Endless economic growth is one of the great pieces of modern mythology. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the divine right of scumbag egomaniacal kings. It is a story we tell ourselves, and like all powerful stories, it shapes the architecture of our civilization.

But let us slow down and look at it carefully. The idea of endless economic growth rests on a very peculiar assumption: that a finite planet can sustain infinite extraction, infinite production, infinite consumption. It is, at its core, a metaphysical claim disguised as an economic one. It says that matter and energy can be reorganized without limit, that the Earth is a kind of bottomless pantry and simultaneously an infinite sewer.

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