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The flaws of the EU's asymmetric approach to imbalances | 132 comments (132 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Self-censorship (4.00 / 5)
Keynes cares about employment, and nominal GDP, not about real GDP or consumption.

So you could in theory continue to have employment and growing GDP with a shrinking resource base. You just have to employ a larger fraction of the population in activities with a low resource use.

The growth of the "service" or "tertiary" sector and the "information economy" are steps in that direction. It doesn't follow that people in the service or information economies should be high earners, but that pretty much arbitrary numbers of people can be employed in them and they will need to be if 5% of the population can produce food for everyone and industrial production of material goods gets less and less labour-intensive.

Economics is politics by other means

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jul 20th, 2011 at 11:46:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
I think I see your point.

The problem is that sometimes it passes (from some Keynesians that I read) that proper economic policy would be enough to maintain the status quo lifestyle. That state anti-cyclical intervention (and redistributive policies) would be enough to counter nature's limits. Indeed many of those keynesians ignore nature's limits (hence my comment on post-industrialism) and clearly talk about growth (in very real terms).

Any realistic politics for the future will have to consider a shrinkage of the resource base. That, by the way is more encouraging of redistributive policies: "trickle down" would only make sense in a infinite growth (real) scenario: If there are limits then if some get more and more that can only mean that others get less and less.

by cagatacos on Wed Jul 20th, 2011 at 12:08:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (4.00 / 4)
The way I see it, the current policies ban a fairly large proportion of society from accessing the means of production they need to be productive. All in the name of fighting the satanic forces of inflation.

Keynes on the other hand saw that unemployment is an evil as it destroys the unemployed, and therefore it is better to run unproductive public projects like pyramid building then to have unemployment. Even better is to produce things actually needed.

Keynes lived at a time when resource constraints was results of boycotts, not nature. But that does not invalidate his observations on unemployment, and in a resource constrained world more manual labor will be needed as we can no longer throw more resources at every problem.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Jul 20th, 2011 at 02:03:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Migeru:
if 5% of the population can produce food for everyone

but what if we go back to 90% of people involved in farming like before? what's going to power those behemoth threshers and balers? galley slaves?

to imagine 5% are going to continue to produce the world's food for long... can you really believe that?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jul 20th, 2011 at 05:03:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
That would be a nice discussion to have. "Nice" is more like "must have" due to peaks and resource competition.
by cagatacos on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 at 07:12:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
Impossible. Too many people starting from ideological positions and too much inconsistent data.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 at 07:14:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
 Nature's inherent limits will "fix" those (supposed) problems and the "discussion" will take place--one way or another.  Would you rather it be primarily verbal or via other, non-verbal means?

   And, besides, "positions" are necessarily "ideological" --otherwise they contain no "ideas".  To pretend that there are any non-ideological "positions" is neither necessary nor helpful though it is, of course, possible to pretend this.

 --------------

  RE (ref. http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2011/7/19/15816/2580#66 ) :

  "You just have to employ a larger fraction of the population in activities with a low resource use."

   "Capitalisms" don't do this well or, so far, at all.  Instead, success is practically defined as "More, more, more, more, more."  Higher consumption, higher profits, higher "productivity", higher output, etc.  Capitalisms, in short, "succeed" by literally using everything up--completely.  

   In this vein, Jean-Jacques Salomon's points in his essay, Le destin technologique ( http://www.folio-lesite.fr/Folio/livre.action?codeProd=A32811 )

   where he describes a very arresting thought experiment.  It goes very roughly something like this:

   Imagine for a moment that the earth and its human populations one day reach their absolute limits--I know, you'll object that this can't and won't occur because one or more catastrophes will intervene before that limit arrives, but this only makes Salomon's point the more arresting since his scenario is the "good news", so to speak, since it takes for purposes of analysis the view that somehow humanity so controls and attenuates those intervening and population-limiting catastrophes that, in effect, populations go on growing until the earth's resources, and or technological capacities to "stretch" them also reach their limits--that, when you think in his terms (i.e., many thousands and thousands of years) has to occur eventually or, otherwise, of course, we become extinct as a species.

   In extrapolating, we arrive inescapably at the point where the only feasible operative possibility is literally "zero" growth, none, at all, because even the smallest measureable increase is beyond the capacity of physical resources to accomodate.

  It seems clear to me that before any future human society arrives at this extreme, we (or that future people, more able than are we to reason and act sensibly for their own survival) have essentially two courses open:

   one is to continue as we are until we eventually destroy ourselves in some combination of itentional and accidental folly;

  the other is to veer off our present course in ways which are so fundamental a departure from our present assumptions that they are as yet not welcome to imagine or discuss in most discussion fora.  The present insanity must be protected and preserved.

  And that's driving the current misery around us.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 at 10:08:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
When a discussion ostensibly about the physical world is based in grossly incomplete data and mostly about validating participants political views, there's not much point, is there?

Take the proposition that the question "what's going to power those behemoth threshers and balers?" has no answer. We can spend hundreds of comments dealing with that and at the end of the day the gaia-is-going-to-punish-us-and-we-deserve-it crowd and the technology-will-save-us-all crowd will be just calling each other names. The discussion isn't really about what's possible, it's about other stuff.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 at 10:27:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
Hmm. Pretty good set of reasons for not discussing anything, like climate change, energy, and certainly nothing to do with politics or economics.

Plus a fairly damaging assumption about the "crowds" in presence.

I suppose we could talk about sport, but I'm pretty sure you'd rather steer away from that, too?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 at 11:06:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
 FIFY:

   "Pretty good set of reasons for not discussing anything one would rather not see addressed, like climate change, energy, and certainly nothing to do with politics or economics."

 Exactly---and that may be the point, after all.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 08:54:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Well, I don't think it was Colman's point.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 08:56:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)

  Hmm.  Then I've missed yours, in your comment, too.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge
by proximity1 on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 08:59:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
I responded to the ideas expressed, and though I did not indicate snark or humour, the remark was at once serious and light-hearted.

Also see my comment below.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 09:04:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
 
     I don't see why (and you haven't bothered to explain it) attempts to validate one's own political views and at the same time, defend them from others' critiques (or, failing that, to change them) are  pointless exercises.  I just have your unsupported word for this, which is about all you seem interested in offering.  You aren't interested in giving straight answers when it's apparently so much easier to dismiss the objections with a universally-applicable "It's no use, it'll never work.  People are too stuck in their ways."  (Something of which you seem determined to offer marveloous evidence, yourself.)  And we have once again your always-implied fatalistic underlying view that people are in so many of the most fundamental ways a hopelessly incorrigible lot.  Can't persuade 'em, can't kill 'em all, so the best that can be hoped for is to quibble over the trivial details at the far edges of issues, where it's supposed that tiny compromises can occasionally be found.

  And, then, strangely, at the same time, something hard--like actual political and economic events in the living world--seems to have brought you around to seeing the validity of what seems to me to be at least some the of left-ish political and economic criticisms which once upon a time in these threads I'd could read you opposing and denoucing--or maybe I'm just mistaken about that.

    Now we can read, for example, your valid objections to what you colorfully describe as the absurdly other-worldly habits of econ policy-makers imploring what amounts to throwing more virgins into the sacrificial volcano.  Just who demands and requires these virgins' routine sacrifice?  Surely it isn't the people whose economic beliefs you have in the past or currently still do disparage, is it?  That is, unless I'm mistaken about it, hard facts have wrought some changes in your formerly expressed economic & political beliefs.  This is also and perhaps even moreso true of Migeru who now can admit that the opponents of last several E.U. referenda votes (including what I'd call the Lisbon disgrace)  were after all at least partly right to oppose them--though he still can't quite credit them as being right for reasons which they themeselves understood.  Still, again, there's progress.

  So, you see?  There is such a thing as progress.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 08:52:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
If you want to settle scores in this debate, and in particular make them personal, I suggest you're wasting your time.

We have better things to do.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 09:01:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (4.00 / 2)
At least having the discussion might force the people with definite starting points and data to lay them out.

Economics is politics by other means
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jul 22nd, 2011 at 07:49:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
... ARRGH. I see this point made in every single discussion of peak resources. And it completely ignores that industrial agriculture has a resource consumption of near zero. Have you ever been on a farm? Industrial farming needs, in order:

  1. Land.
  2. Steel.
  3. Ammonia. (for fertilizers, and for fuel. Yes, you can run tractors and combines on ammonia. People do so already.)

.. and thats it. And none of it is going to run out before the sun enters its red gigant phase and swallows the earth. Enough ammonia to keep the agricultural sector fueled and fertilized can be made with the output of extremely modest hydro electric facilities, never mind types of renewables less than a century old.

grumble Doomers. Stop fantasizing about the apocalypse, pay a tiny bit of attention to what the actual constraints and possible/probable substitutes of our industrial ecology are, because all you are currently doing is destroying your own credibility. Which, to be honest.. go ahead, the less influence you have, the better for the planet.

by Thomas on Sat Jul 23rd, 2011 at 11:13:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
So what has been your experience of farming, Thomas?
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sat Jul 23rd, 2011 at 11:22:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Industrial farming needs, in order:

  1. Fresh water
  2. Land.
  3. Steel.
  4. Phosphates
  5. Ammonia. (for fertilizers, and for fuel. Yes, you can run tractors and combines on ammonia. People do so already.)

Fixed it for you.

#1 is already an issue, and #4 is going to be inside the present century.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jul 23rd, 2011 at 11:25:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Well, if climate change makes the rain move away from prime farmland, yhea, a lot of people will starve to death. Modern farming has failure modes. None of which are adressed by reverting to having 90% of humanity take up being peasants again. Which is the assumption that makes me froth at the stupidity.
by Thomas on Sat Jul 23rd, 2011 at 11:45:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
You are far too cornucopian. As usual. Factory farming as presently practised creates immense problems with run-off that poisons freshwater resources.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jul 24th, 2011 at 12:08:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Its not cornucopicism, its merely the certainty that the future is not going to be a copy of the past in any way, shape or form. Peasant farming is far less productive, (and also far more ecologically destructive) than industrial farming is, and farmland under the plow is the limiting factor on our food production. I am not certain that the future will have enough food, I am merely certain that regardless of what happens its not going to involve regressing to primitive farming techniques. If climate change wrecks the grain belts- well war will provide for all, either in victory or in death.
by Thomas on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 10:34:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
farmland under the plow is the limiting factor on our food production.

Well, no.

Under the present system, access to synthetic fertiliser is the first constraint that will really bite.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 10:39:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
.. Fertilizer are primarily needed for nitrogen fixation. That means ammonia. Ammonia is synthezied from hydrogen and nitrogen with modest pressure and heat -this means that the actually nessesary inputs are electricity, air and water. With no requirements whatsoever as to the quality of water, nor any pressing need for most of the electricity supplied to be reliable - for electrolysis intermittant power will do just fine as long as you have a tank to store hydrogen in.
The very first artificial fertilizer factory ever built ran off a single norwegian dam and supplied most of europe for decades. This is not a resource that is ever going to run short. The land squids farming the canadian shield in 1.5 billion years from now will not be short.
by Thomas on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 11:03:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Fertilizer are primarily needed for nitrogen fixation.

Phosphates would like a word.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 11:27:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
Thomas:
Peasant farming is far less productive, (and also far more ecologically destructive) than industrial farming is

Would you care to enlighten us on the ecological destruction caused by peasant farming?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 10:47:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
The fertile crecent isnt so much anymore for a reason. Also, africa, south america.. Really, just look at anyplace that still practices it?
by Thomas on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 11:05:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
What ecological destruction has actually been caused by peasant farming?

And how can you sidestep the ecological damage - toxic run-off to rivers and coastal areas, water-table pollution, excessive irrigation demands, soil erosion and decline of soil fertility, creation of specific pests and diseases through monoculture, destruction of biodiversity through same and through use of pesticides, flash-flooding and freak winds as a consequence of destruction of hedges and ditches, concentration on products of doubtful necessity like over-production of meat/dairy and their attendant maize, GHG emissions through excessive livestock production, rainforest destruction not carried out by small peasants - caused by industrial farming?

Or is your version of industrial farming some techno-wet-dream that will be happening in 1.5 billion years?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 at 12:31:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 1)
Really? Deforestation, hunting, overgrazing, soil erosion, and so on and so far. Peasant farmers are extremely bad news for the ecosystems they encroach upon - for a given output of food, much, much worse than industrial agriculture with even minimal enviormental regulations in place.

This is really simple: Primitive farming techniques are much less productive per square meter than advanced ones. This means that trying to feed any given number of people with lesser techniques means cultivating far more land. Which destroys the ecosystem that used to be there. We already have 7 billion people on the planet - if modern farming caves in, not a single one of them will go quitely into the night, but all of them will try to find things to eat. This would cause a mass extinction near total in scope of just about everything edible, and nearly everything is edible to humans hungry enough. Societial collapses nearly always take the nearby ecosystems down with them. This has happened many, many times. It still happens - Haiti doesnt really have a vibrant ecology anymore, for example. It will happen again if we should fail at maintaining our technosphere.  

Maybe I come across as very fond of technological fixes and somewhat panglossian, but the thing is, if we do not find technological fixes for the ecological issues facing us, it is not mankind that is screwed, it is the planet earth. This is for example why the reaction to fukushima pisses me the fuck off - Noone died, and people are still fleeing from one of the very few energy sources we have that has low ecological impacts. No nuclear accident is ever going to do anything of any significance whatsoever to the non-human bits of the ecology it happens in. The deathrates from cancers are so far down into the noise for wildlife that it is not even funny.

by Thomas on Tue Jul 26th, 2011 at 07:50:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Self-censorship (none / 0)
And, fortunately, most of the US corn belt has excellent wind resources nearby, i.e. within a few hundred miles of either the front range of the Rocky Mountains or the Great Lakes, and generating ammonia is an excellent use for "stranded wind". Yet, while ammonia is used to a limited extent for mid-west US agriculture, almost all of it comes from petrochemical plants in Louisiana via barge up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. But, strangely, there is no real effort to develop the wind and wind driven ammonia aspect of this asset.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Jul 23rd, 2011 at 12:27:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The flaws of the EU's asymmetric approach to imbalances | 132 comments (132 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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