Eternal Growth & Wage Increase

I wish I understood more about economics. I hate checking my bank statements & I simply cannot remember numbers. 

I can understand general principles & it seems to me that our politicians base the economics of running a country on ideas that simply don't stack up. I don't accept that it is possible to have eternal growth. Smith, Ricardo & Malthus set out the theory in the 18th & 19th century - "every economy has a steady state GDP and any deviation off that steady state is temporary and will eventually return". The 21st century is a very different place. The Solow Growth Model assumes if we double the level of capital stock and double the level of labor, we exactly double the level of output.

I just don't see much evidence over the period of my life that we can rely on continual economic growth. Any charts you look at show huge fluctuations over the period. It used to be called "boom & bust". It seems reasonable to me that major world events are going to continue to happen & will adversely affect economic growth. We have had numerous such events over my lifetime, but the UK & the world seems to have been extremely unstable for the whole of the period since the Global Finacial Crisis of  2007 - 2008. If we simply look at our personal experience of interest on savings & investments & the value of our property, if we are lucky enough to have them, we can see that huge fluctuations are normal & dependent on situations outside our control. Tell people struggling to heat their homes & feed their families that there is economic growth & see how they respond.

Then there is the whole wages situation. We have been in a period of long & disruptive strikes by people wanting wage increases to bring them back, in real terms, to what they earned years ago. Doctors want 35% for example. The questions are;- 

• Is it realistic for workers to ask for increased salary if productivity & efficiency haven't increased? 
• Also, if wages have reduced in value over time, for real terms increases back to a better economic time?
• Basically, do any workers have a right to expect that their salaries will automatically increase year on year regardless of other factors?

I have to be honest, when I was working I did expect my salary to increase. But shouldn't any increase be relative to productivity, qualifications, skill & experience, effectiveness etc. Shouldn't it be related to the economic realities of the job you do & the overall economic situation of where you live? There are so many variables.

That's why I find economics so difficult to understand. It seems to me we are living in an altered reality. We are not recognising the true factors relative to our individual position in the overarching determinants of what is achievable.

I do believe that workers need unions & professional bodies to represent their interests. I do believe that there should be proper pay negotiation. I also feel that if that negotiation is not carried out in good faith then the ultimate tool is to withdraw labour or work to rule. But I also think that striking is destructive & harmful to both the strikers & the public. It's very adversarial, like going to war. Ultimately in both cases there has to be proper negotiation. There has to be genuine determination to modify the stance on both sides. 

We seem to have reached a point of unrealistic expectations & demands in both Growth & Wages. It isn't doing anyone any good at all & it is harming a lot of people. We are living in constant personal & state debt. We cannot continue to borrow our way out of trouble. Debt has to be repaid eventually. What level of debt will my grandchildren inherit? 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-government-debt-as-a-percentage-of-gdp-17272016