political and economic philosophy theorycrafting

[The Comrade]

So this is going to be a short op since i'm not really proposing a plan, simply an idea of discussion.

as we all know our current economic system is predicated on growth. no growth and the economy kind of shuts down. to not beat around the bush, capitalism requires this. the world is globalized because as local markets saturated, foreign markets were required. this isn't a huge deal in and of itself.

however, there are finite markets and there are finite resources. I think the former is easier to deal with, so i'm going to focus on the latter.


how does a global economy deal with the issue of finite resources when it's model of success is based on continued growth?

for example, one of the biggest necessities is population growth to feed markets. well, eventually we won't be capable of supporting any more people (environmental impacts aside) although an even worse problem may be the economy not capable of feeding the people (in more ways than just food). the natural reaction of a group in crisis is to keep doing what it knows, but more. So we'll intensify capitalism. prices will go up, etc etc. all the usual capitalist crap will happen. this isn't very sustainable though.

to avoid rambling on and on, and because i think i've given enough of a prompt, how do we go about solving this? "society collapses and we die" or variations are not suitable answers

[Boris Johnson]

Good idea for a thread, the obvious problem here is you've proposed a ridicilously difficult question to answer. So in lieu of being able to essentially give a full answer to all the worlds problems. I'll try and paint what I think gives cause for hope.


Now yes, the current economy, or civilisation even is predicated upon 'perpetual growth'. Thats not however allways been the case. Consider the egpytian civilisation which once it had fuly utilised the arab land of the nile pretty much that was it (though by no means unimpressive).

What I think makes this instructive is that, as it has een done in the past. Clearly civiisation function and human psychology can deal with the notion that there's not always some new land of colonise, new factory to build, new town to settle. Instead having a focus on manitaining supplies at needed level.

As when there have been hard limits in the past on food production, the population would have a certain cap placed upon it.

What worries me however, is that a lot of this came down to having a complete lack of effective healthcare or a welfare system that gave a damn if thousands starved every year due to poverty.

So how we are going to transition to something like that, seems both conceptually and morally difficult.

Given that the biggest stress in and of itself is population growth, the first step has to be reducing that. Though the spesifics of how to enforce it are frankly beyond me at the moment. A one child policy if effectively endorsed could reduce the population as much as (one would hope) 20-30% each generation. Which would get things on its way.

Secondly with potable water, we'd need some sort of survey to find exactly how much the hard limits of sustainability on the major useable supplies. Namely what can the water cycle give out, without stressing the system into instability.

Then with as this is predicated on water supply (though thankfully is not co-extansive with potable water supply) everyone needs to switch to drought resistant G.E crops as soon as possible. We also need to stop relying on the global food network as it simply requires too much energy and encourages unsustainable land use. Where this leaves pastoral farming i'm not sure and getting people to accept out of season fruit and greens is a thing of the past is also going to be a hard sell.

Finally with energy. The problem here is there is only one viable suite of options. Massive investment in solar, wind, tidal and geothermal complicated with Generation III and IV nuclear plant production also on the massive scale. Unfortunately the latter will not last forever and the former cannot allways supply energy as and when you need it. So there's a big question mark there.

For this to work though, you'd need a massive centralised authority and it would have to be immune to the popular will. That's easily the hardest bit of all of this, any sort of planned and sustainable strategy is likely to be viciously opposed.

So lets go from there.

[The Comrade]

[The Comrade]

the internet and the devices used to access it are based on a finite economic model that presupposes infinite resources and markets to prosper. plus you can't buy a virtual car and get any physical utility out of it. you can't buy virtual food and feed yourself. the internet doesn't show anything.

[Stratego]

I do not believe that overpopulation would be a concern given the current trend of birth. Currently the world trends is towards two children per family. Since it takes two adults to produce two children we will reach a steady state in population. I forgot what that number is, but it should be around 10 billion people, or the population the world has when the first of generation X starts dying.

What this means is that if we're planning for economics, we shouldn't plan for infinite population growth, we should plan for growth for the next thirty years, then expect to reach a plateau in population.

[The Comrade]

misses the point of the thread entirely.

[Stratego]

missed the point of the response completely.

[Stratego]

If you want to know how to reconcile growth with finite resource, you'd need to know the concept of controlled destruction. Basically, you're working towards growth, and for a period of time you are growing, but then an event happens and you've lost everything that you've gained. Like the stock market crash or bankruptcy. The moment that you've lost everything is painful, but it's a short duration in exchange for the long period of joy when you're feeling growth. The result is that the next gain is 0, but for a long time it feels like the net gain is positive.

Anyways, infinite growth is just an illusion.

[The Comrade]

[The Comrade]