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The Case for Degrowth

lrb.co.uk

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Re: The Case for Degrowth

#311

Post by asabjorn »

dredmorbius wrote: post #301
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/w…

That's not the point I'm addressing. asabjorn's claim was that ag productivity was directly sabotaged. That is a highly unlikely reading of a situation I see as: 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency…

Do you have any sources supporting your claims?

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#312

Post by blackoil »

roflyear wrote: post #256
llanowarelves wrote: post #139

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.

Or they'll reassess the pension commitments. People may vote to reduce pension by 50%.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#313

Post by blackoil »

TeeMassive wrote: post #116
legolas2412 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> including the people they have schooled and trained to provide for their own population. Oh, I didn't realize I was a slave to a country. And the act of immigration which I willfully do, and the host country is pretty much hostile about, is "stealing" me. If Western countries wanted to steal me, they should not have put up such roadblocks to immigration

Brain drain is a real phenomenon and a real problem. Your personal feelings about it are irrelevant.

Brain drain is a real phenomenon but may not be a real problem. I don't know of any country which is suffering or whose growth is hindered because of lack of brainpower.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#314

Post by dredmorbius »

asabjorn wrote: post #311
dredmorbius wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point I'm addressing. asabjorn's claim was that ag productivity was directly sabotaged. That is a highly unlikely reading of a situation I see as: 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency…

Do you have any sources supporting your claims?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#315

Post by neilparikh »

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…

> Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work.

What do you mean by this? Tokyo seems like a pretty successful case to me: relatively affordable housing even with net migration into the city, along with good public transit.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#316

Post by asabjorn »

dredmorbius wrote: post #314
asabjorn wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources supporting your claims?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32421641

> 2. Amongst other measures taken, fertiliser and pesticide imports were reduced. Because of financial necessity, not as some "degrowth is good" initiative.

In your reuters link seem to contradict your claim: "The dramatic fall in yields follows a decision last April by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban all chemical fertilisers in Sri Lanka". It was officially rolled back after protests, but "only a trickle of chemical fertilisers made it to farms" so it sounds like supply lines acted as if they were still in place.

> 1. Government which supported fertilizer imports through direct government spending and via reserve foreign currency holdings was unable to support either end of this policy: it had no capacity for funding imports and had rapidly diminishing foreign currency reserves.

That doesn't seem like a great excuse for banning fertilizer, or an explanation for why after rollback of ban only a "only a trickle" of fertilizer was available. The claims in my source and reuters seems to be that the supply was not there, not that fertilizer prices were high. Do you have any source saying fertilizer was available at much higher cost?

> https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la...

Regardless of competency in Sri Lankas governments execution they have been working with WEF on their sustainable farming goals for a while. This agenda seek to ban fertilizer, make us all eat bugs instead of meat and move to organic farming.

Getting a high ESG score due to meeting sustainability goals grants benefits when getting loans, Sri Lankas is 98, so I share your intuition that a huge contributing factor is that they really need those loans due to long term mismanagement.

As I've pointed out elsewhere other WEF sustainable farming aligned governments such as the Dutch have implemented very similar policies and as abruptly, triggering the same kind of large scale protests and dire outcomes: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...

I am at this point taking WEF seriously, as real-world negative outcomes does not seem to stop implementation of their catastrophic tyrannical policies.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#317

Post by Mordisquitos »

WalterBright wrote: post #282
Mordisquitos wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because healthcare as a service does not come even close to satisfy the conditions required for perfect competition. Without going too much in detail, the "customers" cannot have perfect information regarding the treatment or course of action that's most convenient for them at a given moment, and they cannot freely decide when (or often whether) to make use of the service or not— "It's probably best I get appendiciti…

The free market does not require perfect competition nor perfect information at all. Imperfect information, for example, is called "risk", and risk is factored into every price. Besides, why would you think socialist medicine would provide perfect information?

> Besides, why would you think socialist medicine would provide perfect information?

Where have I come even close to suggesting it would? Perfect information, to the extent it can be possible, is a requirement for a market to be efficient. What you call "socialist medicine" is by definition not a market, so perfect information is a moot point.

What universal healthcare can provide is the adequate incentives for providing early diagnosis, promoting preventative medicine, and giving safe and effective treatment. Where are the incentives for early diagnosis and prevention in free market healthcare?

Furthermore, pure free market healthcare provides an intrinsic incentive to extract abusive profit from a customer whose life or wellbeing are on the line, and who does not have the knowledge to decide whether they really need this expensive procedure they are being offered. This already happens to an extent under the current U.S. model. There's no reason to assume it wouldn't be even worse under a completely free market.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#318

Post by selfhoster11 »

WalterBright wrote: post #285
selfhoster11 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but... the 1960s were literally 60 years ago. The world looks very different, and so does healthcare. Is it really comparable?

Is economics different from the 1960s?

I was alluding to the progress in medical tech, and the corresponding rise in the cost of specialised medical equipment. While we developed fancy tools like accurate MRI machines that let us treat patients better, they also cost more to buy. My intuition tells me that in the 1960s, treating people was cheaper because we just didn't have any machinery to spend more money on.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#319

Post by brutusborn »

nicbou wrote: post #159
brutusborn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no obligation to supply an alternative solution. Engineering taught me to define a problem without thinking of a solution, because it restricts your thinking. That the person above didn’t bring a solution does not invalidate their statement. Immigration is only a solution for those getting the immigrants. It’s not so nice for the countries that raise and educate them without any ROI.

There's no obligation, but criticising the stutus quo without supplying an alternative is just stating that things are bad. Talking about how bad things are is pointless; why not talk about what could make things _better_?

If somethings broken and you can't fix it, then you either learn how to fix it or you need to accept that it is broken and move onto something you can fix.

P.s. I really like the engineering analogy, but remember when discussing politics: other people have probably already defined the problem and come up with solutions. As a citizen, we need to choose which solution is best; or promote our own solution.

Re: The Case for Degrowth

#320

Post by WalterBright »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #317
WalterBright wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market does not require perfect competition nor perfect information at all. Imperfect information, for example, is called "risk", and risk is factored into every price. Besides, why would you think socialist medicine would provide perfect information?

> Besides, why would you think socialist medicine would provide perfect information? Where have I come even close to suggesting it would? Perfect information, to the extent it can be possible, is a requirement for a market to be efficient. What you call "socialist medicine" is by definition not a market, so perfect information is a moot point. What universal healthcare can provide is the adequate incentives for provi…

> Perfect information, to the extent it can be possible, is a requirement for a market to be efficient

This is simply not true, as I said, risk factors into every price.

> Where are the incentives for early diagnosis and prevention in free market healthcare?

Don't you feel any incentive to take care of yourself with early diagnosis and prevention?

> pure free market healthcare provides an intrinsic incentive to extract abusive profit from a customer whose life or wellbeing are on the line

Just like if you're hungry. But food in a free market is cheap and plentiful.

> who does not have the knowledge to decide whether they really need this expensive procedure they are being offered.

The beauty of the free market is the consumer gets to decide who to trust.

> There's no reason to assume it wouldn't be even worse under a completely free market.

The US had a free market in health care up to the 1960s, and there's no evidence of the dark predictions you make for it.

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