Growing pangs

Ever get a notion about something only to dismiss it because it's not your area of expertise? Ever been reluctant to open your mouth about something that appeared obvious to you, but stopped because you knew that the experts in that field would scoff and snicker?

Imagine believing it might be a good time to completely divest ourselves of nuclear weapons rather than running around the world screaming, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Then imagine saying it aloud in front of a military analyst.

Imagine believing there is something fundamentally wrong with our fixation on economic growth. Then imagine saying that in front of a business analyst — or worse yet — in the pages of a business-to-business magazine.

Rule of thumb: If, as far as you know, you're the only person thinking something about which experts should know better, keep your mouth shut. But when an opportunity knocks, when someone with more street cred than you opens the door by opening his mouth, then say what you really think.

And so I say, “There is something fundamentally wrong with our fixation on economic growth.”

Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, opened the door when he wrote in its December issue that we suffer in this country (and around the world) from “an addictive dependence of human economies and political systems upon growth.”

Because of the requirement for incessant growth, Flynn calls our economic system a glorified Ponzi scheme that ultimately can't sustain such incessant growth. Well, isn't it?

All we seem to do by encouraging companies and entire industries to engage in a gluttonous ballooning of their bottom lines is set ourselves up for the big grabber, the chest-tightening jolt that brings life as we know it to a sudden halt. Because life as we know it is a slave to that growth mind-set — our own personal investment portfolios, retirement accounts and incessant debt accumulation depend on it.

But what's wrong with a slow and steady fire? Why isn't it enough to run a good little business like Verizon Wireless that generates a respectable $44 billion per year, or a “small” vendor that generates $150 million?

We wring our hands in this business that the wireless market is saturated, that voice is being commoditized, that IP multimedia subsystem and its associated holy grail of revenue-generating services are taking too long to deploy, and we cry, “Where will all the growth come from?”

The problem with growth-dependent markets is that one day we look up and see that all the growth is coming from Asia, Eastern Europe and India. And we wonder if this is the year it all comes crashing down. Is it?