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The Case for Degrowth

lrb.co.uk

271–280 of 332 posts

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What choice do people have? It doesn't make sense to trade anything for security because that security is non-existent anyway. Losing your job & health benefits for much of the middle class would be a death sentence regardless if they bought a 35k car or a 10k beater.

Strongly disagree, being able to accumulate enough money to cover the bumps of life can be the difference between stringing along a middle class existence and everything working out and going broke.

Of course - the hypothetical emergency fund is great. The problem is the required amounts are rapidly growing.

An emergency fund of 10k barely covers the 8k average deductible for a family. Ignoring things like rent, food, etc, all rapidly increasing.

To have a worthwhile emergency fund is too costly for most americans. Might as well finance a car - it won't matter.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links…

Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative. Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negat…

There are data points in reality supporting the outcome of ESG policies such as 1) 1/3 of Sri Lankan farmland lay dormant after fertilizer ban & forced organic farming 2) 85% of farmers have crop issues 3) yield issues causing food shortages.

Since he describes a catastrophic reality caused directly by very real government policies, this can't just be discounted as a fabricated narrative.

De-growth people will cause mass worldwide starvation in the next 6 months, and the policies are implemented in tyrannical ways so these are tyrants and will soon be murderous tyrants.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#273
post #207
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not stuck. The billionaires are not hoarding all the dollars. They have stock in their companies, which is worth varying amounts of dollars. Them owning stock does not deprive you of any dollars.

Them owning real estate keeps the real estate off the market, thereby increasing the price for everyone else.

i dont think the cause of housing shortage is billionaires with their 3 vacation homes. there's just not enough of them to make a difference.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#274

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.

i think america is uniquely well suited to accept immigrants bc that's how we got made. one of the biggest things i learned talking to friends i made from outside our country is we don't even realize how much more diverse and accepting we are. like we've obviously got room to grow but looking at how europe is doing after letting in some immigrants is kinda startling.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there a mathematical proof that that is the optimal strategy for zero growth resource economies?

No, because there is no mathematical proof for any assertion in economics. You cannot prove economics true.

However, historical counter-examples of zero-growth democracies are limited. We might look to the Greeks or Romans as examples of democracy in the antiquities; but there's two problems with that:

1. Their democracies were limited, with no universal suffrage and very low citizenship rates.

2. They had economic growth anyway. Rome in particular was as addicted to military conquest then as America is to oil today.

Selectorate theory[0] would argue this point in the opposite direction; i.e. that strict dictatorships squander economic growth. Political and economic franchise are inherently linked: people who cannot vote will have their livelihoods taken away from them, while those who produce the economy's goods will eventually demand political power themselves. Democracies are ultimately the means by which we distribute political power among the people, and that is itself a reflection of the distribution of economic production. If you give the people political power, the economy can't help but to grow as they are no longer being shackled.

But I think there's an even simpler argument than that. If the economy is zero-growth, then the only way for an individual to improve their living conditions is to make someone else's worse. This turns the economy into a zero-sum game of who can monopolize everything the fastest, which spikes income inequality, which makes it easier to disenfranchise voters, and eventually results in the ossification of social and political structures (since you shut up everyone that you said didn't matter).

[0] Excellently summarized by CGP Grey here: https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/rules-for-rulers based on a book called The Dictator's Handbook

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion t…

The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything. > Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon. > Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction…

Let me look for a good source for the inflation reduction bill.

In the meantime here you can see the catastrophic effect of Sri Lankan style ESG policies in the Netherlands, as projected by their finance ministry. Netherlands is the 5th largest food exporter in the world.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#277

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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…

Economics where you cannot go around taking other nations human resources looks like Japan. A closed system

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t have a fundamental right to moderate my growth, against my wishes — but I do have a fundamental right to seek growth. No, neither is a fundamental right. Because both growth and degrowth as a national policy (or global international policy) has immense consequences on the opportunities and outcomes in peoples lives. Both stifle and regiment the lives and actions of people in a myriad of ways (climate chan…

Growth or degrowth are not national policies but individual ones. You cannot prevent someone with growth mindset from doing actions leading to growth. And at the same time, nobody is preventing people with degrowth mindset to practice what they preach.

> Growth or degrowth are not national policies but individual ones

Degrowth as used in the OP article is about macro level policy. For example solar panel subsidies, taxing coal and investments in public transportation.

Individual actions performed in the name of "growth mindset" (whatever that means) can like any other actions be stopped, and likely will be stopped if they cause harm to others.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The problem is that all of us who already know "degrowth" is bad are going to have to suffer through the result along with them.

De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The only de-growth policy that matters anyway is having less children, and people do that naturally as they become more affluent.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Soon their pension and other systems in place to support their aging population will not be able to be supported by those working. Where will the money come from? There needs to be someone there to work. The labor force has to come from somewhere. There are a lot of immigrants looking for jobs. Billions.

So Japan needs more people because their pension system is unsustainable. And when all the immigrants who came in get old, Japan will need even more immigration to make up for the immigration they had before, and all the new pensioners.

This is not sustainable. This is a Ponzi scheme. Continually kicking the can down the road.

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