Growth - elephant in the room

[Wolveryeti]

I think the main problem is governments' lack of imagination with how to deal with the unemployment that a zero-growth model would initially create. They feel their hands are tied by the delayed effect of population booms feeding through into new entrants to the workforce, and to a certain extent they are right. It is highly unusual for governments to survive episodes of mass unemployment.

This would not be a problem if, say, labour inputs became relatively more important than capital in production, but it's not the way we as a civilisation are currently going, and any attempts to move us in that direction would, I'm sure, be heavily resisted because they would symbolically represent a step backwards from 'progress'.

 

[LLETSA]

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.

Who said anything about not trying? You might have noticed that deperate efforts are going on right across the world to look for substitutes for oil in particular. The attempt to run the kind of world economy we see today on those substitutes, presuming they are viable in themselves, looks almost certain to fail because the increasing demand of a soaring world population on the very resources needed to construct the mass development of alternatives seems set to undermine the process.

Optimism and pessimism have nothing to do with it.

 

[Diamond]

Who said anything about not trying? You might have noticed that deperate efforts are going on right across the world to look for substitutes for oil in particular. The attempt to run the kind of world economy we see today on those substitutes, presuming they are viable in themselves, looks almost certain to fail because the increasing demand of a soaring world population on the very resources needed to construct the mass development of alternatives seems set to undermine the process.

Optimism and pessimism have nothing to do with it.

So you're saying it's difficult.

That's fair enough.

It's no reason to make overblown end of the world predictions though.

 

[LLETSA]

So you're saying it's difficult.

That's fair enough.

It's no reason to make overblown end of the world predictions though.

No predictions made at all in actual fact.

You still haven't said if you believe that 'the market' exists independently of governments.

 

[ViolentPanda]

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.

There's a very good reason that "So far in the West that's tended towards declining populations". which is that consumption capitalism means that people are more and more compelled to choose employment over child-raising for at least part of their working lives.

 

[ViolentPanda]

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

Better to be a pessimist who is continually surprised by good fortune, than an optimist who is continually let down by misfortune, I always say.

 

[Diamond]

No predictions made at all in actual fact.

You still haven't said if you believe that 'the market' exists independently of governments.

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.

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick but that seems to fit the bill.

As for the market, it exists within the context that the government provides but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

 

[Diamond]

There's a very good reason that "So far in the West that's tended towards declining populations". which is that consumption capitalism means that people are more and more compelled to choose employment over child-raising for at least part of their working lives.

I don't think it's a question of being compelled to choose employment over child-raising.

In social democracies with welfare states childcare, healthcare, housing and so on can be provided at a minimum standard for little effort. In theory it should make it easier for you to raise more children in such a situation as opposed to a society that lacks those benefits.

The reason that most people don't choose to have more children is because they prefer not to, not because they are compelled to do so.

As far as I'm aware there aren't millions of 2.4 kid families (or more like 1.8 now) who have a yearning desire for more children but are restricted from doing so because of any kind of compulsion. But on the other hand maybe there are...

 

[Diamond]

Better to be a pessimist who is continually surprised by good fortune, than an optimist who is continually let down by misfortune, I always say.

That is such a depressing worldview. Very European, I might venture.

 

[elbows]

That is such a depressing worldview. Very European, I might venture.

Maybe, but I tend to get rather depressed when optimists lead us over a cliff-edge.

Expectation is a big part of the problem with the resource crunch - people have some very strange expectations about what we can achieve without abundant and cheap oil.

It will be hard enough to transition to alternatives and still sustain population levels whilst avoiding the worst misery and suffering. But to anticipate that we can replace oil to an extent that the economy and wasteful consumption as we know it can be sustained and even built upon, is folly in my book. Its the sheer scale of oil consumption thats the problem. Only a scientific discovery of a magnitude not seen for more than half a century could provide solutions that would enable business as usual.

 

[LLETSA]

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick but that seems to fit the bill.

As for the market, it exists within the context that the government provides but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

The only point I was making was that the society we know cannot be sustained without cheap and plentiful oil and gas. It wasn't a prediction, but a statement of the obvious.

On the market, I was questioning the tendency of those who like to claim that it automatically generates answers to all problems to regard it as a form of magic independent of calculated government policy. It doesn't only 'exist within the context that government provides,' but is wholly an creation of governments, maintained and manipulated by them.

 

[LLETSA]

That is such a depressing worldview. Very European, I might venture.

It's political optimism that's the European worldview.

 

[Beanburger]

Expectation is a big part of the problem with the resource crunch - people have some very strange expectations about what we can achieve without abundant and cheap oil.

This is the big question really. I'm curious to hear optimistic scenarios for what happens when the oil crunch really kicks in. I haven't seen anything in the way of viable alternatives.

 

[ernestolynch]

Bit of a funny way of looking at it. Try this one ...

Humans get over 99% of their food from land, 10 million ha of crop land each year is lost to soil erosion which is around 20-30x the rate of soil renewal.

About half the world's population is already undernourished.

Because of capitalist inefficiency.

 

[Diamond]

The only point I was making was that the society we know cannot be sustained without cheap and plentiful oil and gas. It wasn't a prediction, but a statement of the obvious.

On the market, I was questioning the tendency of those who like to claim that it automatically generates answers to all problems to regard it as a form of magic independent of calculated government policy. It doesn't only 'exist within the context that government provides,' but is wholly an creation of governments, maintained and manipulated by them.

That's nonsense. The market easily predates the state.

 

[Diamond]

It's political optimism that's the European worldview.

Political optimism is the European worldview? That's news to me.

 

[LLETSA]

That's nonsense. The market easily predates the state.

Market relations may predate the state. 'The market' as it's talked about today is a creation of government actions.

 

[Beanburger]

Market relations may predate the state. 'The market' as it's talked about today is a creation of government actions.

That's not entirely true. "The market" can simply refer to the dynamics of supply and demand and the process of incentivising research and investment, which doesn't depend on governments at all.

 

[Diamond]

Market relations may predate the state. 'The market' as it's talked about today is a creation of government actions.

No, 'the market' as you want to narrowly define it is "a creation of government actions".

 

[LLETSA]

No, 'the market' as you want to narrowly define it is "a creation of government actions".

What's 'the market as I want to narrowly define it?'

In fact, what is 'the market' full stop?

 

[LLETSA]

That's not entirely true. "The market" can simply refer to the dynamics of supply and demand and the process of incentivising research and investment, which doesn't depend on governments at all.

Maybe-but in reality it does depend entirely on government.

 

[Diamond]

What's 'the market as I want to narrowly define it?'

In fact, what is 'the market' full stop?

From my point of view, the most straightforward definition of the market is the system of supply and demand.

Your definition narrows that by necessarily including the forces of the state.

Classically, their role should be limited to non-existent in the market.

 

[Beanburger]

Maybe-but in reality it does depend entirely on government.

How so? If cheap oil becomes a thing of the past, then "the market" will incentivise the research of alternatives that would otherwise have been too expensive (successfully or otherwise!). That doesn't depend on governments, although it might be influenced by them.

 

[LLETSA]

How so? If cheap oil becomes a thing of the past, then "the market" will incentivise the research of alternatives that would otherwise have been too expensive (successfully or otherwise!). That doesn't depend on governments, although it might be influenced by them.

The decisions of individuals and companies etc etc to do certain things may be independent, to one degree or another, of governments, but their ability to produce, and the context in which they operate, are obviously dependent on government.

As already said, 'the market' as it's spoken of today is an invention of government and is thoroughly manipulated by government at the behest of the corporations that dominate it.

 

[Beanburger]

The decisions of individuals and companies etc etc to do certain things may be independent, to one degree or another, of governments, but their ability to produce, and the context in which they operate, are obviously dependent on government.

Not "dependent upon" - "influenced by".

As already said, 'the market' as it's spoken of today is an invention of government and is thoroughly manipulated by government at the behest of the corporations that dominate it.

And how did they "invent" it exactly?

 

[LLETSA]

From my point of view, the most straightforward definition of the market is the system of supply and demand.

Your definition narrows that by necessarily including the forces of the state.

Classically, their role should be limited to non-existent in the market.

That's just utopian theory, having very little bearing on reality.

If you want to know just how dependent on government 'the market' is, just consider the way the state was forced to bailout the banks, and economies in general, during the recent fiasco.

 

[Diamond]

Just 'saying' something doesn't make it true LLETSA. You have to justify it also.

 

[LLETSA]

Not "dependent upon" - "influenced by".

And how did they "invent" it exactly?

No, dependent upon.

Going out now, I'll answer the rest in a while.

 

[Beanburger]

No, dependent upon.

How? Specifically?

 

[LLETSA]

Just 'saying' something doesn't make it true LLETSA. You have to justify it also.

I'm not just saying it. Or were the recent bailouts just a figment of my imagination?

Did you justify your above little piece of idealistic neo-liberal theory?