The end of capitalism?
It's the ecology, stupid.
The game of monopoly was intended to be an unplayable illustration of the self-destructive nature of capitalism. The rules of the game inexorably lead to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands until 'game over' is reached when all but one are bankrupt and money ceases to flow.
The end has been delayed by economic expansion and 'revolution', but we have reached peak stuff and peak knowledge, and either we are going to start plying a different game, or the world is going to play it without us.
The game of monopoly was intended to be an unplayable illustration of the self-destructive nature of capitalism. The rules of the game inexorably lead to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands until 'game over' is reached when all but one are bankrupt and money ceases to flow.
The end has been delayed by economic expansion and 'revolution', but we have reached peak stuff and peak knowledge, and either we are going to start plying a different game, or the world is going to play it without us.
Decades of academic work in ecological economics have gone into integrating energetic and material stocks, flows, and boundaries into economic thinking (van den Bergh 2001, Røpke 2005). Although some progress can be seen on the economic-theoretical level, the economic models which inform political decision-making in rich countries almost completely disregard the energetic and material dimensions of the economy (Hall and Klitgaard 2011).https://bios.fi/bios-governance_of_economic_transition.pdf
As Hall and Klitgaard (2011) have shown, today’s dominant economic theories, approaches, and models were developed during the era of energetic and material abundance. These theories were challenged only temporarily by the oil crises of the 1970s and the 1990s; no significant theoretical or political changes were made. Thus, dominant economic theories as well as policy-related economic modeling rely on the presupposition of continued energetic and material growth. The theories and models anticipate only incremental changes in the existing economic order. Hence, they are inadequate for explaining the current turmoil.
Comments (81)
Capitalism has increased the overall wealth compared to the past. This wealth is not evenly distributed, the increase is not evenly distributed and inequality is increasing but those in lower percentiles are getting lower percentages of increased overall wealth and increased buying power and options.
Inequality is rising but overall everyone is better off. Capitalism will trend towards greater socialism as the capacity for government spending and spending efficiency increases and people are replaced by increases in efficiency and technology.
There is also the almost religious focus on "jobs jobs jobs" in current politics. All other considerations are dwarfed by creating and protesting jobs.
But we are living in a time when technology is in a whole other place than back then.
The problem we face now is that technology will outperform us, that automation will render blue-collar workers (first) irrelevant for work. We are facing a mass unemployment-era in which most are out of a job, but industries need consumers in order to survive. It might possibly be the largest collapse of the economy the world has ever seen and if no one is establishing a new model of economy, we will not be ready for it.
Sure, but the economy is still very reliant on cheap and dense sources of energy. There are also various raw materials that get rarer. And we are still not making concerted efforts to get off this rock.
Quoting Christoffer
Which makes the focus on jobs as the ultimate end of all policy making even more perplexing.
Elon Musk is developing astro-mining. It's a several trillion dollar-industry calculated as of late.
Quoting Echarmion
Exactly, but the reason is that politicians are demagogues who follow the will of the people or manipulate the will of the people in order to have more power and money. A politician that actually fights for the people and for rational decisions in face of the future are rare, or non-existent. Politicians only make decisions when they face a problem that is critical.
This is why they are politicians because they focus on one thing they want to change or do and they have no education with other things. So they try to combine expertise help with holding on to the power that they have, instead of figuring out the best course of action.
In essence, I agree with the need for philosopher kings, but I would use it within a democracy. Don't let anyone be able to become a high-level politician if they have not undergone philosophical training and learned how to research issues themselves. Then they can figure out together with experts, the best course of action and we are less susceptible to rich narcissists taking over entire countries.
The amount of wealth is not fixed, because you can keep collecting money by passing Go indefinitely. If the bank runs out of money, make some more. The problem is that the players can construct ways of extracting higher and higher rents, while the fixed rate of income (passing Go) remains the same. If you don't manage to get into the capitalist scheme you'll be sucked under, and the first to loose. But then the capitalists, having annihilated the poor loosers, along with that source of revenue, must try to extract rents from each other, winner takes all. At this point the object of the game is not to have enough money to pay all your rents, but to have all the money, and then there is no one left who might be able to charge you rent.
The game of monopoly's largest potential wealth is the total of all the bills that come with the board game.
I don't think so, you can add more money if needed.
The concept of wealth creation, potential wealth, wealth distribution in monopoly do not replicate capitalism and that is the way OP is trying to introduce monopoly as a relevant criticism to capitalism. I am not sure whether you agree with this point or if you're an avid monopoly fan who wants to debate how the mechanics of the game work but I wouldn't even consider to bring up monopoly in a debate about capitalism if it wasn't for OP thinking it's somehow a good idea.
Well no, actually, I was merely reminding the hurried and harried reader that criticisms of capitalism have a history. I was rather hoping that folks would read the rather more substantive and modern analysis quoted and linked, and discuss that, perhaps with half an eye to the witty subverting of the cliche that forms the subtitle, and replaces the economy with the ecology as the supreme ruler of society. But Monopoly is a more tractable topic, so do carry on.
I disagree, many people hate their life, and would give up some of the comfort brought by technology in exchange for more freedom. In fact it is quite sad that after all these technological advancements most people are still slaves. We live in a society fueled by economic growth, to sustain it we have to produce more and consume more, and more and more, endlessly, but resources are not endless.
Applying existing anti- monopoly laws to the game of Monopoly would dramatically change the game, making the game not analogous to anything in real life. Quoting unenlightened
We haven't reached peak knowledge. Your trust in human creativity is pessimistic. I trust our continued adaption as wells begin to dry.
Adaption and survival I can grant. But that transition will not be kind, merciful, or peaceful if we just carry on -- or, given that my crystal ball broke a long time ago, we are running a very serious risk that resource wars are on the horizon.
A new thing would have to grow out of some unifying ideological base.
You know that do you?
I am speaking loosely, but the first useable computer was during WW2, and since the transistor made them ubiquitous, I don't see an equivalent novelty in the last 70 years. Nuclear physics, relativity, electromagnetism, evolution are all old stories that are being tweaked, nothing more.
This is necessary, but capitalism cannot accomplish it, the theory does not provide the mechanism.
In the 1970s, I'd dispute your claims by flipping through my Encyclopedia Britannica and hand writing you a well thought out letter that you'd get in a few weeks.
It's not just a matter of revolutionary discoveries, but also in novel ways of using existing knowledge. Innovation and genius resulted in the phone in my hand, a far different use of the transistor that powered the AM/FM radio I had as a kid.
Yes.I'm glad you agree. Not the end of the increase in knowledge, but past the peak. The internal combustion engine dates from just before 1800, 220 years later, we have improved on it a good deal; likewise the electric motor, 1830s. Jet engine and rocket engine, 1940s and since then - improvements, but no new engines.
Quoting frank
The best I can manage is to spot trends of the past and project. I am aware that this is not as good as a crystal ball.
Would you consider, say, quantum computing to be "new" enough to constitute a genuine novelty, and not merely a refinement of something which came before?
Look to science fiction. Robots, virtual realities, cloning for organs, etc. One of the reasons the US was an innovation dynamo was that it attracted people from all over the world and gave them a growing, open society to play with. Whether China will become something similar, can't say.
I wonder if anyone is at all interested in discussing the topic of the thread?
Inequality is an major economic problem quite aside from moral concerns. Concentration of wealth in the hands of a 1-2% of the population leads to less productive economies because too much capital is in too few hands.
Capitalism trending toward greater socialism? What sort of hocus pocus thinking is that?
Yes, your cell phone integrates old radio technology with a miniaturized computer. A rule of thumb is that it takes about 50 years for a new technology to be fully deployed. Large clunky cell phones made their practical debut around... 1980, so... 40 years on, they are pretty well deployed everywhere.
Quoting unenlightened
If there is a "next big thing" it isn't on the horizon. Quantum computing will not solve the problem of too many people, not enough jobs, too little money for the price of bread, global warming, and other such existential matters.
My understanding of this is that the economic potential from late 19th - early 20th century inventions and new technology have now been fully exploited. Computers (and automation which depends on computers) is being exploited, and has not reached full exploitation. Whether labor-eliminating technology represents a heap of potential or a pit of deprivation isn't entirely clear. I'd bet on the latter, because a lot of jobs remain that machines and computers could do just as well.
The idea of distributing corporate income gains from automation as a guaranteed income is a long ways from being
Quoting Christoffer
Elon Musk is doing no such thing. He's thinking about it, but lots of people have thought about it.
Absolutely.
Ecology hangs over every discussion of the future and is often--quite amazingly--ignored. The rate of global warming, ecological disruption, sea-level rise, more severe swings in weather events, and so forth cut across projections of future economic growth.
Even educated, technologically sophisticated people, have difficulty getting their minds around the concept of "peak oil", let alone the implications. We are now on the long down-side of the curve. Oil isn't just energy, it is also the cheap feed-stock of a vast share of economic activity. Hydrocarbons have no attractive replacement. You can walk instead of driving, but your high-tech walking shoes are made out of oil. Forget about oil-derived polyester -- you can use cotton. But cotton for all depends on many tractors using oil and cheap fertilizers. So, you can wear leather instead. Alas. There are just not enough animal skins to cover 8 billion people.
What to wear will be the least of today's young people's problems as the planet's ecology changes from familiar and predictable to strange and chaotic.
This is end of times talk, just from the left. Modern misery exists to be sure, but it doesn't hold a candle to ancient miseries.
The distinction you make to support your pessimistic viewpoint is unclear (as all innovation takes advantage of other known technologies) and irrelevant (whether the life saving drug was founded on wholly new concepts or advancements of existent ones, it's no less important).
With regard to some 100 amazing innovations in 2018 alone, see: https://www.popsci.com/best-of-whats-new-2018.
If the best criticism you have is that they're "tweaks," and not innovations, that doesn't really make me lose any confidence in the continued ability of humans to substantially improve their situation.
Yes, and Slater Nazi Inc. are not going to solve these problems of their own volition.
Quoting Hanover
Nor do I lack confidence in the ability of humans. As usual in your haste to contradict something that might oblige you to think a new thought, you miss the point. Have another read of the link above and you will see that it is not a problem of human ability but of political and economic system that is flagged up as the difficulty.
Gotta love the product placement:
"2019 Ranger by Ford
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We’d be crazy about the reborn Ford Ranger—the first new U.S. model since 2011—just for the fact that it’s an affordable, compact pickup available stateside. (Europe gets all the cool, small haulers!) But this truck gets even better, packing a fuel-efficient 4-cylinder engine similar to the one you’ll find in the new Mustang, as well as automatic emergency braking standard on all trim levels. The tech suite doesn’t end there: On the XLT and Lariat trim packages, blind-spot monitoring can keep tabs on whatever you’re towing, and its lane-departure warning will ease your transition into Truck Life."
As if that weren't exciting enough:
"Grand Award Winner
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3M’s new Post-it Extreme Notes can cling to the surface of rough materials such as plywood and concrete. That’s thanks to a new adhesive made of tiny spheres, which give the glue extra stretch to better conform to uneven surfaces. The goo gets added help from flexible paper that’s coated with polymer layers, which make the notes water-resistant—and also more durable and less prone to smudging than plain stickies. Samples we tested stayed firmly stuck to a house’s exterior walls and windows, Tupperware in a freezer, and even a canvas cooler bag whose handles constantly tugged on the note.
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I now have full confidence in the ability of humans to [s]sell stuff on false premises[/s] substantially improve their situation. :ok:
Maybe the end is near. If it is, we'll soon find out. My personal feeling is that our collective demise is somewhere off in the distant future.
Well no, actually, one never does find out; one never gets to say, 'I told you so'. It's really annoying.
Sharpening the axe doesn't make the axe new and different. A lot of the stuff on the list is just sharper axes presented as stunning innovation--aka, bullshit.
The driving force behind all this axe sharpening is increased sales of axes that look, and may even be, slightly sharper. The first smart phone was an improvement over the simple cell phone that was 99% a phone, and not much else. The second through nth smart phone are just sharper axes.
Now, if XYZ Corporation came up with an actual, usable anti-gravity device (not just a magnetic levitating system) that would be worth writing about. A small pickup, no.
Of necessity, the most useful technology will be simple and or primitive compared to the Hanover's BEST 100 list. As James H. Kunstler has shown, our whole productive system is predicated on cheap hydrocarbons. For its complex molecules and abundance, there is no substitute for petroleum. (Coal? Don't bother.)
Predicting what economic system will prevail in 200 years is out of the question. We don't know how much turmoil, upheaval, and chaos we will be dealing with 100, 150, or 200 years from now.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think you're intentionally overstating. But why?
How can one overstate any 200-year estimation? Do you know what will exist in 200 years? If Thomas Jefferson had speculated about life in 2018, could he have over- (or under) estimated anything? He hadn't seen the first train in the US. (Jefferson had seen a steam boat in the late 1700s). Could Jefferson have predicted the ball point pen? An electric iron? Digging oil wells (started just 30 years after his death)? The means and end of slavery? A light bulb. A simple box camera?
Given that the various governments, corporations, and NGOs are unable to mobilize themselves and the population to sharply reduce the use of fossil fuels, it seems inevitable that we will continue to add a lot of CO2 and methane, and other green house gases to the atmosphere for quite a while. Technological turn-arounds are possible, but generally take quite a stretch of time. By the time we achieve significant CO2 reductions, it will probably be too late.
Am I unaware of the progress we are making? I am aware. I know that many electric utilities are now on track to produce a significant share of electricity (like...25%) from wind and solar within the next 5 to 7 years. I also know that oil is relatively cheap and most people are still buying new cars. The population is still growing, and people aspire to higher standards of living--both of which promise an enlarged CO2 output.
We didn't have a lot of time to make alternative arrangements when Global Warming became a thing back around 1985, and that was 35 years ago. Now we are chewing through the 10 years that we thought we had to make big changes, and we haven't made them yet (on a local, et alone global scale).
So, yes, I am pessimistic about our chances of avoiding the negative consequences of run-away global warming. However, I'm not expecting eco-armageddon next week. (more like... maybe 2050?)
One thing that is for sure, Capitalism isn't going to solve the problem.
I think humans will burn all the fuel they can get their hands on. There's no run-away global warming in the forecast.
Quoting Bitter Crank
There's a theory that the development of private enterprise and trade may have been one of the causes of the Bronze Age Collapse. Prior to that economies were typically managed by central authorities, the so-called palace economy.
With the development of abstract money, a strange process started evolving in which people would basically act as if they had more resources than they really did. The optimism generated by that became something like social fuel. We're still living in that kind of world, so immersed in it that most of us don't realize that much of what we think of as our assets as a species is just abstract hot air. To turn and face it creates a feeling of vertigo.
I'm fascinated by the question of how the system will evolve going forward. Will it at some point completely collapse? Or will it give rise to something new?
Do you have any resources about economies becoming less productive because of inequality? I'd like to learn about that if it's true.
Also what I mean by trending towards greater socialism can be observed in much of the West. Free education, subsidised or free healthcare, increased benefits for disabilities to name a few of the things which become more achievable as governments become wealthier. It just wouldn't be feasible for a developing country to do what many Western countries have done here. Countries with capitalism will continue to be capable of more.
I think in the future we will see unemployment rates being much higher than today and the state taking care of a lot more people. As unskilled labourers or lower end blue-collars will continue to be replaced by computers and machinery. These people will need to be taken care of by greater socialist policies.
The problem of concentrated wealth in a nutshell is this: The uber-wealthy, who control such a large share of capital, have little incentive to innovate or invent. Continual growth of their already great wealth, and inequality, is pretty much guaranteed, short of a revolution or disaster (like WWI/the great depression/and WWII) which dispossessed them of much of their assets.
According to French Economist, Thomas Pikkety... r > g, where r = return on capital, and g = economic growth. In the long run, (like the last 250 years) r has been about 4% to 5%, and g has been about 1/10 of 1% -- a little bit above zero. So, obviously, those who own capital (land barons, traditionally, but also big share holders in Amazon or the RAMJAC Corporation***) get richer and richer, and everybody else does not.
Here is a PBS News Hour segment on Pikkety (a little over 6 minutes)
Here is another -- Bill Moyers speaking with Paul Krugman about Pikkety's book CAPITAL. (24 minutes)
NOTE TO @HANOVER: Pikkety is not a Marxist.
***RAMJAC Corporation is an invention of Kurt Vonnegut. In the novel Jailbird, we discover that RAMJAC Corporation owns 19% of all the wealth in the United States.
I thank you for introducing me to this concept of r>g, it is such a simple representation of the problem. It really changes my views on taxation.
Can you explain your reasoning as to why this leads you to believe inequality leads to lowered economic growth? I am not saying you're wrong but I don't quite understand it.
What ramifications are there in r>g for the mid-level entrepreneur that make him different from the ultra rich?
Automation and "artificial intelligence" is already cutting into white-collar and managerial jobs too. Labor, in general, is viewed as an unfortunate expense, so the more the entrepreneur can get rid of employees, the better. The work-force liquidating entrepreneur is short sighted, however. Who will buy his products and services if large swaths of the population are jobless and impoverished?
The solution proposed, nowhere implemented, is the guaranteed living wage, where the government pays the many jobless a fixed sum. This enables the jobless to take care of themselves, and it provides them with an income which ends up being spent on goods and services -- driving the economy.
Finland recently terminated a 2 year experiment of giving a random group of unemployed people a fixed sum every month. The control group did not receive the funds. The upshot is that the recipients of the cash were happier and healthier after two years, but were still not employed for the most part. Neither was the control group employed.
People in my age group -- I'm 72 -- grew up in the post-WWII boom. This boom lasted from the end of the war up to about the end of the 1960s, give or take 15 minutes. During this time economic growth (g) was actually pretty high. I don't know what the percent was, but millions of upward mobile minded people were able to buy houses, cars, have children, go to college, and create some new wealth for themselves. Around the beginning of 1970 (maybe 1973, the Arab Oil Boycott) the boom fizzled out. Since 1980 the trend has been toward continually increased inequality, and we are now back to where we were in 1910--very unequal.
I am not an economist, please understand. As I understand it, the very rich who own capital assets (like land, large shares of corporations, and so on) can count on a steady income from their property--at the rate of 4% to 5%. they don't have to do anything, really, to keep the cash flowing. They tend to become risk averse. They don't want to rock the boat of their wealth. They invest safely in assets that will return a steady and reliable yield.
Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, who either borrowed money or obtained it by some other means, can't afford to sit on their assets. They want to find business opportunities where their $100,000 investment will increase rapidly -- not at 4% a year, but by by 15% a year, at least for a while. In order to get high rates of return, one has to take more risks, which means betting on innovative technologies which may or may not pay off.
Entrepreneurs--for better and worse--drive economic activities in new directions -- toward the electric car; toward the new app; toward the high volume low cost airline; toward the non-farm method of making meat (cultivating cell cultures in a vat, rather than cell cultures on the hoof) and so on. Micro-breweries are a recent innovation -- never used to exist. All the apps on a smart phone never used to exist.
Some old businesses will always be around: Mining and smelting metal, for example; agriculture and food/fiber processing; transportation in one form or another; forestry and wood products; construction, etc. But take a look at construction: Maybe the printed house will be the next big thing to invest in -- it will be risky, but it might pay off for some.
Economic growth doesn't come from owning large blocks of Manhattan property. (Many New York skyscrapers are on leased land which has been owned by the same family for generations.) It comes from what is done on top of the property--by entrepreneurs.
Take Warren Buffet, owner of Berkshire Hathaway -- one of the richest people in the world. Buffet invests in businesses that have already proved themselves to be successful -- like Dairy Queen, for instance, or Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. He is very unlikely to invest in a company making "beef" in a factory. When Buffet dies, his heirs will come into a huge fortune which will carry little risk.
The difference between the entrepreneur and the rich is that the wealth of the rich is pretty much guaranteed. The wealth of the entrepreneur is on thin ice and has to be looked after. The entrepreneur can go broke overnight if he isn't careful; the rich are in no risk of going broke (short of some sort of cataclysm).
Entrepreneurs can become very rich if they are very lucky. If they are just somewhat lucky, they may make a decent income. If they are unlucky, their investment will break even. If they are very unlucky, they may have to consider which dumpster will offer the best pickings.
The best way to get rich is to be the sole heir of a fabulously rich old man with heart disease. (So I have heard, anyway.)
Yes, I understand. I didn't mean political socialism but socialist policies. I very much agree with everything you said on the subject.
You provide a sound argument for why entrepreneurs are likely to stimulate growth over the ultra rich. I would say though that unless taxation takes some of that money from the ultra-rich and redistributes it, the ultra-rich are not taking anything away from the mid-level entrepreneurs. Their wealth is growing independently and unlike income disparities, it's not like capital increasing is depriving anyone of any opportunities. It's just capital will account for a greater portion of the overall wealth because it's growing faster than the economy.
It seems more logical to assume that increased capital can only increase economic growth. Alternatively, maybe no impact? I assume at least some ultra-rich will make some businesses and be a bit productive, invest into companies and make them more productive... things like that. The main problem appear to be the social and political implications.
I may have to read Capital myself and see what he is saying precisely.
It will be a real return to the past and the creation of an oligarchy!
I wonder if it were feasible to dismantle these dynasties... like you can only pass on $10 million or less per person. What the impacts of that might be? Alternatively changing how taxation works but you can also see negative impacts for that too. Same with higher taxation on investments. It's a complicated issue.
One of the means by which capital became so very fat was by getting tax law changed to cut estate taxes (allowing more to pass to heirs after death) and slash income taxes for the richest bracket. These changes starve governments of revenue, and displace the tax burden onto those less and least able to pay.
Government plays a role in economic growth, but in order to do its part, it needs adequate revenue. How does it stimulate growth? By building and maintaining big infrastructure -- roads, airports, locks and dams, canals, ports, railroads, and the like. These projects facilitate economic activity and put people to work, increasing prosperity and broad economic activity. With adequate income the government has subsidized education (K - PhD) to maintain a strong intellectual base. In many countries the state operates national health insurance which controls costs and improves broad health outcomes [which is why, without a national health insurance plan, the US compares so poorly to other countries on health outcomes per dollar spent].
So: diverting income to the super rich through favorable taxation plans starves government and burdens the working classes, all of which cuts the standard of living over the long run. Here's an example: the states used to support colleges and universities at about 75%. This enabled higher education to offer large numbers of people affordable tuition, and at the same time do research and public service. Now, most states pay only 25% of university costs which means much higher tuition, fewer public service programs, less pure research, and more corporate involvement.
Starved of taxation, government (federal down to local) have difficulty delivering the services which are critical to maintaining economic growth (g).
Well, taking Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway as an example again, Buffet has nothing to gain by wrecking his various corporate assets. If Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad is badly run and starts falling apart, it won't do Buffet any good at all. Same for all the various businesses which capital owns: They need to be operated successfully to hold their value.
Good idea. I haven't read it myself--just excerpts and summaries by others. Not reading books I recommend others read is not commendable, but... one can only get so much done in a day.
Yes, this is perfectly possible. After the excesses of the late 19th century gilded age, the progressives in the US passed much higher taxes on wealthy people. It was really the "Reagan Revolution" starting in 1980 where wealth taxes were cut and we headed back into another "gilded age". Here's a chart showing the 20th century history of economic inequality.
I agree with most of your sentiment - that capital should be put to better use than accumulating wealth for already uber-rich dynasties and individuals. This seems like a point that any reasonable people would agree with and understand the utility of. However, it remains that taxation of the uber-wealthy still occurs and the more wealthy they are, the more money the government receives from them. So all of the things you're talking about, the uber-rich do contribute to - they should just clearly contribute more.
I wouldn't argue that all of the uber-wealthy are making successful and productive businesses but there are clearly some who, if nothing more than to amuse themselves, create and expand businesses and property which ostensibly they try to see succeed - if nothing else than for their ego.
I am not sure what all the ramifications would be for increased taxation in this globalised day and age but now that I have learned about r>g. I feel a new passion for this topic that I didn't feel before. Taxation as a means to prevent oligarchy... on top of all of the benefits you lay out and more... compelling.
I never really bought the idea that hard work and industriousness were absolute indicators of financial success but I think the illusion that it is could be preventing Americans from supporting these changes. r>g is a powerful debating tool in this regard, combined with the knowledge of the success of socialist programs. Such a more compelling argument (at least for me) could be made about this topic than is being made by the current left which focuses entirely on economic growth and the morality aspect, it's quite misleading.
We've engineered an agrarian society... we call it civilization and it's all essentially based on the demands of protecting a false surplus in order to support huge human populations.
Currently the false surplus is gained from fossil fuels. But ultimately everything comes from the source that grows the plant which provides the supposed surplus. The energy budget from the sun.
One of the demands of agriculture is hierarchy and specialization... and so society shifted away from hunter-gatherer in-group cooperation to in-group competition for resources. This shift to competition creates the space for hierarchy and systems of power.
Authoritarianism.
Capitalism, socialism, fascism, feudalism... These are all different forms of authoritarianism.
And each of these forms is a response to the demands of growing plants to create an alleged surplus.
It's not that Capitalism is failing, it's that the idea of civilization is failing. Capitalism is merely a response to the oft unconsidered demands of agriculture.
As it turns out basing the vast majority of human life on the demands of agriculture has run into a rather dramatic dead end.
Human caused climate change... uncontrolled tech expansion, the prioritization of greed in the human character... all of which are driven by authoritarianism as a means to support agriculture.
The fatal flaw? Large systems of power concentrate massive populations of will into the hands of very few people who can now use that concentrated power of will to destroy the ecosystem that nurtured us.
Hard to see this as anything other than what it is... a complete and utter failure of agriculture and the authoritarianism that derives from it in a variety of systemic flavors... like Capitalism or Socialism.
Isn't agriculture necessary to feed the seven billion people on earth? How do you propose a society not based on agriculture, when eating is one of the few essential activities?
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
Do you see how this is backward? We make demands on agriculture, because it is necessary to support the vast numbers of human lives, not vise versa.
"Do you see how this is backward? We make demands on agriculture, because it is necessary to support the vast numbers of human lives, not vise versa."
Do I really have it backwards?
The vast human population we have is because of agriculture. Before agriculture human populations were much, much smaller. And the entire ecosystem existed within the energy budget provided by the sun.
So, we adopted agriculture not to support huge populations but because of the false surplus that agriculture produce, seemed a good way to increase our chance of survival. In pursuing that false surplus huge amounts of human labor is required, and society becomes reliant on the false surplus.
Whenever a population has a food surplus, the population grows.
The demands of agriculture created the large populations. We did not start with huge populations and then developed agriculture to deal with the extra mouths. Now one of the main problems we have is that we keep feeding people without controlling our reproduction.
We you add to that the other demands that the agrarian lifestyle puts on the human character, you end up with things like greed... property... authority... wars... markets... climate change...
None of these things are necessary to human survival and in fact lead to just the opposite.
We blindly chose a path 10,000 years ago that leads to a dead end
Agriculture does not go beyond the energy budget of the sun, so the "false surplus" you refer to is completely fictitious. Sure we have artificially lighted greenhouses, but this is such a minuscule amount of overall agricultural practises, which in themselves fall far short of maximizing the energy budget of the sun, that the energy used in these greenhouses is insignificant.
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
This is where you have things backward. It is not the demands of agriculture which created large populations, it is the supply of agriculture which created the large population. The human demands of agriculture are actually very small in the modern mechanized farms such as in North America. A farmer can crop thousands of acres, or herd thousands of livestock, with very few employees. Agriculture makes no demand on the population, it simply supplies for the needs of the population. If the supply is higher than the need there would be a surplus, but the modern trend is to convert crops to fuel, so if anything, there is a shortage not a surplus.
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
I don't know how you are using "agrarian" here, but the lifestyle of the farmer is one of hard work, to provide for others. It is not properly characterized by "greed" and such terms. You have created a completely fictitious scenario, which casts the members of the agricultural society as evil villains, and that's just wrong.
"Agriculture does not go beyond the energy budget of the sun, so the "false surplus" you refer to is completely fictitious."
Are you certain of that? What is a more efficient solar energy converter... a plowed field or a forest?
The false surplus come from the fact that it requires huge amounts of energy to create and defend a field. The total amount of energy spent requires additional energy inputs beyond sunlight... like human labor... which is also ultimately fed by solar energy. Whether stored in the form of fossil fuels or created from field of hay for draft animals. So when people start planting fields there is a local surplus for a small community at the cost of eco-diversity. Essentially a number of energy converting niches get destroyed in the service of mono-cropping. If one plant was capable of completely converting that region's sunlight into plant energy then that plant would have take over the area.
That same ground cover by a field could only support a very few wanderers. This allows a society to gain more territory... and create more fields. At the cost of increased labor requirements to develop and sustain the fields. Increase population and the cycle continues...
And this is important for you to note... at every step in this process the land occupied by civilization is supporting far larger populations than that same land could support in it's natural state.
Which of course means that agriculture is overdrawing the solar energy budget of that land.
"it is the supply of agriculture which created the large population." Yup which is precisely what I've been saying.
When we choose to live an agrarian lifestyle we chose agriculture... and this enabled large populations and emphasized certain elements of human character that have led us to the point of nuclear war or ecological collapse... or creating a child race of AI... whatever... things are murky in the future because of the failure of the current systems.
A more efficient use of solar energy does not imply going beyond the solar budget, it just implies a more efficient use of the solar budget.
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
Your arguments are nonsense. Human energy comes from consumed agricultural produce. Fossil fuels come from solar energy. These are not instances of going beyond the solar budget. That the energy is collected at one time, and used at another, does not mean that the budget is broken.
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
What is your proposed "natural state" of the land, barren rock, prior to all life forms?
Quoting Bloginton Blakley
No, all it means is that human beings are better at providing for other human beings (more efficient), with what the sun gives us, as farmers, in comparison to as hunter-gatherers..
Definition of agrarian (Entry 1 of 2)
1 : of or relating to fields or lands or their tenure
agrarian landscapes
2a : of, relating to, or characteristic of farmers or their way of life
agrarian values
b : organized or designed to promote agricultural interests
an agrarian political party
Environmental impact of agriculture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_agriculture
I'm not actually making anything up. There are observed differences between hunter gatherer lifestyles and farming... if you prefer. These observed difference are exactly as I've said.
You have only to examiner history to find record of the conflict of the two different lifestyles. Hunter gatherer lifestyles are significantly more sustainable and stable... when left alone. Tribal lifestyles tend to small group sizes with in-cooperation... and different views of property and what constitutes status.
I'd invite you to read Charles Mann, "1491" Or any of a number of historical documents discussing the generosity of indigenous tribes as a world wide pattern.
Here is a very concise example of how societies shape human character:
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:
They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
"Your arguments are nonsense. Human energy comes from consumed agricultural produce"
Where does the produce come from?
The produce is grown. But how does that take us outside the solar budget?
Are you familiar with the idea of carrying capacity?
"The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment."
So, would you agree that the Earth has a different carrying capacity if we adopt a hunter-gatherer lifestyle than an agrarian lifestyle?
Your definition of 'carrying capacity' is according to 'species'. Are you saying that the hunter-gather is a different species than the agrian? Otherwise, as the same species the carrying capacity is the same.
Hunter-gatherers need much more land to live on than farmers. Different methods produce different population sizes.
I have no idea why you think a species change is necessary. We aren't dogs, we can chose different lifestyles and those decision have consequences.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-history-of-human-population-growth-and-carrying-capacity.html
You will note that carrying capacity changes over time as new methods are adopted.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/14/the-significance-of-the-common-wind/?fbclid=IwAR034iNIOldp-wE1AnNdKL5tPIm5y5wwXTRgQFHnORDdY-3pJp-7fAoi_ik
Nah, the carrying capacity changes as technology improves to support more of the same species (humans). A hunter-gatherer lifestyle would not support billions of people. We have billions of people now because modern civilization makes it possible. If the lights went out for good, our population would fall back to medieval times. (There's a fictional series of books that explores this.)
Future progress may further increase the carrying capacity of Earth for humans.
This is not correct. The fact that technology (which I agree is a big factor) can increase carrying capacity, and technology is largely responsible for going from 1 billion to 7 billion people in a bit over a century, we are currently in ecological overshoot.
I agree that we could use technology to be within ecological capacity for 7 to 10 billion people, but simply because we have the technology to do so doesn't imply it's actually the case.
The longer we stay in overshoot, the worse the ecological consequences are and the harder it will be for 7 / 10 billion people to bring things into stability when we decide to make the effort, and at some point it's impossible and a large die-off will result regardless of our knowledge.
Although science and technology is improving all the time, our ecological problems are getting worse all the time.
It's simply ridiculous risk-mitigation strategy to assume technological improvements will outpace our problems.
It's simply bad scientific literacy to place great faith in the science that provides us modern technologies but suddenly have zero faith in the part of our science that demonstrates severe ecosystem risks of our current setup. The choice between our current infrastructure and production cycles and medieval times is of course a false dichotomy: there's all sorts of ways for society to organize with modern scientific knowledge.
If this misconstrues your position, please elaborate on it.
We won't stay long in the overshoot in my view.
One has to understand that there will be a peak of human population, and then it will decrease. This happens because of the rise of prosperity. Young people alive can quite well see "Peak Population" and then deal with the problems resulting from declining global population. Yet even that might not be so devastating: just look at how bad things are in Japan now.
Yeah, pretty much. It's common knowledge in the field of economics that as technology progresses and human welfare increases, there tends to be a decrease in population growth, not an increase, paradoxically, with the newfound surplus.
But, we should keep in mind the ratio of 3'rd world countries to 1'st world ones. So, there's going to be still considerable growth in demographics due to this gap, and resulting trickle-down effect, that seems to only occur between nations and not within them.
I was going to point out that, if we have to go to a list in some obscure corner of the internet to find out about these inventions that have purportedly changed our lives so much for the better, then they haven't.
But @Baden's response based on actually following the link was much better.
And I'll point out that if it took you 3 months to respond to my post, it took tremendous thought to defeat it.
a) the efficiency increase.... Having machines and tech doing everything they want them to do now will just eviscerate the middle class.
b) The Debtor state/Business welfare.
If it was just b) there would be the possibility of a global financial reset and mass debt forgiveness and moving on. If it was just a) we could have more debt to ramp up educational opportunities and create a temporary cashflow to a new economy adaption. You could literally run up the trillions we had now in small boons to everyone to give them a solid bottom and a little (probably not alot) of money so they could continue to buy/sell pay debts etc.
But because it is both where you are looking to destroy many channels of distribution of a dollar whilst simultaneously being unable to forgive debt you are fucked. However capitalism is a system which is meant to have rises and falls by now it is an intentional and observable process. Having an economic collapse is good for the investor, it is economic opportunities. You put 1000 dollars into starbucks in 2012 you give or take double your money today.... But you put it in just after 2008 your money goes closer to 10 times in value....
This is Capitalism.
Though I agree we won't stay in overshoot for very long, by definition overshoot comes to an end, the danger is ecosystems collapsing.
Population peak is a help to arrive at sustainability, but is far from sufficient.
There are plenty of UN and other academic papers and reports on our unsustainable use of resources.
If we take no preventative measures, overshoot would resolve in one of three scenarios.
We are currently at a warm peak, interglacial, of a long ice age climate regime where there is permanent ice at the poles. Our warming of the climate, so far, is pretty bad, disrupting forests and killing corals, as well as causing economic harms such crop losses, more powerful storms, more floods, more droughts and coastal erosion. However, these things, today (and as they get a lot worse tomorrow), are a small nuisance compared to pushing the earths climate system into a "hot box" regime, that last existed hundreds of millions of years ago. When icesheets and permafrost start to collapse, the process feeds itself by warm water drilling through the ice and making it softer, carbon beneath being released as well as libido change making it warmer. It just so happens that when earth's orbit and spin are just so to start such a process of collapsing ice sheets, every 40 000 to 100 000 years, during our cold-box regime, though a very rapid, the process runs out of steam and ice sheets remain on Greenland and Antarctica as well as the cap in the north pole; processes that remove greenhouse gases in combination to moving to cooler (for the Northern hemisphere) part of the orbit cycle, leads to rebuilding the Northern continental ice sheets. We simply don't know exactly what it would take to fully complete the cycle of de-icing the world, nor exactly what the implications would be, but what is agreed by the experts is that the risk is very real and the consequences are catastrophic on a global and permanent scale (a large part of the earth maybe uninhabitable, essentially all rain forests would likely desertify, and the ocean ecosystem may collapse completely). What we know from studying past climate and computer models is that the earth system is very sensitive to greenhouse gases and libido changes (fairly subtle differences in orbit translate to a difference between kilometer thick ice all over Canada, Europe and Russia, and a big forest with people living and growing food there).
The other problem, that is made worse by climate change and would result from a switch to a hot-box regime, but we are also causing outright even without climate change is web-of-life collapse. We know from previous mass-extinctions that the web-of-life can only take so much disruption before the system simply collapses and a majority of life forms cannot survive or adapt. Again, we do not know what the line in the sand is for the major world ecosystems, but we know it is there. A good analogy is someone who is overworked and super stressed and is a hazard to themselves and others; we can see there's a danger, but it's impossible to predict "the day" where the person falls asleep at the wheel, or develops a fatal disease, or just snaps; people can be tough and resilient, but there is always a breaking point; when ecologists talk of "stresses" for an ecosystem, they are meaning to imply that enough stresses and the system can no longer cope.
Lastly, even without global and severe ecosystem collapse of the above types, we may encounter cascading failure of our global industrial system. Though depleting any given resource can be solved, it is not a magical process but takes capital and organization; depleting too many resources in combination to supply line disruptions due to conflict and disasters of various kinds, more or less analogous to how ecosystems can break and collapse, could lead to a economic collapse spiral that cannot be recoverable. The world's transport and energy infrastructure is a complex interdependent web and the world only has so much food in store. The intuition that our systems are fairly fragile is, in my view, why post-apocalyptic movies and television is so compelling; the break down of society is easy a very believable process. At the moment, famines are a regional thing, and diversity of location as well as food stores is a strong buffer against global famine; but resistance to a threat is not quite the same as being totally immune. Although I would doubt very much a global famine has no engineering solution, the problem is a feedback loop between disruption to our infrastructure and political disruptions (preventing the infrastructure problems being solved) that spins into chaos. As the US military has recently concluded in a study, a permanent collapse of the US electric grid would result in some 90% of American dying within a year or so; what exact steps would lead to such a scenario are difficult to predict, but it should not be discounted as a potential failure mode (even absent large scale climate shift or ecosystem collapse).
People in denial about these issues, which I expect a good part of this forum would be not to mention the general population, like to say "they don't believe these things are likely" or then "well we'll solve these problems with technology, I believe in science"; however, the question is not whether these risks are more than 50% probable, the question is how high a probability is morally tolerable. When scientists say we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment at a global scale, they mean that the inherent risks of doing so are morally intolerable from the outright, regardless of whatever equivocations one may like to throw on how high the risks are.
Then again, never has any mass extinction event before happened with such an adaptable and dominant species around. If (and when) some species has by it's own actions inadvertently dug it's own hole for it's own extinction, no species has ever had such awareness of it's own actions than the species you boethius belong to. And I think you aren't alone with your thinking.
Quoting boethius
Hmm. Saying that others are in denial means that you are saying that they are wrong. If I argue that the end the World isn't close at hand, am I in denial? If I argue that the obvious actual problems do pose a serious threat, but not an existential one, am I in denial?
Would it be fair to say that you are in denial of how adaptable and innovative the human race is? I wouldn't say that as I find you reasoning totally logical, yet to speak of people being in denial has that judging twist to it.
Sure, there are many new elements to the current situation that have no precedence. However, unless our novel abilities reduce risks to essentially zero, we are still left with the question of how much global risk is acceptable. Are you arguing our adaptability makes us immune to catastrophe?
Quoting ssu
Yes denial is a combination of both being wrong and having the information and faculty easily available to arrive at the right answer. Of course, people in denial will believe they are right or then then issue is trivial.
Quoting ssu
Please re-read my comment.
I emphasize quite clearly that these problems are complex, we cannot know when breaking points are: maybe they are far off. We do not know.
The issue is how much risk is tolerable. 50 percent? 10 percent? 1 percent? 0.1 percent?
So no, it is not denial to argue the end of the world is not close at hand, in the sense of a guarantee. I also would argue the end is not guaranteed.
Quoting ssu
Yes, I would say this is denial.
The logical structure of the serious global problems that we are discussing, imply an increase in existential risk the greater the "serious risk".
The more global systemic problems, the more our social and ecological systems are stressed, and the greater the existential risk.
Though this issues isn't too relevant to me personally -- as I believe we should feel responsible for avoiding a large majority of human caused extinctions of other species -- even if you are only concerned about humanities survival full stop, the issues I brought up in my previous post do have a real chance of leading to extinction.
For instance, climate change could cause a global famine could trigger a nuclear war, which in turn causes a nuclear winter, which could destroy most photosynthesis and so oxygen levels would then plummet; it's not a foregone conclusion survival long term is easy in post-apocalyptic oxygen-low atmosphere: bunkers and submarines and the like would certainly have technology to make enough oxygen in the short term, but in the long term it maybe impossible to maintain bubble-ecosystems and related technologies.
Of course there's a chance a global famine won't happen, and even if it does a nuclear war doesn't result etc. The issue is what probability is morally acceptable with respect to various chain of events leading to extinction.
The more we disrupt the climate, the more biodiversity we destroy, the more plastic and other waste we dump in the environment, and the more resources we consume frivolously, my contention here is the more stress we place on ecological and social systems, and the more stress these systems experience the greater the likelihood of reaching breaking points.
The research is readily available on the state of natural systems. Even a cursory examination of the research is more than enough to establish the global risks we face are non-trivial. The question is what level of global risks (to nature, to civilization, to the human survival as such) are morally justifiable?
Just last week the UN has released an assessment of biodiversity where they conclude over a million (additional) species are at risk of extinction if we continue business as usual (they of course have factored in projected population declines in reaching this conclusion). It's simply not clear what the affects will be on earth systems of losing one million species. From a risk-management perspective, it's far better to not run the experiment to find out.
So, given that the world is still full of 3'rd world nations, capitalism will continue to be the economic system of choice for the ultra-rich. If we do get to a point where there's some semblance of equilibrium around the world in terms of development, then maybe there will be some consensus to transition or shift towards another economic system. How far away are we from that prospectus is a current issue of debate within the realm of Marxist scholars.