One of the strangest assumptions of present-day mental models is the idea that world of moderation must be a world of strict, centralized government control. For a sustainable economy, that kind of control is not possible, desirable, or necessary.
When we, system dynamicists, see a pattern persist in many parts of a system over long periods, we assume that it has causes embedded in the feedback loop structure of the system. Running the same system harder or faster will not change the pattern as long as the structure is not revised. Growth as usual has widened the gap between the rich and the poor. Continuing growth as usual will never close that gap. Only changing the structure of the system—the chains of causes and effects—will do that.
The idea that there might be limits to growth is for many people impossible to imagine. Limits are politically unmentionable and economically unthinkable. The culture tends to deny the possibility of limits by placing a profound faith in the powers of technology, the workings of a free market, and the growth of the economy as the solution to all problems, even the problems created by growth.