The growth paradigm has played a key role in transforming the social discourse on how to distribute wealth: from a zero-sum game in which a fixed amount is distributed (so what some win, others lose), to a seemingly positive-sum game in which everyone benefits from the growing economic product and therefore has a common interest in economic growth. Growth promised to turn difficult political conflicts over distribution into technical, non-political management questions of how to collectively increase GDP -- an ideology that only partially reflected reality within the capitalist core during the 'golden age', and much less so from a global socio-metabolic perspective.

— The Future is Degrowth by Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, Aaron Vansintjan