I guess eventually the earth will be swallowed up by the sun, but for practical purposes economic growth happens when we rearrange the atoms and bits at our disposal into things that people consider more useful. All of the materials to create a car existed here thousands of years ago, but we didn't value it as much until somebody figured out how to assemble it into a useful form.
What's more, an old junk car might be valued at $3,000, but we can take most of the same materials and transform it into a new car with $15K (or other goods we consider worth more than the $3K car). The same finite resources + energy & labor (when used productively) = economic growth!
What's more, an old junk car might be valued at $3,000, but we can take most of the same materials and transform it into a new car with $15K (or other goods we consider worth more than the $3K car). The same finite resources + energy & labor (when used productively) = economic growth!