Growth - elephant in the room

[Diamond]

So? Make sure women are educated and have access to contraception and make sure there's a social safety net for people in their old age and population growth stabilises.

Socially enforced population quotas in order to maintain economic equlibrium?

You honestly think that's going to wash?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Socially enforced population quotas in order to maintain economic equlibrium?

You honestly think that's going to wash?

You seem to be describing a different post to the one you quoted. Why?

 

[Diamond]

Well we are probably soon going to find out just quite how much oil has to do with our economy. I expect its probably been the most important driver of growth, a multiplier of massive proportions, and when it dwindles/massively increases in price we will see decline of such proportions that we we will consider it great just to get a slower decline rate, let alone growth. Having said that its possible we will still get growth in certain areas, and that we may change the stuff we are measuring so that we still have some numbers going in the right direction.

Hard to imagine this stuff not involving some ugly decrease in the quality of life, but again I think that in order to remain hopeful and thankful for something, rather than hopelessly doomed in the style of 1970s fatalism and woe, we will start to look at it differently. Down is the new up, less is more, slower pace of life & much less consumption will be a headfuck to get used to but has an upside that those lucky enough to survive the transition may yet get to appreciate.

I'm relatively optimistic that the market will provide solutions.

Certainly, the problem is too cosmopolitan for governments to do anything about it.

 

[Diamond]

You seem to be describing a different post to the one you quoted. Why?

I don't see how you're going to maintain a population at equilibrium without quotas.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I don't see how you're going to maintain a population at equilibrium without quotas.

OK, but I just described how. No quotas were mentioned so why did you ascribe them to me?

 

[elbows]

I'm relatively optimistic that the market will provide solutions.

Certainly, the problem is too cosmopolitan for governments to do anything about it.

If science and technology can come up with the goods in the right timescale then the markets stand a chance of providing the answers. If not then no chance market ideologies will save us, it will be a like a war, and governments with teeth, planning things centrally, will be the response.

Hopefully Im wrong about the future but if not then a lot of people will get to see their reality cheque bounce in a big way.

 

[Diamond]

OK, but I just described how. No quotas were mentioned so why did you ascribe them to me?

OK, I jumped the gun.

Let's go back to your suggestion for equlibrium - a welfare net for old age and contraception for women.

So far in the West that's tended towards declining populations.

That is not in keeping with a zero-growth environment.

It is, however, in keeping with an unsustainable economic model for, hopefully, relatively obvious reasons.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

OK, I jumped the gun.

Let's go back to your suggestion for equlibrium - a welfare net for old age and contraception for women.

So far in the West that's tended towards declining populations.

That is not in keeping with a zero-growth environment.

It is, however, in keeping with an unsustainable economic model for, hopefully, relatively obvious reasons.

Don't follow the last line. Declining populations surely mean a bigger share of the Earth's resources per capita if you have an egalitarian political system? It's not like we lack technology ...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

To put it another way, for some assumptions about what 'sustainable' means, Prof. David Pimentel calculates that the Earth's resources could support say 3 billion people with an EU standard of living or about 500 million with a US one.

It's completely immoral to suggest achieving that by killing off a lot of brown people (as some US environmentalists seem keen to do and as capitalism probably will do if we don't stop it) but it's perfectly moral to aim to do that over a couple of generations by eliminating poverty and ignorance (which is what the population control measures I advocated above amount to)

 

[Diamond]

Don't follow the last line. Declining populations surely mean a bigger share of the Earth's resources per capita if you have an egalitarian political system? It's not like we lack technology ...

OK, a population is not just a number.

It's a demographic spread.

At any given time in a society only a certain proportion of that spread will be able to contribute in any meaningful economic fashion.

If you have a declining population, the demographic spread will start to resemble an inverted pyramid.

In other words you have more decrepit people who at any given time will be taking more out of the economy than they are contributing.

This is only sustainable because traditionally that old deadweight tends to die out while in the meantime the generations that they have spawned either support them directly through family or indirectly through taxation.

A declining population is disastrous for any society because there will always come a point where there are not enough providers for those who can't provide for themselves.

This is what I was referring to in the last line and it is what is likely to lead to major societal problems in a declining population.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> A declining population is disastrous for any society because there will always come a point where there are not enough providers for those who can't provide for themselves. <snip>

This seems to be the core of your argument and it isn't obviously true to me.

 

[Diamond]

This seems to be the core of your argument and it isn't obviously true to me.

Of course in a large population there are ways to manage such a transition but they involve making painful sacrifices, both for the numerous and economically redundant older population and the scarce but economically useful younger population.

Things start to get really complicated if you introduce a system of government through democratic representation.

Put simply, if the older population represent some kind of democratic majority then the chance of that society making the correct decisions and achieving a proper consensus becomes heavily circumscribed.

Furthermore if that population are babyboomers, and they need to act in the general, rather than their specific interest, well.................

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think you're still assuming the constraints of our present neo-liberal capitalist society. For example that productiveness only ever occurs in the context of employment by capital.

 

[elbows]

If you have a declining population, the demographic spread will start to resemble an inverted pyramid.

Surely it depends on why the population is declining. A decrease in life expectancy would not have the same results as a decrease in the birth rate.

 

[Diamond]

Surely it depends on why the population is declining. A decrease in life expectancy would not have the same results as a decrease in the birth rate.

That's true.

A decline in population could represent a decrease in life expectancy but Bernie suggested a way of achieving population equilibrium that has historically lead to specific population decline driven by birth rate decline.

 

[Diamond]

I think you're still assuming the constraints of our present neo-liberal capitalist society. For example that productiveness only ever occurs in the context of employment by capital.

I'm not sure how relevant that is.

It's difficult to envisage any society in which a pensioner could offer as much economic utility as a young adult.

 

[LLETSA]

But that's a non sequitur.

There's no reason to believe that the absence of economic growth will lead to sustainability.

Equally, it is not inevitable that economic growth will lead to exhaustion of environment.

Indeed, with the current population certain forms of economic growth may be the only way to manage resources effectively and in a long-term sustainable manner.

It is not inevitable that absence of economic growth would lead to sustanibility, but it is inevitable that economnic growth will lead to exhaustion of resources. It is not that the resources won't be there, but, as somebody has pointed out above, resources are of no use if the cost of extracting them outstrips what they're worth.

And there the story quite likely ends.

 

[LLETSA]

I'm relatively optimistic that the market will provide solutions.

'The market' isn't a magical provider of solutions. It's man-made, ruthlessly enforced by states, and thoroughly manipulated. It can't find solutions when solutions are not there to be had.

 

[Diamond]

It is not inevitable that absence of economic growth would lead to sustanibility, but it is inevitable that economnic growth will lead to exhaustion of resources. It is not that the resources won't be there, but, as somebody has pointed out above, resources are of no use if the cost of extracting them outstrips what they're worth.

And there the story quite likely ends.

Why is it inevitable that economic growth will lead to exhaustion of resources?

It would seem to me that the most effective way of diversifying the resource base and therefore avoiding exhaustion is through economic growth.

 

[Diamond]

'The market' isn't a magical provider of solutions. It's man-made, ruthlessly enforced by states, and thoroughly manipulated. It can't find solutions when solutions are not there to be had.

I agree that the market will not be able to find impossible solutions but that's a little bit tautologous. Impossible solutions are by definition impossible for anyone to find.

Generally, I would expect the market to come up with a better fit solution to the problem of allocating resources than national governments. But that's a question of ideology or politics.

 

[Crispy]

I think what we need is successful longevity techniques for really rich people. That's the only way I can imagine that the political and economic elites will start to think long term.

Read "Holy Fire" by Bruce Sterling

 

[LLETSA]

Why is it inevitable that economic growth will lead to exhaustion of resources?

It would seem to me that the most effective way of diversifying the resource base and therefore avoiding exhaustion is through economic growth.

Because economic growth inevitably uses up more resources.

It may well diversify the resource base, but nothing can replace oil and natural gas-the basis of all we know. Furthermore, all resources are finite.

I'm not necessarily arguing for no growth, by the way. The idea that governments across the world will suddenly ditch the concept is inconceivable. Economic growth will continue to be pursued until nature intervenes. The process is well under way.

 

[Diamond]

Because economic growth inevitably uses up more resources.

It may well diversify the resource base, but nothing can replace oil and natural gas-the basis of all we know. Furthermore, all resources are finite.

I'm not necessarily arguing for no growth, by the way. The idea that governments across the world will suddenly ditch the concept is inconceivable. Economic growth will continue to be pursued until nature intervenes. The process is well under way.

How do you know that nothing can replace oil and gas?

Also, there are resources that to all extents and purposes are infinite.

 

[LLETSA]

How do you know that nothing can replace oil and gas?

Also, there are resources that to all extents and purposes are infinite.

Think about it. All that we have known over the past 150 years or so is dependent on a plentiful supply of cheap and easy to extract oil. In a society organised along the lines we are familiar with, supporting such a level of population, the lights go out and we freeze and starve to death without cheap and abundant oil and gas, as although there are substitutes, they have absolutely nothing like the same scope, and all, if not most, are dependent to varying degrees on an existing platform of cheap oil and gas.

Even if there are 'to all extents and purposes resources that are infinite' (whatever this strange claim is supposed to mean), most of them can only be extracted under current circumstances. When oil supplies become so expensive as to be unviable, extraction of all other resources will slow drastically.

 

[Idaho]

Read "Holy Fire" by Bruce Sterling

I've read that. I've read quite a lot of Sterling's stuff. Lots of good ideas, but a bit of a second rate writer.

Saying that - The Swarm, a short story at the start of Crystal Express is perhaps my favourite sf story.

 

[Diamond]

Think about it. All that we have known over the past 150 years or so is dependent on a plentiful supply of cheap and easy to extract oil. In a society organised along the lines we are familiar with, supporting such a level of population, the lights go out and we freeze and starve to death without cheap and abundant oil and gas, as although there are substitutes, they have absolutely nothing like the same scope, and all, if not most, are dependent to varying degrees on an existing platform of cheap oil and gas.

Even if there are 'to all extents and purposes resources that are infinite' (whatever this strange claim is supposed to mean), most of them can only be extracted under current circumstances. When oil supplies become so expensive as to be unviable, extraction of all other resources will slow drastically.

So basically your argument is just a pessimistic forecast. Like some kind of doomsday soothsayer.

The strange claim you refer to is in fact blindingly obvious - wind, tides, solar power. These are infinite resources. Now I'm sure you going to come back and declaim their current lack of utility but that isn't really the point.

The point is that there is potential for diversification of the resource base into practically unlimited resources.

 

[LLETSA]

So basically your argument is just a pessimistic forecast. Like some kind of doomsday soothsayer.

The strange claim you refer to is in fact blindingly obvious - wind, tides, solar power. These are infinite resources. Now I'm sure you going to come back and declaim their current lack of utility but that isn't really the point.

The point is that there is potential for diversification of the resource base into practically unlimited resources.

I never denied that there is such potential. What is more than obvious, however, is that you can't construct the means to utilise other resources, let alone run and maintain them, unless oil remains cheap and plentiful. Last time I looked, there were no wind or wave-powered trains or lorries, and nobody was filling up their cars with sunshine.

The pessimistic forecast is not mine-there are many, some of them coming from governments. I don't see what the problem with pessimism is anyway. As if optimism can magically bring into being something that doesn't exist.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

My pet budgerigar died 19 years ago.

 

[LLETSA]

Generally, I would expect the market to come up with a better fit solution to the problem of allocating resources than national governments. But that's a question of ideology or politics.

Do you think that 'the market' exists independently of governments?

 

[Diamond]

I never denied that there is such potential. What is more than obvious, however, is that you can't construct the means to utilise other resources, let alone run and maintain them, unless oil remains cheap and plentiful. Last time I looked, there were no wind or wave-powered trains or lorries, and nobody was filling up their cars with sunshine.

The pessimistic forecast is not mine-there are many, some of them coming from governments. I don't see what the problem with pessimism is anyway. As if optimism can magically bring into being something that doesn't exist.

I agree with you that any transition would need to be based upon oil and gas but surely that's obvious. We have an oil and gas based global economy therefore the only way in which growth driven diversification will occur is on the basis of short to medium term oil and gas.

The problem with pessimism is that you don't even try.

It's all very well to predict something crap will happen but it's really perverse to dismiss attempts to ameliorate the problem or move forwards simply because you think it looks just too gloomy.

Optimism won't magically create anything but pessimism will destroy the potential in any idea.