The Steve Rose I need is not the biologist. I'm looking for him because I am
involved in producing a similar poster for the main union confederation in
Ireland.
Neither Gene and Ravi on one side and Jim on the other are specific enough.
Marx famously commented that each mode of production has its own principle of
population. Similarly each era (stage, social structure of accumulation)
within capitalism has its own principle of growth. Since the end of WWII
capitalist growth has been about blunting redistributionist demands with
increases in consumption all around (though unequally). Current grievances
centre around global neoliberalism's abandonment of this kind of growth and the
stagnation of middle income living standards. This kind of growth cannot be
resurrected. Growth generally depends on increased throughput from the
environment. This has long ago reached its sustainable limit. Jim is right
that the exception to this is energy from the sun. However, advances in the
ability to harness this are unlikely to more than offset the necessary
reduction in the burning of carbon compounds. Further any success in
increasing output will have to be concentrated in less developed countries in
exchange for their cooperation in curtailing global warming. The "actually
existing" kind of growth which buys social peace through rising living
standards in the developed world is no longer sustainable. (Rich people are,
of course, even less affordable).
This said, the reconstruction of the basic infrastructure which is needed to
halt global warming could actually raise GDP. In addition increases (growth)
in the quality of life are also possible at least in the medium to long-term.
Gene is talking about growing leisure.
Terry
Message: 21
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 16:36:25 -0800
From: "Jim Devine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Re: The fundamental crisis response. was
Ecological creditcrunch
To: "Progressive Economics" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1ravi wrote: > What I am point out is that we cannot, as per the law of conservation of > energy, make something out of nothing. When we keep growing our populations, > consumption, etc, its at the cost of something else. That's a trivial but > significant fundamental fact of physics. < The Earth is not a closed system: there is a constant flow of energy coming from the Sun, which can be utilized more effectively than it is nowadays. There's a lot of "something" coming in that can be used to help create "something else." Also, "something can be made from nothing" if the something we're using as raw material is used much more efficiently. > That something else that we displace may be a wasteful expenditure, and thus > we may be achieving a double benefit: removing waste and achieving growth. > But I think that scenario is long past as the impact of human rapaciousness > on the environment and other species, and on other groups of humans, at this > point in time, I believe, attests.< it should be obvious that I'm not in favor of rapacity. But that does not mean that "growth" has to be rapacious. As Max said, the _quality_ of growth can be improved. > I am using growth in what I think is a generous sense: "more schools, more > hospitals", etc. < yes, you choose to use the word "growth" to mean the kind of growth you don't like. Thus growth is bad. QED. > Even though we know (IMHO) that hoping for growth to be that sort of growth > is like hoping that Obama will be a leftist. < Obama will be a leftist if there's a mass movement pushing him in that direction; similarly, the quality of growth can be improved if we (as a large group) yell enough. > Someone posted recently on complexity theory -- that term in certain ateas of > mathematics ... refers to the unsolvability (or infeasibility of finding a > solution) of certain problems due to the computational complexity. > Technological progress (again IMHO) starts out with trivially solvable > problems and leads into more and more intractable ones. < I wouldn't call it technological "progress," since it's not always a good thing. But I think it's a mistake to jump from abstract mathematics to an assertion about the real world. I hear over and over again about the butterflies in China spawning tornadoes in Texas, but no-one ever seems to find an actual case of that kind of thing happening. What kind of mathematical system do you think describes technological change that implies that it is subject to these kinds of effects? I'm a crude old guy, so I have crude old opinions. I think the problem with technology is _power_. Those with power are likely capitalists or militarists, so technological change tends to favor their interests, producing stuff that adds to the capitalists' bottom line (while raping nature and abusing people) or helps the military kill people. If the balance of power were different, technological change would have different biases. Why not get away from abstractions about "technology" and get closer to earth, to talk about the institutional biases in technology-generation and use? > ... Optimism at this point is the version described by the story of the guy > falling from the 100th floor who is cheerful regarding his fate since he has > passed 73 floors and nothing has happened, and by induction, ergo...< By the way, I'm not an optimist. The optimism/pessimism issue is merely a distraction. -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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