All In One Stone (#113)

Growth For Growth Is The Ideology of Cancer Cells

"My way of thinking is strongly inspired by cybernetics: the doctrine of harmony that tries to understand how in physical, biological processes the system always strives for balance. It is this theory of equilibrium that also formed the basis of the report of the Club of Rome."

"Because the earth itself is a closed world, it does not allow for infinite growth. A world population that multiplies perpetually is simply impossible.

"Just like our body cells. If they are not stopped in their expansion, it leads to cancer. All imbalance is sickly.

That means that it is completely ingrained in my thinking to be suspicious of everything that is ideological.

[…]

There is this rather large yuppies generation that lives off of the delusions of the day, of hypes, hedonism and high incomes. A small group enriches itself, occupies all positions of power and completely closes itself off from reality, and has excellent mechanisms for not * having* to see that reality.

I find that very worrying about this time: the fake world. A new phenomenon. Take that word 'virtual'. It is now possible to pull entire population groups away from reality.

[...]

The free marketeers and anonymous investors are the greatest danger. Instead of a prosperous, sustainable world, they create a destructive 'casino economy', that, in addition to the environment, victimises millions of people."

"Growth-for-growth," Van Dieren wrote at the end of 1998 in an essay in Trouw, "that's the ideology of cancer cells."

Translated excerpt from an interview with Wouter van Dieren (Dutch journalist, social psychologist, landscape painter, entrepreneur and environmentalist) in de Volkskrant, date unknown.

Number 113 in the continuous series "All In One Stone"

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