Gene Coyle wrote: > Let me back up a bit because this is important on dealing with global > warming. Assume for my argument that the studies that say that despite the > carbon tax, US GDP, i.e. income will rise relentlessly in the future... > I'm not saying the carbon tax raises income but > that income rises despite it. So then we;ll use more energy.
That's a completely different matter. I guess Tom made a typo. > (Unfortunately most people, including many on this list, see that as an > unquestioned good thing.) Have you done a poll to see if this is agreed to by "most"? My position, in case anyone asks, is that capitalism is set up so that almost everyone is highly dependent on their money incomes for survival or getting beyond that. We're hanging on to the tail of a tiger. Because of this dependence, cutting incomes or even keeping them constant without instituting massive methods of non-market distribution -- i.e., something like a revolution -- would be a disaster for almost everyone. It would be like a repeat of the Great Depression. Keeping incomes constant would be a disaster because of the normal increase in socially-created needs and the increase in the population. Simple macroeconomics (Okun's "Law") tells us that if GDP growth halts, unemployment soars. That can be changed, but it would again require massive reforms if not something more. We need to replace the tiger with a different animal. Capitalism is based on the "grow or die" principle, at least on the micro-level, so we shouldn't expect to see a total halting of GDP growth or a persistent negative growth of incomes in the absence of massive institutional change. Capitalism will eventually recover from the current financial/economic disaster, unless someone can replace it with something else. To manage the system so that GDP growth is replaced by some more sane economic system would require (at minimum) some sort of social-democratic management. (Ecotopia?) That is likely insufficient, since the micro-level grow or die impulse would chafe at the restrictions, would seek greener pastures in other countries, etc. There would likely be coup attempts and the like. > Joseph Green has been making interesting points against Cap & Trade and the > carbon tax but I think an even worse thing to say about them is that they > are business as usual with clean energy. That will be terrible. _All else constant_, i.e., ignoring all other needed reforms or revolutions, would "cap and trade" or a carbon tax be "terrible"? Might it be a marginal improvement, compared to the case where coal, etc., continue to be burned at the current rate? Wouldn't an (all else constant) reduction in pollution be a _good_ thing? What's wrong with using clean energy? wouldn't "business as usual" using clean energy be better than "business as usual" without it? It might slow down global warming, no? -- Jim Devine / "Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business." -- Tom Robbins _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
