This is an interesting point and I think there is a lot to meditate
about our future.
I know that what I say is something everybody knows, but I didn't find
an answer for myself, so if somebody has one to offer I would
appreciate it.
Doesn't the problem come from the promise to deliver welfare and
goods to anybody,
that is the real belief of capitalism, a kind of heaven in this world?
Of course this is a promise that can't be kept and just trying -or
pretending- to do it
is a threat to the environment.
But, then again, once you have removed any ideal that may provide
satisfaction in the future,
and convince people that they can be happy immediately,
you will use resources to provide goods, acting like a drug to keep
them going,
until they die (without any real hope in a future heaven).
The fact that resources are limited and that there can't be
everything for eveybody
is clear. But what are the alternatives? Even in a true socialist
country, once the socialist state
is -if ever- achieved and people will have reached the target they
worked for for so long to achieve,
they will have no more ideals, not even a religious one. China, not
being religious at all, is
an ideal place for capitalism; in my trips there I got convinced that
that is the most
capitalistic country in the world.
My impression is that we need to re-think life in terms of being
happy with little
and enjoying feelings and culture more than cars and houses.
But this is a matter of education that starts from early age, and it
is difficult
that it will ever be implemented if the system feeds on selling more
goods
and convincing people that they buy a piece of heaven every time they
buy a good.
But what are the alternatives?
Massimo Portolani
On 26/ago/06, at 01:32, Michael Perelman wrote:
Randy is probably correct and capitalism is wrong. I mean that
capitalism runs like
a bicycle; it has to keep going or it topples, but that same
forward trajectory
necessarily destroys the environment. But then I'm not saying
anything that the rest
of you do not know.
On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 03:40:51PM -0700, Eugene Coyle wrote:
3) more private
investment: new and improved private production facilities to
enhance growth. The last item will almost certainly require
maintencance of high aggregate demand today and over the near
future."
It is this last item, # 3, that puzzles me. As I understand it, it
says "We need high demand now to require the high investment
necessary to produce the output to meet the high demand."
He is recommending, therefore, a treadmill to infinity. Which
conflicts, inevitably in my view, with his advocacy of "reduction of
adverse environmental impacts."
Gene Coyle
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com
