ABSTRACT
Growth is an unambiguous plus in modern economies, even though economic growth is a paradoxical phenomenon. Every expansion contains the seeds of contraction and each contraction presages future growth. Successful modern societies are not progressive nor are they regressive. 1 Rather they have a swinging, pendulum-like, undulating, and cyclical quality about them. 2 They grow but that growth also oscillates. It expands and contracts. To be successful, modern economies have to expand more than they contract over time. Growth is the net value of the great modern oscillations, the swaying, swinging, deeply contradictory manner in which modern societies develop.
