Because wealth isn’t evenly spread and those that beat this drum are on the wealthy end of the spectrum.
Which is exactly what is happening. By every metric imaginable the entire population of the planet is gaining in wealth. Some quicker then others. But gains are largely universal. Poverty is at it's lowest point in all of human history. And in a month it'll be even lower.
Also when wealth goes up, overall consumption as measured by actual natural resources consumed goes down. People have this misconception that increased wealth equals increased consumption, which is hardly the case. Wealth represents a increase in well being, which more often then not, is a result of increased efficiency.
By 'increased efficiency' I mean less human effort is required to produce more with less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...
Imagine country A, awesome with very little income inequality. Half it’s citizens earn 9k a year and the other half 10k a year.
Now country B, is very bad. 90% make 50k a year and the other 10% make 500k. That’s terrible, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to live in country B.
Never in the history of the world have the poor had less than nothing.
“ What Roser’s numbers actually reveal is that the world went from a situation where most of humanity had no need of money at all to one where today most of humanity struggles to survive on extremely small amounts of money. The graph casts this as a decline in poverty, but in reality what was going on was a process of dispossession that bulldozed people into the capitalist labour system, during the enclosure movements in Europe and the colonisation of the global south.” [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-g...
(People beating the growth-growth-growth drum are also typically on the rich end of the spectrum btw).
Or, I think I've heard it said better, "If the purpose of life isn't 'maximizing shareholder value', we're fucked".