[jodrellblank]

Why can't it be maintained forever?

If a house can be valued at $4,000 one year, and $40,000 a few decades later, and $200,0000 a few decades later, what's the reason that "value" can't keep increasing eternally? There's obviously no real substance to "the value" of a thing, only people's interpretation and desire for it, and there's plenty of "value" where there is no physical substance at all, like exclusivity, or emotional content of art, or novelty of experience. What math tells you there is anything which can be full or supplies run out?

[titzer]

Because any exponential growth rate will eventually reach the physical limitations (i.e. carrying capacity) of the underlying processes that produce goods, whether that is fish or molybdenum. Eventually, even if we can keep scaling exponential growth by spreading to other planets and stars, the growth is fundamentally limited by the speed of light, which means expansion in space is limited by O(n^3), and oh yes, even O(1.00000tiny^n) will eventually grow faster than O(n^3).

https://bollocks2012.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/the-greatest-s...

[jodrellblank]

Yes, I've watched Albert Bartlett's lecture several times; and if we get to talking about converting literally everything to pure computronium in a sphere expanding in all directions at approximately light speed, I admit that's a lot further into "forever" than I was imagining.

I was more thinking of the near-term future of resource scarcity, to make the point that "value" doesn't run out just because gold or oil extraction from the Earth runs out; people value intangible things and the economy runs on that being real value.

[opportune]

The real value has to increase, not just inflation. If the number goes up doesn't mean anything if everything goes up in equal amounts

[JohnFen]

That's not growth capitalism. Growth capitalism requires constant growth in both supply and demand. Increasing supply requires increasing the usage of raw materials (not to mention the waste generated through their use). The reality is that we don't have an unlimited supply of any raw materials, so growth cannot be maintained indefinitely.

[jodrellblank]

Increasing supply requires increasing the usage of raw materials

Recycling exists; Planet Earth has been doing it with organic matter for a couple of billion years without running out.

[JohnFen]

Recycling is not a solution at human time scales, because it is lossy. Recycling is a way of delaying depletion, not eliminating it.

And you're ignoring that we're talking about growth capitalism here. Here if recycling were perfect, if growth continues indefinitely then a point will inevitably be reached where demand exceeds the amount of supply that exists, recycling or not.