>If you need impetus to explore outside the well-manicured garden of
>economics into the forest reality of "nature", start with this:
>
>http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/7/galbraith-j.html
>
>Study whether you, too, have fallen into the trap of looking at the physical
>problems (crises) with economics-tinted spectacles, regardless of whose
>economics you accept.
Tom, I don't understand. What does this Galbraith piece have to do with "nature"
and the physical vs. the social ? What is it supposed to tell us?
BTW, this isn't by far the best thing he wrote. He takes economics too seriously and
fails quite miserably to understand why the theses he decries gained such clout (a
bit of marxism would remedy that). In his light attack on the supposed basic
principle of economics he also misses the main problems. If you find his approach
interesting, you might want to look at Steve Keen's critique of economics (I don't
remember the URL but Mark surely does because he hated it).
>I feel I have been too cryptic, in the end. That "the PHYSICAL is trumping and
>rendering moot all the cards the SOCIAL thinks it can play" is exactly the kind
>of argument I intended to avoid. What I mean is that if this is so (and I admit
>that this may most probably be so, though I will never be as apocalyptic as
>Mark and you), it is because the _social_ organization of production has made
>it possible, nay (as you would retort), unescapable.
Nestor, since you opened your Basque skull to correction yesterday, I'll exploit this
opening...
For thousands of years, the physical used to be very much present in the game
until the social drew a joker: the exploitation of fossil fuels. This was bound to be
temporary. So one could argue that the power of the physical is unescapable
whatever the social does and that the social can only pull of few tricks to liberate
itself temporarily. (This isn't exactly my opinion but I argue this for the sake of
simplicity and verbal wrestling.)
>Don't think I can find books by the authors you quote, or most probably I would not
>be able to afford to pay for them. I live in Buenos Aires, and I am not precisely
>well-to-do.
This is a bad excuse. You can probably find quite sizable bits of Hardin and Wilson
on the Internet. Start by looking at dieoff.org ... that is, if you have the time.
Julien
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