Is this the end of growth?

For the past century, we’ve built our entire world on the back of one core belief: growth is good.

Scratch that, growth is essential.

It’s what keeps governments funded, businesses scaling and people employed. The charts go up and to the right or the system breaks.

But what if that assumption no longer holds? Because I think the era of constant economic growth might be ending.

We haven’t lost our ambition, but the foundations of growth are changing beneath our feet. Slowing population growth, the limits of a finite planet, and the rise of AI are all pushing us toward something else: post-growth.

And that raises a big, uncomfortable question: if growth isn’t guaranteed, or even desirable, then what should we all be striving for?

A System Built on Speed

The post-war boom gave us a version of capitalism that seemed unstoppable. Populations were exploding and the Earth's resources felt limitless.

There were new markets to explore and lots of new stuff to sell. Growth was easy and it was the only goal.

And to be fair, it worked. Living standards have improved substantially. Global poverty has declined. Whole classes of people entered the middle class, bought homes, went on holidays abroad. Growth was a rising tide, and for a while, it really did lift a lot of boats.

But tides turn.

Today, in large swaths of the developed world, population growth is stalling or reversing. Japan has been grappling with this for decades. Germany and South Korea aren’t far behind. Even the U.S., long insulated by immigration and higher birth rates, is starting to feel the demographic drag.

Fewer people means fewer workers, fewer consumers, and fewer taxpayers. Suddenly the maths that made growth seem automatic starts to wobble.

Meanwhile, we've been running the Earth like it's an infinite warehouse, with always more to extract, more to burn. But ecosystems don’t work like that. You can’t compound forest growth like you do investment returns.

At some point, when what we take out exceeds what can be replenished, you end up with collapsing fisheries, farmland becoming unfarmable, and climate feedback loops that don’t care about earnings growth.

And just as we're realising these old growth levers might not work anymore, along comes AI to kick the legs out from under the table.

The AI Curveball

AI is brilliant at making things more efficient. But capitalism isn’t designed for abundance, it’s designed for scarcity.

If you can generate endless value with minimal labor, that’s great for productivity, but terrible for a system that ties human livelihood to full-time employment.

For the first time ever, we’re staring down the possibility of a high-output, low-employment economy. Machines do the work, humans do... what exactly? Consume less? Compete with bots? Live off government stipends?

That’s the paradox. AI doesn’t just disrupt capitalism, it accelerates its death.

More output, fewer jobs. More innovation, less distribution. More control, concentrated in fewer hands.

It’s a productivity dream and a social nightmare.

So What Comes Next?

If the old model breaks, we’re left with a very real question: what do we optimise for in a world that can’t rely on growth?

Some thinkers have started pointing to something called “post-growth” or “degrowth” economics. Now, I know “degrowth” sounds like a euphemism for recession, but the idea is actually pretty nuanced. It’s not about halting progress. It’s about redefining it.

Instead of chasing GDP at all costs, we start asking: are people healthier? Happier? Do they have access to clean air, good food, and meaningful work? Are we using resources in a way that gives future generations a chance?

In other words, we stop measuring success by how big the economy gets, and start measuring it by how well it serves the people inside it.

You can see early hints of this already. The rise of the four-day workweek. Experiments with universal basic income. Countries like New Zealand baking well-being into their national budgets. Wales enshrining in law the rights of the future population. Local economies turning to co-ops, public platforms, or community-owned assets instead of relying solely on private capital.

These aren’t utopian fantasies, they’re rational responses to a world where traditional growth playbooks don’t apply.

Capitalism Isn’t Dead. But It Might Be Changing.

Let me be clear: capitalism isn’t going away tomorrow.

Markets still work. Incentives still matter. Innovation still thrives under pressure. But systems evolve. They shed skins. They mutate under stress.

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that economic resilience doesn’t come from doing more, it comes from doing better. We need models that can handle stagnation without implosion. That prioritse quality over quantity. That recognise when enough is, well, enough.

That might mean governments focusing less on GDP and more on public health and environmental sustainability. It might mean companies measuring success by how long they retain talent, not how fast they grow headcount. It might mean redefining wealth altogether, not just as assets, but as time, freedom, and ecological stability.

And yes, it might mean confronting the fact that we’ve outgrown the idea of infinite expansion on a finite planet.

So What Do We Do With This?

First, we start paying attention to the underlying signals.

Is your industry still built on scale, or is it shifting toward sustainability? Are you optimising for growth, or for impact? Are you chasing expansion, or building resilience?

Second, we get comfortable with new metrics. GDP is easy to track, but it’s a blunt instrument. Look instead at life expectancy, mental health, resource use, carbon intensity, income inequality. These are the indicators that will define whether we’re actually thriving.

And finally, we start designing for the world we’re entering, not the one we’re leaving behind. A world where automation is common, growth is uneven, and sustainability isn’t just a nice-to-have.

If this is the end of growth as we know it, it’s not the end of the world. It’s the beginning of a very different one.

And we get to choose what it looks like. We have to. For the sake of our children.

Until next time,

Jon "Greed is (not) good" Kaye

Finding meaning in the everyday

P.S.

I created some content about there being too much content on the internet (can you spot the irony?). See what you think here.