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Peer to peer and the feudal transition | 19 comments (19 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: I think you're essentially right . . . (none / 1)
keikekaze:
Maintaining an infinite [material] growth system in a finite material world is a logical and physical impossibility.

--a truth that was (almost) universally acknowledged in the 1970s--before the corporate media did their best to censor it out of the public discourse--but of which many people seem to need reminding these days.

Right you are...

Hostility to the notion of limits to growth by Jerome a Paris on December 20th, 2007

It is far more likely to be a step towards a world characterised by catastrophic conflict and brutal repression. This is why I sympathise with the hostile response of classical liberals and libertarians to the very notion of such limits, since they view them as the death-knell of any hopes for domestic freedom and peaceful foreign relations.
(quoting Martin Wolf in the Financial Times)

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Mar 7th, 2008 at 06:18:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for that link, Migeru. (none / 1)
On reading Jerome's diary it seemed vaguely familiar, as if I'd probably read it at Daily Kos last December.  But the comments thread here was certainly far more interesting, or at least far more thoroughly argued and annotated!  : )

Contrary to Wolf's formulation, I am not a "pessimist" who believes that economic growth will not continue, but an optimist who holds the same belief.  What Wolf and his "classical liberals and libertarians" don't seem to have grasped yet is that "limits to growth" also implies, and in fact demands, limits to population, a step that will act as a preventive to many or most or all of those "catastrophic conflict[s] and brutal repression[s]" they want to scare us with.

by keikekaze on Fri Mar 7th, 2008 at 10:20:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Peer to peer and the feudal transition | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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