answer will be the same, whether spoken aloud or just assumed. Growth. Economic growth is the skeleton key that unlocks every fiscal door. It raises revenues without raising taxes. It promises progress without redistribution. It reconciles political opposites by keeping the pie expanding.

But in a world of ecological stress, demographic change, and political disillusionment, the belief in growth is starting to look distinctly problematic. Still, we cling to it. Why?

Why do we rely so heavily on growth? Can it be made sustainable? And given the very real limits (ecological, demographic, political), how can we overcome them?

Growth: The Backbone of the Model

For all its flaws, growth does something no other economic lever can easily replicate: it pays for things. That may sound prosaic, but it’s a central political fact.

A growing economy expands the tax base without necessitating changes to tax rates. It makes debt affordable by shrinking its relative weight. It allows public services to improve without taking from one group to give to another. For governments, growth is, in fact, essential.

The same logic underpins nearly every projection made by finance ministries and central banks. When we imagine a future in which we can support an ageing population, manage climate transition, and invest in innovation, we are imagining a future where GDP continues to rise.

This is the paradox. We know growth has costs. But without it, the entire structure of pensions, healthcare, education, and defence begins to look distinctly shaky. No wonder it’s so difficult to rethink.

The Challenge: Limits Everywhere

And yet, the idea of endless growth is plainly unsustainable. The limits are not abstract. They are material, visible, and already biting.

Ecologically, we are in overshoot. The Earth cannot absorb the emissions we produce, replenish the resources we consume, or repair the damage we inflict at the speed we demand. Climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and water scarcity are all symptoms of a system running too hot. To keep growing under these conditions is to pretend the planet is infinite.

Demographically, the great engine of expansion, the young, growing populations, is slowing. In many advanced economies, birth rates are below replacement, labour forces are shrinking, and the ratio of workers to retirees is falling fast. Immigration can soften the blow, but politically, it is becoming harder to sustain.

Socially and politically, the spoils of growth have become ever more uneven. In the UK, US, and elsewhere, decades of GDP growth have coincided with stagnant wages, rising inequality, and deteriorating trust in institutions. The link between national prosperity and individual wellbeing has frayed. For many, growth feels like a promise that never arrives, or if it does, it arrives for those who don’t need it.

These are the limits. Not just of the environment, but of politics, demographics, and even imagination. So there needs to be a rethinking, not of growth per se, but with the way we pursue it.

Can Growth Be Made Sustainable?

If growth is needed, policymakers must reconcile the necessity of growth with the limits of our context.

Some argue that we can. That we can “decouple” economic growth from environmental harm. That we can build a circular economy where waste becomes input, emissions are captured or offset, and resources are regenerated rather than depleted.

There is perhaps some truth in this, but it feels like there’s also an awful lot of hope. So far, genuine decoupling, where GDP rises while overall environmental impact falls, has been limited, partial, and mostly confined to emissions rather than total resource use. Many rich countries have lowered their domestic carbon footprints, but only by offshoring production. The damage still happens; it just happens elsewhere.

At the same time, digital innovation and green technologies do offer real possibilities. Shifts in how we produce, consume, and power our lives can make a difference. But they are not automatic. Without strong policy and investment, technological progress will not outpace ecological decline. Nor will it reduce inequality or rebuild trust.

Maybe growth can be made more sustainable. But it will take intention, direction, and discipline. Left to itself, the system will not correct course. It will continue to chase expansion, even at the cost of collapse.

The Case for Realism

In one’s more idealistic moments, it’s tempting to imagine that we could simply opt out. Live within our means. Design a steady-state economy that prioritises wellbeing over accumulation.

And in theory, we could. There are plausible models of zero-growth or post-growth economies that support basic needs, maintain ecological balance, and sustain decent lives. They emphasise redistribution, repair, sufficiency, care work, and community resilience. In many ways, they are more human and more moral than our current trajectory.

But they are not, under current conditions, feasible. Not without upending the entire architecture of our economies. Our pension systems rely on new workers paying for old ones. Our hospitals rely on increasing revenues to match rising demand. Our militaries, infrastructure, welfare states all depend on expanding tax receipts. Without growth, we would face harsh trade-offs that no democratic government has yet dared to confront.

This is not an argument for giving up. If we want a different economic model, one not premised on perpetual expansion, we would need a political revolution. Until then, growth remains a structural necessity.

What, Then, Are the Limits to Growth?

The question remains. Not “should we grow?”. We will. Not “is growth bad?” because the answer to that is complex. But “what are the limits to growth, and how do we navigate them?”

First, ecological limits. Growth that destroys the planet is self-defeating. We should treat planetary boundaries not as constraints to be evaded but as structural conditions. That means pricing carbon properly. It means ending perverse subsidies. It means regulating polluters and investing in repair.

Second, distributional limits. Growth that concentrates wealth hollows out social legitimacy. If we want growth to sustain democracy, it must, somehow, be widely shared. That implies stronger social safety nets, fairer taxation, and a rebalancing of power between capital and labour.

Third, psychological limits. Growth has become an end in itself. It’s now a totem of progress rather than a means to wellbeing. That framing could be resisted. Growth is useful, but it is not sacred. We can learn to judge policy not only by whether it raises GDP, but whether it improves lives.

Finally, narrative limits. The story we tell ourselves, one of infinite progress, constant acceleration and unending accumulation, is outdated. We need a new story. One that recognises complexity, honours interdependence, and makes room for us. Growth could serve life, not the other way around.

Not the End of Growth. Maybe the End of Naïvety

We are not heading for a no-growth world, at least not voluntarily. The current model cannot run without it. And most of what we value, from scientific research, public health, clean energy, to decent pensions, depends on it. Growth, in that sense, remains necessary.

It is, though, not enough to hope for the best. The limits are real. They demand strategy, not slogans. They force us to think not only about how to grow, but how to grow wisely, within boundaries, with justice, and toward goals that actually matter.

That is the next phase, and it starts with asking the right question. Not how we can get more, but what can we afford, what must we protect, and what we owe each other in a world with limits.

That is the job of futurists. That’s what we should be doing.

Written by Jonathan Blanchard Smith, SAMI Fellow and Director

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of SAMI Consulting.

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