"People have been convinced that growth for growth's sake is a good thing"
About this Quote
Scholz’s line lands like a quiet guitar cut through stadium noise: simple, clean, and aimed at a very loud cultural assumption. “Convinced” is the tell. He’s not describing a natural hunger for improvement; he’s pointing to persuasion, to messaging, to a sales job so successful it passed for common sense. Growth isn’t framed as a means (to stability, to craft, to freedom) but as a virtue in itself, the way a band is expected to keep touring bigger rooms even if the music starts sounding like a product line.
Coming from Scholz, it carries extra bite. He’s the rare rock star whose brand was built on meticulous engineering and control: the DIY studio ethic, the refusal to rush, the suspicion of the industry’s assembly line. In that light, the quote reads less like abstract economics and more like a lived critique of a system that confuses expansion with excellence. “For growth’s sake” is the lyrical equivalent of a forced encore: applause demanded, not earned.
The context is a late-20th-century American story where “more” became a moral category. Corporate metrics, suburb sprawl, endless sequels, quarterly targets, and the idea that if you aren’t scaling you’re failing. Scholz pokes that balloon without sounding preachy; he just swaps in one unsettling question: who benefits when we treat constant enlargement as inherently “good”? The subtext is an invitation to value sustainability, mastery, and sufficiency - not as nostalgia, but as resistance to a culture that monetizes restlessness.
Coming from Scholz, it carries extra bite. He’s the rare rock star whose brand was built on meticulous engineering and control: the DIY studio ethic, the refusal to rush, the suspicion of the industry’s assembly line. In that light, the quote reads less like abstract economics and more like a lived critique of a system that confuses expansion with excellence. “For growth’s sake” is the lyrical equivalent of a forced encore: applause demanded, not earned.
The context is a late-20th-century American story where “more” became a moral category. Corporate metrics, suburb sprawl, endless sequels, quarterly targets, and the idea that if you aren’t scaling you’re failing. Scholz pokes that balloon without sounding preachy; he just swaps in one unsettling question: who benefits when we treat constant enlargement as inherently “good”? The subtext is an invitation to value sustainability, mastery, and sufficiency - not as nostalgia, but as resistance to a culture that monetizes restlessness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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