unless the 'rich' see that:
a)conspicuous consumption doesn't make them happy
b)other things do make them happy
c)conspicuous consumption among the rich makes poorer people ornery, and a little on the violent side
d)the economic system evolves in such a way that you can't spend your wealth on things of power/novelty that you used to be able to.

The bigger problem with the steady state economy (and my idea of changing the cultural carrot) isn't persuading people that these ideas are 'true', but that there is such momentum to the current system that theres no easy bridge to get to a Steady State Economy. We just need to use our remaining fossil fuels to build more local regional infrastructure as best we can and simultaneously demonstrate that more doesnt necessarily mean better - hopefully that awareness will snowball into a viable path.

"In a steady state economy, growth in wealth of one individual has to come at the expense of someone else."

That is true for all economies, steady state, expanding or contracting. Ignoring inherited gains and lottery wins, all individual gains in wealth come at the expense of others - the only issue is whether it is a small number of others or the collective commons.

If an individual stumbles upon a mountain of pure gold, or an ocean of oil, or a billion dollar gift from the (privately owned and money-issued-with-interest) Federal Reserve - then the wealth derives from the adverse impact imparted on the market (collective commons).

The highly trained professional (say a surgeon) derives increased wealth from others because society believes that their time is more valuable - using professional sports people as an allegory; if one swings a stick at a ball often enough, then one will inevitably get good at it. Does anyone truly believe that professional sports people and other entertainment people are really worth the millions they "earn", and don't get me started on "executives" at (for example) Bear Stearns, Carlyle Capital, Enron, US West, all the ratings agencies, the SEC, the FSA (in the UK), the actuaries and executives at the companies insuring the CDO's and on and on and on. They have bilked millions (literally) from the collective commons for far to long.

For people not to know the truth about entities like JP Morgan, the Federal Reserve System (sic), et al - is a VERY sad indictment of the USA.

It's more than simple greed.

What it comes down to is that people will accept a big rich-poor gap if there's some social mobility, if there's some hope that the poor can become rich.

In imperial China they had the imperial civil service examinations, where any sufficiently educated person, regardless of background, could join the civil service and build a good life for themselves. This affected very few people, really, but it gave everyone hope. So they put up with a large rich-poor gap.

And in fact people have studied this, and found that around 1800 the exams became corrupted, fewer people were passing them and those who did pass were nephews of current officials, and so on. There was then less social mobility. It's no coincidence that China later had the Taiping Rebellion, until WWII the bloodiest war in human history. And in the words of the Taiping we hear the kernel of what would later become Chinese communism: they shared everything equally, men and women were equal, and the Taiping leader had a harem...

Societies which don't allow for social mobility get rebellions and revolutions. The genius of capitalism is that if offers this social mobility: not everyone can be rich, but anyone can be rich.

However, if the amount of wealth stays steady, then for some poor to become rich means some rich must become poor, it becomes a bit of a shell game. And so we seek economic growth. If the economy is growing, then not just anyone can be rich, but everyone, right? After all, the economy has quadrupled in real terms since 1960 and we have only one-fourth as many poor people, right? Er...

People will put up with great misery so long as there's hope of things improving. Economic growth offers that. Think of the poor of the West. Think of the people living in trailer parks, the homeless, the working poor, the welfare mothers, the young man just out of prison desperately looking for a job... now imagine telling them: "Sorry, this is as good as it gets - there's no hope of change."

Or if you do want the economy to just stay steady, but at the same time raise the condition of the poor, well then where does the money come from? The rich. "Look dear CEO, having 100 times the salary of a worker in your company is a bit much, let's drop it to 50 times and with your taxes we can support 100 poor people fairly well." I suspect the donations to the party would not be so generous that year...

It's a difficult thing. The genius of the capitalist system, that in its heart lies the promise of social mobility, that only works in a constantly growing economy. Take that away and... You may not get a bloody rebellion, but you certainly won't be re-elected.

Gowths' imperative is debt based leveraged banking, or the misnamed "fractional reserve banking".

Why is growth an imperative; without it the money supply shrinks then spirals downward. In our system all money is created by debt. The government gives banks the right to loan money at interest at a ratio of 10 to 1 to deposits or better. When you take out a loan they place money in your acccount and you pay for the article you purchased, money is created in the system. This a great deal for banks as $1 in deposits can fetch interest on $10 worth of loans.

The problem arises that more debt must be created every year to pay the interest, because the interest debt is not backed by money creation as was the loan. So there is a geometric progression of the need of further loans to create enough money to pay the principle and the interest. Without this geometric progresssion the money supply stagnates, leaving the system short of money to pay both the principle and the interest.

Money stagnation creates huge problems for the economy and the government. The economy winds down reducing profits and wages thereby reducing the taxable income. This is why the mantra is growth from both government and industry, they need the ever increasing suppply of money to run the system. That puts the bankers in charge as they control the spigot of credit that creates the money.

Is there a solution? Yes, Government created non interest bearing debt in the form of credit and money. Certainly, the money creation must be monitored closely so that there is enough to run the economy without increasing inflation. In this way government can fund its' operations much more cheaply and efficiently and break the dependence on unsustainable geometric resource depletion to underwrite ever more more "growth".