I can remember a time when the sky was clear and you could see the stars at night. I was a child and you were IT. Tag! It was a time before pollution, before the 'growth' which led to smog filled skies, except in Los Angeles. Back then, jokes were made about LA's smog. Smog was something, THEY had. We'd never see it, unless, of course, we went to LA in 1955.
Capitalism cannot survive without 'growth'. In bourgeois terms,'La Growth' means more commodities being produced for sale with a view to increasing profits. Commodities produced by wage-slaves whose time is commodified. Before capitalism, there was no such idea taken as 'commonsense'. To be sure, we were not enlightened. Most of us thought that aristocrats were above the law and that we were subjects to their absolute control--mediated, of course, by religious authority. The ideology of 'growth' fills in a lot of the blanks in our understanding of what's happening to us now--as much or more than Christian, Muslim, etc. religious ideology, IMHO.
'Growth', includes the expansion: of the workforce/population, commodified wealth and living outside the parameters of ecological health. 'Growth' is also connected to increasing debt and speculation in finance markets for commodities like derivatives, real estate and credit default swaps. Just look at our rulers and opinion making public intellectuals go on and on their 'bully pulpits' about the need for 'growth'. Granted, there is also dispute amongst groups and individuals within the issues of 'growth' coming from various perspectives, some to stop it altogether and go back to some pastoral golden age or even as far back as a prehistoric standard of living. Still, the dominant idea our era is 'growth'.
While we don't see soup kitchens, it may only be because so many Americans are receiving food stamps.
Indeed, despite the dramatic photographs we've all seen of the 1930s, the 43 million Americans relying on food stamps to get by may actually be much greater than the number who relied on soup kitchens during the Great Depression.