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Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

nytimes.com

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Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#251

Post by [deleted] »

Aperocky wrote: post #188
pyuser583 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about physics prevents perpetual economic growth? Economic growth isn’t dependent on a certain amount of mass, energy, or entropy.

> Economic growth isn’t dependent on a certain amount of mass, energy, or entropy. It is though, you might be making the same mass and energy more efficient on a dollar terms, but there is an upper limit and that upper limit is dictated by entropy. There are only so many things that matters on Earth can do under the current physics. We're not that close but not too far away either.

[deleted]

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#252

Post by WalterBright »

tomc1985 wrote: post #244
WalterBright wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Considering that said microwave uses a lot more electronics than said oven and lasts 1/3 to 1/5 as long as one (per your own observations), between the energy consumption (because you are almost certainly not getting your energy from renewable sources) and the increasingly large bill of materials (with the microwave requiring many more exotics) averaged out over total lifespan, I would bet that a microwave and a gas…

Electric ovens have a lot more material in them, and use a great deal more energy to heat your food.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#253

Post by pdonis »

chobeat wrote: post #179
pdonis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (very) roughly speaking, being able to produce more output with the same input It's not just physical output, though. Ultimately the purpose of all of this economic activity is to meet human needs or wants. But outside of basic subsistence, most human needs and wants can be highly variable in how much physical output can satisfy them. For example, humans have a need/want for movies and music. It used to require a l…

The current production system is driven by the need for growth. What you're describing was true maybe until a century ago, until the 1929 crisis. After that it was clear that demand had to be artificially stimulated to meet the needs of the production side. First it was war, then mass consumerism. Desires are not natural, they are induced and in the same way they are induced (socially, culturally, politically), they…

> The current production system is driven by the need for growth.

I would say our current monetary system is driven by the need for growth. But our current monetary system is a political tool, not an economic tool.

> After that it was clear that demand had to be artificially stimulated to meet the needs of the production side.

No, what was clear, at least to anyone who hadn't drunk the kool-aid of Keynesian "economics", was that the US government (and other governments weren't much better) was completely clueless about how economics actually worked, and so its interventions were making the depression worse instead of better. (Btw, this was just as true of Hoover's administration as of Roosevelt's.) All of the talk about having to increase "aggregate demand" was just a manifestation of the cluelessness. The real problem was not lack of demand but mismatched supply and demand: the government's messing with the money supply had led to a massive misallocation of resources, so that many things were being produced that nobody wanted and many things that lots of people wanted or needed were not being produced, or not being produced in sufficient quantity. Whenever that happens there will end up being a crisis when the misallocation can no longer be sustained.

What the US government should have done in response to the stock market crash of 1929 was...nothing. That's what the US government did in response to stock market crashes in 1920-1921 and 1987, neither of which led to a prolonged depression or even recession.

> Desires are not natural

Really? My desire for music and movies is not natural? How about my desire to post on a site like this one?

I think you have a very simplistic view of both economics and human desires.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#254

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #237
jjoonathan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#255

Post by danielmarkbruce »

epistasis wrote: post #228
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure increases in efficiency result in increased GDP. To make that as clear as possible - imagine someone created low priced robots tomorrow that could make all your food, entertain you, build you a house etc etc for the one time fee of $100. They were incredibly efficient, consuming $10 worth of energy every year. GDP would fall off a cliff.

And what would people now do with all their free time? They'd start to build other stuff. GDP would probably go through the roof, because if you measure the value of all that stuff in "old dollars" it would be incredible. And now in "new dollars" it's a tiny amount, but it also frees up human labor to do all sorts of new stuff, and these "new dollars" are so much more valuable. Money is a tricky social constructed ph…

All this other stuff is, by current calculations, sub optimal. So all this other stuff would likely add to less than current GDP. And since current GDP has been replaced by 10's of dollars, total GDP would likely be much lower.

But, if your point is that it's not clear then yes, but that's my point.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#256

Post by danielmarkbruce »

asimpletune wrote: post #214
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure increases in efficiency result in increased GDP. To make that as clear as possible - imagine someone created low priced robots tomorrow that could make all your food, entertain you, build you a house etc etc for the one time fee of $100. They were incredibly efficient, consuming $10 worth of energy every year. GDP would fall off a cliff.

Idk, it seems like one of those things that is hard to predict. Would gdp actually fall off a cliff? There would be a lot of steps that would have to happen along the way. Plus the premise isn’t really rooted in any kind of reality, so it may be a flawed argument to begin with. Just my $0.02

Yes, it's hard to predict. Efficiency may or may not add to GDP. Which does point to how stupid it is.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#257

Post by epistasis »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #255
epistasis wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what would people now do with all their free time? They'd start to build other stuff. GDP would probably go through the roof, because if you measure the value of all that stuff in "old dollars" it would be incredible. And now in "new dollars" it's a tiny amount, but it also frees up human labor to do all sorts of new stuff, and these "new dollars" are so much more valuable. Money is a tricky social constructed ph…

All this other stuff is, by current calculations, sub optimal. So all this other stuff would likely add to less than current GDP. And since current GDP has been replaced by 10's of dollars, total GDP would likely be much lower. But, if your point is that it's not clear then yes, but that's my point.

But what is a dollar worth now? A dollar can buy an incredible amount of stuff compared to just before the invention of the technology.

GDP accounts for the change in the value of a dollar. So your setup is obscuring what it would mean for GDP.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#258

Post by danielmarkbruce »

epistasis wrote: post #257
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this other stuff is, by current calculations, sub optimal. So all this other stuff would likely add to less than current GDP. And since current GDP has been replaced by 10's of dollars, total GDP would likely be much lower. But, if your point is that it's not clear then yes, but that's my point.

But what is a dollar worth now? A dollar can buy an incredible amount of stuff compared to just before the invention of the technology. GDP accounts for the change in the value of a dollar. So your setup is obscuring what it would mean for GDP.

People aren't buying much of anything in my scenario. The robot does everything you need. No transactions required. GDP only counts transactions.

Maybe consider this, sort of the opposite of my fantasy robot - GDP may well rise if the air got so polluted we had to buy fresh oxygen. An entire industry would exist, transactions would occur. Drugs might exist to cure sickness from the dirty air. Or consider cigarettes - a nice addition to GDP numbers.

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#259

Post by s1artibartfast »

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…

This ignores Services entirely, which are part of GDP..

If you pay someone to sing a song to you, you're not using anymore resources then if the two of you were sitting around doing nothing. Bass portions of GDP growth are not Material intensive

Re: Pioneering economist says our obsession with growth must end

#260

Post by pyuser583 »

mc32 wrote: post #156
pyuser583 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t we have economic growth forever? Economic growth is fueled largely by innovation. What it is the barrier to perpetual innovation? Will Apple say “Sorry, no more new iPhone versions. All out of ideas?” And all their competitors agree?

I think we can separate innovation from growth. I think we can agree that we have resource limitations (whether it be livable space or ploughable land). Modern economies work on the premise of growing markets. Whether creating new markets or taking over old markets. With a steady state or shrinking population, you can value add and you can innovate, but there are no new "China market(s)" to expand into. If growth wer…

I don’t agree that there are absolute resource restrictions.

Matter doesn’t become a resource unless it’s economically useful. 5 kilotons of cadmium may or not be a resource depending on your business.

The world is full of ex resources we haven’t exhausted. There’s no shortage of bat guano or saltpeter. Mercury used to be vital, now it’s value is usually negative.

There’s plenty of raw matter that’s useless now that will he extremely valuable in the future. And will eventually have awkward afterlife as an ex-resource. Like bat guano.

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