ABSTRACT
Introduction A paradigm can be defined in terms of two component parts, namely, discourse and process. The former is its ideational aspect, which legitimates and gives direction to the paradigm. It embodies axiomatic beliefs that express common values, interests and goals, that prescribe appropriate means to realize them, and that, in general, define a domain of normalcy typical of paradigmatic eras. Cox has described this type of historical occurrence as the ‘temporary universalization in thought of a particular power structure, conceived not as domination but as the necessary order of nature’.1 The second part of a paradigm is its material component, which in this case is instantiated in the process of economic production. Brought into focus through the lens of critical theory, this element comprises social classes, the social relations of production, and the physical artifacts of production as such. The material component of the paradigm links human society necessarily to the natural world. The present chapter focuses on the ideational component, because it is a key contention of this study that the core and leading element of the growth paradigm is a collectively held belief in the efficacy of growth, a belief which has remained constant for some 300 years. This ideational theme, or superstructure, joins the growth era into a single historical entity, even though the story of growth and the actors involved have changed over time as progress transformed the physical and political landscape inhabited by human society. The objective of this chapter is to illuminate the genesis and political import of the ideational superstructure of the growth paradigm, and to show how an incremental process of abstraction has disarticulated the superstructure from its social context, and from its material foundations. As the preceding sentence implies, the ideational superstructure co-exists with a substructure of social relations and material objects. This co-existence – a reflection of the socio-natural continuum – will be explored in more detail in the next section of this chapter but for the moment I note that, because the major part of the paradigm is ideational, and because that component may be characterized as a dominant discourse, it would seem to follow that a form of discourse analysis might be appropriate to the content of this chapter. In fact discourse
analysis and neo-Gramscianism overlap in important ways and can be mutually beneficial as compatible modes of inquiry but, as adumbrated in Chapter 1, I prefer the latter for reasons which I describe below. John Dryzec offers a simple definition of the term: a discourse is ‘a shared way of apprehending the world’, resting on a set of assumptions, judgments and contentions.2 Somewhat more helpfully, Jim George defines it as a ‘matrix of social practices that gives meaning to the way that people understand themselves and their behaviour. A discourse . . . generates the categories of meaning by which reality can be understood and explained’.3 Capitalist discourse, for example, specifies roles, expectations and norms associated with economic behaviour and as such facilitates communication between people, which in turn increases the incentive for others to adopt the discourse as well.4
