Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end • Hacker News Board

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#231

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:40 AM UTC

strongpigeon wrote: post #204

bnralt wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I read the interview and it honestly wasn't clear what he was saying. He never mentions any particular policy that should be enacted (other than tariffs against other countries that don't follow our lead), and the interviewer doesn't seem interested, opting instead to ask questions about cosmology. It's a bizarre interview. His issue seems to be mostly with overconsumption of resources. But instead of c…

I do share your gripes with the interviewer. However, I think that Daly’s questions regarding the ultimate end (meaning purpose) of economic growth are worth pondering. Basically what are we trying to achieve through economic growth? Growth for the purpose of growth is kind of meaningless. But if growth is for improving welfare, why isn’t that the focus, rather than GDP numbers? (And if it isn’t for welfare, what is…

[deleted]

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#232

Post by Tostino » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #206

caramelcustard wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically: instead of just having what you need, just, like, hope that your neighbour has what you need. Great plan, i also hope that the neighbours are going to always follow me (just in case i'm going to move elsewhere). "Sure you'd have to logically create 'centers' around town close enough to walk, or have a neighbor maybe deliver if you're elderly or something, but there's convenience in having more options i…

> So basically: instead of just having what you need, just, like, hope that your neighbour has what you need. Great plan, i also hope that the neighbours are going to always follow me (just in case i'm going to move elsewhere). A lot of new neighbors are nice folks. Invite them over for a bbq, and they probably will let you borrow their belt sander or angle grinder. It's a nice way to build community. I do a fair bit…

Right I don't see anything about this model that precludes private ownership of tools. It just makes it much less necessary.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

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Post by dionidium » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

redavni wrote: post #172

dionidium wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pretty clearly isn't true. You could simply work fewer hours and live a 1920s lifestyle, if that's what you want. You won't have good healthcare (neither did people in 1920), you probably won't go to college (just like most people in 1920), you won't be able to buy lots of fancy and complicated consumer goods (exactly like people in 1920), you won't own a laptop (just like every single human being in 1920), or l…

This is not even close to reality in the US. Zoning laws and various regulations mean that attempting to live like it is 1920 will eventually get you locked up in jail and your property condemned after you are fined to death. Assuming you can afford any property as our government has allowed corporate and foreign interests as well as excessive immigration to inflate property well past the ability of the average 1920…

I addressed this in a comment adjacent to yours and I think it's a good point, but I don't think it's sufficient to explain why most people don't accept a 1920 standard of living in exchange for doing less work. I'd like to see most of those regulations repealed, but I have a hard time believing the result would be a bunch of full-time workers cutting back their hours to live more simply. What people would do, instead, is consume all the resulting productivity gains as quickly as they could.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#234

Post by kareemsabri » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:42 AM UTC

csours wrote: post #50

I have a heretical thought: the integrated circuit revolution has made capitalism and the economy in general look much better than it actually is.

It's actually not that heretical. It's pretty well documented that most of the gains in productivity in manufacturing have been driven by the computer industry, while the rest has largely stagnated.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#235

Post by chii » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #181

I feel like this could have been a lot better if it were more concrete. What's wrong with wanting GDP growth? - Consider two families A and B, each with two earners and a small child. The parents of family A both work full time, earning $125k each, and they spend $20k/yr on childcare. The parents of family B each work part time, earn $110k per year each, and together with help from one grandparent are able to care fo…

> The parents of family A both work full time, earning $125k each, and they spend $20k/yr on childcare. > The parents of family B each work part time, earn $110k per year each

family B is better off, at least financially, because they earn more after taking away child-care costs (and also somehow they have free labour from a grandparent). Family A earns $125k-$20k=$105k for full time work, where as family B earns $110k (for part time work).

The comparison isn't really apples to apples tbh.

> What's wrong with wanting GDP growth?

nothing is wrong - the problem with framing it this way is the underlying assumption of equity of distribution of the increased wealth.

GDP measures how much work is produced, not how much benefit the people obtain from said work, nor how much residual wealth remains after consumption.

It's _often_ the case that GDP growth is associated with increasing quality of life, but there's no such guarantee from just GDP growth. Quality of life improves from political and societal improvements, which GDP growth is a necessary, but insufficient condition.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

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Post by bko » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

throw8383833jj wrote: post #196

bko wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. There are some huge disconnects between what you see in media and popular opinion. Consider newspaper endorsements of the former guy. There was 10. One was the National Enquirer, another was owned by his son in law, and another is the official newspaper of the KKK. This was a candidate that ended up winning the election (although lost popular vote, but not by that much). There's a big disconnect if 99%…

50% is still a LOT of people. the point is, It's not like policy decisions are made in favor of like less than 5% of the population. Just as a crazy example, here in CA shelter is one of the biggest issues. I was shocked to discover that local politicians were bragging about how much housing development they were blocking. that tells you nearly half or more of the population is in support of that.

As a counter, what percentage of San Fran residents think open air drug markets and homelessness is okay?

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#237

Post by chii » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #56

mongol wrote: post #9

Is not growth inevitable? I hear criticisms of it but is it not what happens automatically when there is competition for resources? I can't really see what the alternative would be. I mean, ideally if you could just agree with everyone in the entire world that no one should strive for something better, we could stay where we are, but reaching such agreement seems impossible. And let's say instead we change direction…

> That is also a kind of growth! Yes, but not one that benefits from investment, which is how rich people get paid for being rich. Rich people want very, very, very much to be paid for being rich. Since a dollar is a vote, this concern completely dominates our political and cultural thought processes. The tricky part is that retirement funds use exactly the same mechanism, so those of us with retirement accounts have…

> ... not one that benefits from investment, which is how rich people get paid for being rich.

riches or wealth, is merely stored up work that could be expended, instead of consumed.

They aren't being paid just for being rich - they are making decisions on how to expend that stored up work to produce _even more_ stored up work for the future. By making that decision wisely, they earn the rewards of the stored up work!

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#238

Post by Pokepokalypse » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #199

Wikipedia's article on Herman Daly is far more useful. This NYT writer is from the fluff department, the part that cranks out "lifestyle" sections and clickbait, not the news side. Wikipedia: "Daly argues that nature has provided basically two sources of wealth at man's disposal, namely a stock of terrestrial mineral resources and a flow of solar energy. An 'asymmetry' between these two sources of wealth exist in tha…

I don't know. Let's keep burning oil for energy and find out!

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#239

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:51 AM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #230

WalterBright wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you own a microwave? I bet you do. I bet if it broke you'd buy another one, because you'll find it worth the money. Ditto for your other appliances, like your dishwasher, stove, oven, vacuum cleaner, toilet, shower, phone, etc. Don't forget the computer you bought to access HackerNews with!

My point is that those things are a red herring. The people peddling this shit peddle a narrative of increased efficiency, better life, and so on, focusing us on these little incremental improvements, while they pillage other parts of the world to bring you these things. And you very clearly overestimate the need for a microwave. A gas oven, range, or BBQ produces considerably better results for many things for only…

Do you believe a microwave involves more pillaging than a gas oven?

Let's say a modern oven isn't available. Just a word burning one. Operating one is an all day amount of work (there's little that's romantic about it). They're dangerous, filthy, and the smoke damages your lungs. If people switched to wood ovens the rest of the world's forests would be pillaged (stripped) of all wood. A wood burning stove has a lot of iron in it, that requires an enormous amount of energy to smelt.

BTW, you should know that gas appliances are a major source of indoor air pollution. Microwaves aren't.

Also, I usually get 10 years out of a microwave. Not bad for an appliance. If you want to save the environment, they sell them in thrift stores for $10-20.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#240

Post by tartoran » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #221

tomc1985 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More goes to society. You don't see it because it is spread thinly. Think of how nice it is to have a microwave, for example. The value of my time saved is far more valuable to me than what I paid for the microwave. This was the promise. But all we really have today is cost disease. For every microwave the US also has infrastructural costs that are 10x+ that of other countries and a culture that is being increasing…

Do you own a microwave? I bet you do. I bet if it broke you'd buy another one, because you'll find it worth the money. Ditto for your other appliances, like your dishwasher, stove, oven, vacuum cleaner, toilet, shower, phone, etc. Don't forget the computer you bought to access HackerNews with!

I own a microwave, well not really, the apartment im renting comes with one and in all the years I’ve been here I did not use it even once. If it broke I wouldn’t miss it, I’d probably use the space it occupies more efficiently.

Im inferring the point op was making was the price we pay for all these shortcuts and modern lifestyle should make us think well what is essential and do away with the rest.