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Chapter 12: The Dynamics of Negative and Positive Growth Systems.In order to better understand the dynamics of the negative growth system, let us first explore the dynamics of the positive growth system. The positive growth system is best illustrated by the dynamics of the unfolding of life. The positive growth system is therefore a natural system. The positive growth system: The dynamics of life. A gardener puts a seed into the ground and in due time there emerges a plant in tender shades of green, forming a bud, blossom, and fruit. In its growth it creates color, shapes, substance - none of which exist in the ground. It unfolds these out of its own resources. It grows, and as it ripens, its fruit can eventually be harvested to sustain life elsewhere, or become seed again to create new plants. And so, life expands in all possible dimensions. Mankind is a part of this dynamic process. The human society represents the most advanced stage of it. Here, the dynamics of life come to light in a type of development where the application of intelligence has enabled discoveries of fundamental principles and have paved the way to the stars and the building of civilizations. Here, too, life is a strongly dynamic thing. It becomes manifest in constant development, in unfolding intelligence, in creating and discovering, and in building. Civilization is a complex and dynamic thing of life. The entire human sphere is a living structure that has unfolded out its own rich inner resources. It's strength is in understanding, and in utilizing the nature of life and its expression that the human sphere is a part of. Since mankind's development began, mankind has followed a pattern of constant growth, a development that has taken us far beyond what the dust of the earth contains, or 'nature' could provide. Mankind lives by the principles of live, and so does anything that unfolds and develops. There is no such thing as static life, or zero growth, or negative unfolding in real terms. 'Static life' is a contradiction in language and impossible in reality, and so is the modern economic equivalent, the much promoted concept of a 'zero growth' doctrine that an oligarchic elite is trying to impose on mankind. A 'zero growth' state cannot be achieved in real live, nor can it be achieved in the economy by which mankind lives, which is itself a thing of life. If a plant is starved into a 'zero growth' state, it dies. Life grows and unfolds, or ceases to be. The 2.5 million years of primitive existence during which the human population levels were quite stable, were not a period of zero growth. They were a period of a murderous conflict in which the dynamics of the unfolding of life were continuously crushed by the limits of the poverty within the primitive system. Life can't attain a 'zero growth' state at any level. The impositions of a 'zero growth' economy manifests itself as disintegration. Human society is a living structure in all its aspects and cannot be forced into a 'zero growth' process that is contrary to the dynamics of life without enforcing the global collapse of the system. This holds true physically, economically, scientifically, and spiritually. Whatever is connected with life must grow, must develop, or it collapses. Has anyone ever seen a flower in a state of zero growth, or even growing smaller as it unfolds? Life exist only in the form of constant development. Apart from this positive growth or positive development, there is but death and oblivion. Not even animal societies exist in a zero growth state. They live in an environment of conflict where the development of life is constantly being poised against death, either through starvation that reflects the poverty of the limits of the ground, or through predation, or through the natural vulnerability of life at low stages of intelligence where effective protection from physical hazards is not possible. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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