The Problem with Growth

The most important value shared by all of mankind is GROWTH.

Consider that as humans, we are dependent on growing up.  Growth is considered to be a positive, even essential aspect of life.  We look around and we see growth positively valued everywhere we look.  We want our gardens to grow.  We want our children to grow up.  We want to grow our own abilities, to learn, to be able to be more proficient, more successful.  Growth is one of the values we all share in common.  It is part of the environment in which we live, so much so, the values associated with growth go unnoticed, unobserved.

Growth is good!  Who does not want their net worth to grow?  We all look forward to the day that our financial obligations are smaller than all the assets in property and money that we claim ownership of.  We abhor the idea of negative financial growth lest we find we are bankrupt.  To increase the opportunity to grow financially while limiting the risks we have to endure, we form associations with others, limited partnerships, corporations.  We invest assets in these corporations expecting a return, not only in dividends from the profit of the company, but also, we hope, in the increasing, growing value of the company and hence our stock investment.  We are counting on economic values to grow.  Our expectations of gain as well as the expectations of gain of those managing the companies imply there will be growth; growth in profits, growth in asset value.  The whole of our economy, in our nation, in other nations, in the world as a whole, are dependent on growth.  Hence, growth in consumers, growth in population is desired.  It leads to additional needs for food, housing, clothing, entertainment, information, health care, transportation, etc., etc., etc.

In the United States, the economic need for constant, continual financial growth is running out of places to grow.  Hence, we see an effort to devalue governmental services in favor of commercial enterprises.  Private prisons help the financial markets grow.  Private schools allow for profit, for financial growth in a previously non-profit segment of society.  Parks, roads, utilities, transportation, police, fire station services, health care, military services, to name a few– all of these are game for creating new growth for the financial sectors of society.  And since growth is good, even when prompted by greed, a pernicious form of growth, why not make all activities of life “grow-able.”

There is a problem with the supposedly good value of growth.  It is not sustainable?  It is a simple fact that the resources of this planet though enormous, are limited.  Growth forever is not sustainable.  The problem is the short term existence of any single individual to mostly less than a hundred years.  Growth is probably sustainable during that brief horizon today, probably during the next few generations, but not indefinitely.  The problem with growth is how culturally embedded and revered growth is, how acceptable as a fundamental principle of goodness it is for most people.  Yes, some people see the problem of growth in limited areas, but not generally as a whole.

Unfortunately I don’t have a solution except to call attention to what seems to be generally invisible.  We live in a “growth is good” milieu much as a fish lives in water, unaware of the universe that surrounds it– it just is.  To be able to advocate for a sustainable world, we first must come to terms with the fact that the growth value must be recognized and ways to sustain the world explored before we pass some tipping point.  WE must learn in what ways growth is positive and in what ways it exhausts the resources of our planet.  We must come to terms with externalities of specific acts of growth as well as its benefits. If we don’t come to terms with this problem of the growth value, mother nature will take care of it for us or our progeny or our lack of progeny.

See also The Earth has a Cancer

How to Improve Public Education

I read a recent report on Finland’s education success.  It reinforced my own beliefs about how to improve public education.  Finland’s emphasis is not on excellence, but equity.  Yet  this emphasis on equity has rendered them one of the most outstanding educational systems in the world today.  You see, Finland has NO PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

If we outlawed private schools, there would be a sudden national interest in making our public schools excellent.  It is just a simple application of what some call “Market Forces” that all the people who show interest in education, sending their kids to private schools to get a superior education would suddenly be interested in making our public schools excellent and that would include spending a lot more money on education — just like those who are willing to pay big bucks for private schools know needs to be done.

In the public school settings, funds frequently run short.  When that happens, decision makers THINK they are making wise use of funds by cutting programs like chorus, band, and physical education.  What they accomplish is cutting the programs that emphasize cooperative behavior.  That is not learned in the classroom where each student is graded as an individual in competition with other students.  Then, when people enter the working world, they can become individual greedy people, not caring about society as a whole,  because they have not learned the importance of cooperation and fairness.

I was once a manager of a computer center in a small college.  I had a lot of student aides that helped other students in the computer lab.  I also had some students who were working on computer programming problems.  Once, I had a student come to me that had scored a perfect score on the SAT test, said he was good at math and computer programming.  I asked him if he had ever been assigned a task that he could not accomplish.  He said no.  So I assigned him one.  He had to develop a computer program as team leader of a group of other students and he was not allowed to write or suggest a single line of code to address the assigned problem.  He failed.  He had never learned the skill of cooperative behavior, working with a team, being a supportive person.  It may have been the only failure he ever experiences, but demonstrated to him that he could not be successful unless he learned more about cooperation.  Our proponents of private schools also need to learn more about cooperative behavior and societal responsibility.

So, I say, do away with PRIVATE SCHOOLS and let the “market forces” of all those who are using them help us make ALL schools become examples of excellence for all children and youth and help us emphasize the importance of equity in making our society a better place to live.