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The Case for Degrowth

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Re: The Case for Degrowth

#131

Post by hgomersall »

kmeisthax wrote: post #101
imtringued wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine there is a leech stuck on your body sucking blood. You will now have to eat more to replenish the blood. Here is the kicker though, the leech gets bigger as it sucks out more blood out of your body and therefore it will start draining more blood from your body. You go to your doctor and he says take these pills they will make your body grow bigger. As the leech gets bigger you must get bigger which means you…

The problem with the leech analogy is that we can't actually tell what part of society is "the leech". Society and economics can be best described not as a human with a leech on it, but a writhing mass of leeches all sucking each others' blood. In other words, mutual parasitism. What parts of the economy can be "gotten rid of" - as in, the people who run them being socially marginalized or worse - depends solely on w…

The distinction between parasites and symbiotes needs to be made here. Too many in society are parasites, despite portraying the impression they are symbiotes. I'd posit entire industries fall into that category.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#132

Post by [deleted] »

roflyear wrote: post #65
thematrixturtle wrote: post #51

Japan is a living case study of degrowth: GDP has been essentially flat for the past 20 years. The scale below exaggerates small shifts, but it was $4968B in 2000 and $4937B in 2020. https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp On the ground, this has translated into flat or deflating prices (until very recently) and an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-fo…

There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn't Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn't be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.

[deleted]

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#133

Post by legutierr »

smcf wrote: post #129
roflyear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn't Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn't be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.

I see this stated often, but it doesn't seem right to me. Almost any professional with a job offer from a Japanese company can get a work visa. Incoming software developers (and other in-demand workers) can probably rack up enough points to qualify as an HSFP/高度人材 and get permanent residence after 5 years. With enough points you can get it in one . Meanwhile in the US, H1B issuance is not only more onerous but only a…

The US accepts a lower percentage of H1b applicants because the number of H1b visas is capped. Other entry routes are less restrictive—most notably via family reunification.

If immigration to Japan were to increase substantially enough, most likely things would change and it would not be so easy even for professionals to get work visas.

And keep in mind that the bulk of US immigration is not of professionals, but of unskilled workers and their families. The fact that the US is able to use immigration to fill population gaps at every economic level is the main reason that it is not facing the same demographic problems that the rest of the developed world is facing.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#134

Post by hahaxdxd123 »

neilwilson wrote: post #81
roflyear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn't Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn't be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.

Immigration is just colonial appropriation. It's the solution proposed by city dwellers who think we should live 50 deep in a square mile of massive cities - generally an upper middle class who seem to believe they should have constant access to cheap servants they don't have to personally house and look after. Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work. We need economics that doesn't assume you can always go…

Each paragraph is a non-sequitur from the next. Can you elaborate?

> immigration is just colonial appropriation

Thank you America for colonially appropriating me from starvation under communism.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#135

Post by DubiousPusher »

TeeMassive wrote: post #117
pessimizer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conditions of the middle-class are actually too luxurious. Everybody in the world can't have a suburban lawn. What the middle-class (and the poor) don't have is security . They live in a state of fear that the entire bottom will drop out of their lives if they get fired, or have a heart attack, or any of a million things. Supplying security to people is actually cheaper that what we do now, just as socialized hea…

> The conditions of the middle-class are actually too luxurious. That's not for you to decide. The market can and does apply proper growth slowing pressure by itself. > Everybody in the world can't have a suburban lawn. That's just a different version of "think of the poor who can't eat". Countries and cultures aren't the same. Suburbia only exists due to improper distribution of business centers and housing bubbles.…

> Most developed countries are have welfare. Our poor live better and longer than kings from a century ago.

This is always a dubious comparison to me. Why are you poor people worried about the continued lack of atonomy you experience due to a lack of ownership in modern society? The state will give you penecilin. The duke of dorkingshire might have looked like he was doing well but he did have gout to contend with.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#136

Post by neilwilson »

brutusborn wrote: post #96
neilwilson wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is just colonial appropriation. It's the solution proposed by city dwellers who think we should live 50 deep in a square mile of massive cities - generally an upper middle class who seem to believe they should have constant access to cheap servants they don't have to personally house and look after. Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work. We need economics that doesn't assume you can always go…

What would "economics that doesn't assume you can always go around the world taking other nations resources" look like? You seem to be criticizing a current solution to a problem without suggesting an alternative solution. Edit since I'm getting downvotes: I'll take a stab and hopefully someone will correct me. Do you mean a return to Mercantilism? If we can't have immigration because that is 'taking another nations…

We already have mercantilism.

That's what 'export led growth' is. It just works by hoarding money as 'foreign reserves', rather than using protectionism.

The entire world can't be using 'export led growth'. There has to be net importers to balance it out. Which currently are the US and the UK - the current and previous imperial nations.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#137

Post by ako »

WalterBright wrote: post #123
pessimizer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conditions of the middle-class are actually too luxurious. Everybody in the world can't have a suburban lawn. What the middle-class (and the poor) don't have is security . They live in a state of fear that the entire bottom will drop out of their lives if they get fired, or have a heart attack, or any of a million things. Supplying security to people is actually cheaper that what we do now, just as socialized hea…

Free market health care is far cheaper than socialized health care.

Proof?

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#138

Post by dnissley »

Ygg2 wrote: post #76
roflyear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn't Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn't be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.

As another poster has noted, that's not a solution, that's just exporting problem to another country. What happens when due to immigration or rising standards the immigration tap runs dry?

I would rather have a runway of X + Y years to deal with these problems than X years, while more thoroughly mixing world culture in hopes of having a more cooperative society by then.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#139

Post by llanowarelves »

roflyear wrote: post #85
neilwilson wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is just colonial appropriation. It's the solution proposed by city dwellers who think we should live 50 deep in a square mile of massive cities - generally an upper middle class who seem to believe they should have constant access to cheap servants they don't have to personally house and look after. Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work. We need economics that doesn't assume you can always go…

If Japan wants to keep their systems running they need immigration. Or they will have to drastically alter their lifestyles.

Why? They will and already are leading the charge on automation. Most people's jobs can be automated.

In this way, the US is like the Antebellum South, preferring servants driving their economy instead of adopting advances in tech, like the "North" in this metaphor (Japan) forced the necessity of creating.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#140

Post by sprucevoid »

nickff wrote: post #42
pessimizer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conditions of the middle-class are actually too luxurious. Everybody in the world can't have a suburban lawn. What the middle-class (and the poor) don't have is security . They live in a state of fear that the entire bottom will drop out of their lives if they get fired, or have a heart attack, or any of a million things. Supplying security to people is actually cheaper that what we do now, just as socialized hea…

People seem to be willing to trade some level of security for some level of luxury. This is why people take out the largest mortgage they possibly can given their income, and spend money they don't have on cars (which they will take a long time to pay off). These revealed preferences are hard to deny, and it would be quite presumptuous to impose a different trade-off on a plurality/majority of the populace.

Those preferences are greatly shaped by inequality and status consumption. Change the institutional backdrop (which degrowth policy aims to do) and the preferences change. Robert Frank's work is great on much luxury consumption is contagious despite wildly inefficient because it is a relative status game. This Q & A is an intro https://behavioralscientist.org/putting-peer-pressure-to-wor...
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