Capitalism (as successful as it can be) is built fundamentally around cognitive dissonance. We know for a fact that the universe can't support unbounded exponential growth; one day, there will be no more resources to support that growth. On the other hand, the system requires the optimism that capital invested will produce value at an exponential rate forever. If the people ever became convinced that after tomorrow the growth will stop, the system would collapse overnight.
>We know for a fact that the universe can't support unbounded exponential growth;
I am never entirely convinced by this.
First because it does not need to, it only needs to support exponential growth for (say) 100 years and that is plenty of time for me. Or 1000 for me and my grandchildren's grandchildren. Then we can go to "stable state" etc
Second because economic growth is not purely a matter of physical resources. Oil use cannot grow forever. But Dollar value can.
>If the people ever became convinced that after tomorrow the growth will stop, the system would collapse overnight.
This is 110% true though. The main source of growth is optimism, the main source of optimism is growth. God help the government that cannot sustain those (like now here in the UK).
