NEC News
Beyond the Exponential Curve
With *Die Exponentialgesellschaft* (The Exponential Society), Emanuel Deutschmann—a sociologist at Europa-Universität Flensburg—presents one of the most compelling contemporary sociological diagnoses of late-modern growth-based society. In a recent review published as part of a symposium in the journal *Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit* (Sociology and Sustainability), Schmelzer discusses the book alongside reviews by Katharina Hoppe and Bernd Sommer.
“The book is analytically lucid, empirically rich, and conceptually ambitious. Deutschmann advances the thesis that key societal developments of the 21st century—ranging from the economy and mobility to digitalization, demographics, and the pandemic, all the way to the ecological crisis—are shaped by exponential growth dynamics that reinforce one another and push society as a whole to its limits.”
The review argues that the book’s high level of abstraction and its focus on forms of growth constitute the distinctive analytical nature of the argument, while also raising questions regarding its empirical scope, historical preconditions, and political implications.
Schmelzer, M. (2026). Jenseits der Exponentialkurve: Stabilisierung auf nicht-nachhaltigem Niveau. Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit, 12(3), 76–81. https://doi.org/10.17879/sun-2026-10286