  It is still common wisdom amongst economists, politicians and lay people that
economic growth is a necessity of our social systems, at least to avoid
distributional conflicts. This paper challenges such belief moving from a
purely physical theoretical perspective. It formally considers the constraints
imposed by a finite environment on the prospect of continuous growth, including
the dynamics of costs. As costs grow faster than production it is easy to
deduce a final unavoidable global collapse. Then, analyzing and discussing the
evolution of the unequal share of wealth under the premises of growth and
competition, it is shown that the increase of inequalities is a necessary
consequence of the premises.
