ABSTRACT
Growth is not simply a broadly shared “value”, but the pivotal activation device of our societies. The chapter retraces the origins of this general injunction, reinterpreting some classical narratives about the genealogy of modern society–Elias, Riesman, Sahlins, Weber, Marx, Baudrillard. In particular, the chapter highlights the “material” (and not only ideological) foundation of the growth regime. Social organization is completely rethought in a “horizontal” key, i.e. starting from the centrality of the individual. This circumstance gives rise to a “neutralitarian” regime: public authority must necessarily be neutral, passive in the face of the infinite variety of visions carried by each individual. Politics fosters the growth of life, so that human beings are free to do everything they wish of it. The consequences of this order are heavy. Ecological balances are compromised; workers and their families are trapped by insecurity (due to the uncontrollable fluctuation of labor and money values). On the anthropological side, there is a “stagflation effect,” for which the values pursued by individuals lose intensity simultaneously with their unexhausted multiplication. Finally, the democratic principle is structurally disabled, due to what is called the “legein paradox.”
