The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

but it doesn’t address the main underlying driver of growth, which is a little bit deeper and more difficult to see, and that is debt. Right now, one of the reasons our economies have to grow is because of debt. Debt comes with interest, and interest means that debt grows exponentially. For a country to pay down its debt over the long term, it has to grow its economy enough to match the growth of its debt. The same is true of a business. If you want to start a business, you’ll probably have to take out a loan. Then, because you have that debt, you can’t just be satisfied with earning enough to pay your employees and feed your family – you also have to turn enough profit to pay off your loan with compound interest. Regardless of whether you’re a country or a business – or even an individual – you’ll find that, without growth, debt piles up and eventually causes a financial crisis. If you don’t grow, you collapse.

Genius but evil