Can any economy grow indefinitely? If it can, should it do so? What is the point of economic growth? For over 200 years, we have lived in a system that takes infinite growth for granted. This has been coupled with a growth in basic science and associated technologies. As a result, there is a firm conviction amongst many (perhaps most) that all problems can be resolved by better and new kinds of technologies. Thus the conclusion is drawn that there are no limits to growth.
In my mind, this is a false conclusion. In a universe of ultimately finite resources, there are going to be limits to infinite growth. The picture is further complicated by the effect that increasing wealth has on demographic growth. In country after country, as the economy has taken off, there has been a baby boom followed by a baby bust. Sometimes governments have intervened in order to limit population growth but even without such intervention, fertility rates have fallen with increasing development. The reason is simple: wealthier parents generally choose to limit the number of their offspring since there is a reasonable chance that their children will outlive them. So they choose to concentrate greater amount of resources on a smaller number of children.
I believe that there are ultimately hard limits to growth. No economy can grow infinitely. The time taken to reach such limits however is dependent on the type of economic growth. Western Europe and later North America developed a peculiarly wasteful form of economic growth. Products are built not to last but to fail. This is exacerbated by carefully and cleverly creating demand for the latest, greatest even if current models function perfectly well. This results in overflowing landfills and enormous garbage dumps in the seas. It also leads to stresses on eco-systems which all too often lead to their collapse. After 200 years of largely unbridled capitalism, we seem to be reaching a point of looming economic collapse simply primarily because of wasteful resource usage.
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