How Problems of Growth Exist, at the Present Time

The big secret is that since before WWII capitalism depends on what the experts call "growth." In the 19th cent., Malthus said poverty was uncurable.
    
Capitalism was still new.

Wages began to rise in 1850 (in England) or 1880 (US). (see: F. Braudel) Until then, capitalism was just a convenient way of killing poor persons (Engels, the 1844 book). The wealthy, upper-class elitist types were surprised at the advent of growth. Now -- today -- after @one hundred years -- they regard it as essential. What happens if the ability to keep growing is lost to the system? Up until recently, the professionals, the so-called "economists" refused to even discuss the notion. After all, growth had become practically their number one favorite notion.

It is obviously that, if inequality increases and the "rich" get more and more, a failure of sustainable systemic growth would mean that commercial wealth production is going to be transferred away from many persons. If the problem is not that of the basic nature of the system, then the solution is to change the system. It is to create a "capitalism version 2." A major change indeed. But capitalism is not static. That would at least be change, if not "Growth," in the fashionable sense of their language, of language that economists have gotten used to. On the other hand, it would be a kind of healthy growth in the way we think about economics.