Having attended, albeit briefly, the initial Occupy protest in Amsterdam on Saturday 15 October – a protest which is continuing in a camp of tents outside the Euronext stock exchange building despite the Autumn weather - my mind has been somewhat occupied since with related thoughts.

Many and varied were the speakers during the first hour or so of the Amsterdam gathering, but just two come immediately to mind. Firstly, the child who succinctly stated that he (maybe she... I do apologise, but I could not see) did not understand why people were ripping up the world’s forests just to make money and helping to kill the world’s few remaining tigers in the process.
 
Finite
Then there was man who said growth is the problem. That our continual quest  for economic growth is impossible to maintain given that we live on a planet with very finite resources. Anyone with any sense, he said, could see this is so.
 
I agree that growth is the key factor behind nearly all our current woes. Some of you may prefer the word greed, but I’m not sure that actually covers as much of the ‘problem area’ as does growth. Consider, for example, that although those 'nasty' bankers may well have been greedy, most of them no doubt believed they were also doing their best to help their businesses – and maybe us too, in turn - by helping them achieve financial growth. That is, is it not, what bankers are trained and expected to do.

Spiral
No, the main problem is growth - as that man who spoke on Saturday said - and, whether we mean to or not, we are all helping to keep that growth problem growing.

I may, for example, like to think I’m not a product-grabbing, must-have-the-latest-gadget consumer, but I too am part of that growth spiral, even if only by my contributing to a private pension fund. After all, that fund has to grow to stay in line or ahead of ‘growth’ so as to pay me some kind of decent pension when the time comes.

You and I may not want it to be like that but growth in salaries and in prices means we are forced to play the growth game in various ways just to tread water. Growth pervades society; appears indeed to be at its very core.

Growth that's good
So, what to do? The Occupy protests seem to be full of people expressing what we don’t like about the way things have been going, but what about the long term solutions? I don’t have any easy or even complicated answers (please feel free to share yours in the comments section below, by the way), but maybe we could start by thinking about how we can stop – wanting and working for – economic growth and move to different kinds of growth?

Growth of wholesome foodstuffs to feed everyone on the planet, for a start. Growth in global healthcare, so the very poor can stop thinking they have to have loads of children to ‘beat’ those dreaded infant mortality rates.

Or how about growth in personal contentment and well-being, so we don’t think we need more and more material ‘things’ to help fill the void? Or perhaps growth in concern and care for our planet – and environmental innovation too - so those forests keep growing or get replanted quickly and those tigers still have a place to live. Now, wouldn't that be good... ? 
 

ConFuzius - Amsterdam

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of RNW or its staff.

Thanks to Tatters;) for the beautiful photo (reworked in Photoshop)