Doomed to grow or ready to transform?

If the past is closed off, the future narrows. But by reopening our histories, we expand our future imaginaries.

Economic growth is currently one of the most discussed topics in Finnish public debate, as Finland’s growth has been halted since 2008. In these debates, the story of economic growth is framed as a tale of necessity — a moral imperative wrapped in inevitability. It is framed as a condition we used to have, but no longer have at the moment, and we should do everything we can to have it again soon. Growth, we tell ourselves, is what keeps our welfare system alive, our competitiveness and social investments intact, our hope for the future credible. Yet what if this narrative, forged in the fires of post-war modernity and industrial ambition, has begun to close more doors than it opens?

The report Doomed to Grow by Demos Helsinki, funded by The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, revisits our collective relationship with economic growth — not as a simple economic measure, indicator, or outcome, but as a profound temporal structure that shapes how we relate to the past, the present, and the future. It argues that to imagine new futures, we must first reinterpret our pasts.

Growth, we tell ourselves, is what keeps our welfare system alive, our competitiveness and social investments intact, our hope for the future credible.

The future locked away in the past

Economic growth, as a concept, is surprisingly new. Until post-WWII development, most societies did not speak of economic growth as such — they spoke of sustenance, stability, or balance. Growth emerged as a measure only in the 20th century, via the development of statistics and the GDP, and it rapidly became the central lens through which both progress and decline were viewed (Mitchell 2025).

In Finland, the “growth imperative” or “growth paradigm” (e.g., Schmelzer 2016) took root during the “golden decades” of reconstruction and modernisation, i.e., the establishment of the welfare state. Growth promised not only prosperity but redemption — a way to leave behind war, poverty, and dependency. Yet over time, this imperative hardened into something else: an assumption that growth is both inevitable and unquestionable. Discussion of growth soon shifted from descriptive to highly normative. Finland became, in the report’s provocative phrasing, “doomed to grow.”

The paradox is stark. A model born out of long-term future imaginaries has turned into a constraining retrospect. The once-open horizon of modern progress has become a narrow path: if growth falters, crisis ensues. If growth continues, ecological limits are breached. Regardless, acceleration seems to be on demand — but at what cost?

Growth promised not only prosperity but redemption — a way to leave behind war, poverty, and dependency. Yet over time, this imperative hardened into something else: an assumption that growth is both inevitable and unquestionable.

From reactive crises to building new trajectories

The Finnish story, through the lens of crises, is a story of repetition. The 1990s recession, the rise and fall of Nokia, the 2008 financial crisis — each episode intensified the belief that survival depends on returning to growth. In this cyclical pattern, crisis does not spark transformation but reinforces dependency. It was the 1990s economic crisis that ended the future-imagining, the seeking for alternatives for growth, as well as debating what growth means and should mean. 

What if we broke this cycle? Crises could instead be viewed as turning points — moments where reactivity gives way to proactivity. By reinterpreting our economic pasts, we can reveal alternative trajectories that were once possible, and update them to be imagined in the current operating environment.

This requires a temporal shift: moving away from linear time—where the past simply leads to the present and onward to the future following one imagined linear path—toward a layered time, where the present is always in conversation with multiple pasts and possible futures. Historical temporality becomes a tool for imagination, not confinement.

Rethinking the role of the state beyond the imperative of growth

At the heart of this reimagining lies the question of governance and the state, which potentially can play a key role as engines or initiators in setting re-imagination processes in motion. The state has historically been both the engine and guardian of growth. In the 1960s, growth and modernisation were synonymous with progress, guided by the belief that a strong state could orchestrate development for the collective good.

This is not a call for anti-growth nihilism. It is a call to expand the horizon of what counts as growth. To make room for these, the state must regain the capacity to imagine and invest — not only to compete, but to care. 

In the 2020s, this framework has strained under new pressures such as ecological boundaries, demographic shifts, technological disruption, and issues regarding legitimacy and trust in traditional institutions. The report argues that the states have an opening and an obligation to show proactive action by understanding their changing circumstances and defining flourishing beyond growth — not merely to “enable” growth, but to redefine what flourishing means beyond it.

This is not a call for anti-growth nihilism. It is a call to expand the horizon of what counts as growth: social resilience, democratic innovation, and environmental regeneration. To make room for these, the state must regain the capacity to imagine and invest — not only to compete, but to care. 

Growth, after all, has never been an end in itself. It is a story we tell about what matters. The challenge before us is not to abandon the story, but to rewrite it — to shift from “more” to “enough,” from quantity to quality, from extraction to renewal. This, we argue, is where growth also emerges as opposed to pressure, crisis and being “doomed to grow”.

Finland, in this reading, becomes a case study for the world: a small, advanced society facing the end of the growth paradigm not through collapse, but through consciousness. The task is not to escape our history, but to reopen it — to find within it the plural, forgotten choices that could yet guide us forward.

Reopening the past to unlock the future

When we treat the past as closed, the future becomes a repetition. When we reopen it — when we see that the present is not inevitable but chosen — the future expands.

This is the intellectual and moral work of our time: to recognise that growth, like history, is not destiny. It is a choice, embedded in institutions, policies, and imaginations. By understanding how we came to be “doomed to grow,” we can begin to imagine how we might choose differently.

And in that act of choosing, perhaps, lies the truest form of progress. The future will not grow by itself. It will open only when we learn to look back with curiosity — and forward with courage.

This is the intellectual and moral work of our time: to recognise that growth, like history, is not destiny. It is a choice, embedded in institutions, policies, and imaginations.

---