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If growth stops major social & financial institutions of the West will crumble. That's why even "Marxist" Obama obsesses with growth and offer no reflection, solutions or "change" for that matter. All he tries to do is to resuscitate the growth machine (using old tricks that no longer work well).
1. Everything is built around endless growth. Money supply is being #1. Money created as debt out of thin air to be repaid with interest. For old debt to be repaid new loans must be taken out. New loans are taken out to finance new projects imposing new tolls of various degrees on resources & environment. For these "new" debts to be repaid even more of new loans and thus transformation of resources & environment is required. Endless growth. As soon as growth goes into negative house of cards start falling appart because there is not enough of "new" money in the system to pay off old debts.
2. Productivity growth. Folks squeezed from the essential (and not so much) industries must be employed elsewhere. For them to be employed new wants and needs must be generated, new wants & needs impose new tolls on resources and environment. Yet, in the future "New wants" industries will innovate and outsource. This would demands more of the new wants and needs for you to have. I don't see where this would lead since you have just 24 hours to consume.
3. Social security is intimately linked to the population growth. If working population doesn't grow fast enough taxes on the working younger generation will increase to become very "painful".
4. All increasing "individualism" (if not isolation) of the Western population demands more and more of the economic growth. The more individualism (isolation) is out there the more growth it generates for everyone to have his own "home theater" to enjoy the newest Hollywood illusion products in absolute privacy (just an example).
5. The favorite "rag-to-riches" & "opportunity" social control slogans utilized in the USA are nothing but demand for more growth. Take those promises away and hell knows what would happen. Since in the unlikely case of you proceeding from rags to riches, more ragged spots don't just disappear, they are occupied by somebody else who's fed the same stories about "opportunities" and "bettering yourself" to keep him docile and working.
The list is much longer than this. But the point - Western social & economic models without growth cannot function. It's the growth fueled by science and industry that made the West (and USA especially) the masters of the world. More backward (in this regard) countries embraced ideology of growth, since if you don't grow you are being swallowed by somebody who does. In the cases when market forces were not strong enough to destroy old social ways (not obsessing about growth) ruling elites delivered forced modernization from above. Russia, Turkey, Japan, China .... are examples of the forced modernizations to catch up with growing West. It's a planetary sized survival of the ones who can grow fastest to create the newest military gear & social control tools. The lesser amount of the resources to extract the more frantic demand for growth will become. Everybody will be scrambling to occupy the finest lounge on the thinking Titanic.
Growth is imperative. Productivity increases mean you need more and more output to keep the same number of people employed, and the number of people who want jobs continues to grow. No society can last long with constantly rising unemployment.
So what differentiates us from the bacteria in the Petri dish - that has the limited food supply?
I would like to think that we can think our way out of this mess - otherwise we are no smarter than the bacteria. I have to presume that is what those 1000 corporate leaders are doing right now at Davos.
So what differentiates us from the bacteria in the Petri dish - that has the limited food supply?
I would like to think that we can think our way out of this mess - otherwise we are no smarter than the bacteria. I have to presume that is what those 1000 corporate leaders are doing right now at Davos.
Yup, corporate leaders will self-annihilate to prove that we are not the bacteria in the Petri dish. To give you rough idea what corporate leaders do to address global survival challenges, just follow corporate sponsored media campaign of Global Warming denial and doubt. Yup, that's the level of leadership the human kind has.
Yes, you are correct saying that hairless monkeys didn't transcend animal urges to use up all the available food supplies before coming in quasi equilibrium with their environment. What we excelled in - extermination of competing life forms whose share of food human race "appropriated" over the past 10,000 years. For example, next time you see a field, imagine how many kinds of plants and animals were exterminated to put that field under plow. Unfortunately, all that the best corporate minds can come up with is the claim of human "ingenuity" and "free market" efficiency in allocating scarce resources. The story goes that because we are efficient and inventive, we can (supposedly) keep on exterminating other life forms of life, extract resources and to change our environment indefinitely.
Yup, the Church of Holy Locust is the best that human race could come up with. Reminder, humans already use 30%+ of energy photosynthesis (directly and indirectly).
02-14-2012, 03:50 PM
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Capitalism can easily survive without too much growth.
However, the human population in countries can’t be increasing so rapidly because that means the economy also has to rapidly grow to sustain that.
So there should be a more stable not that rapid human population growth that goes with a stable, steady economic growth that does not have to grow rapidly in that case.
However, there still needs to be some economic growth and for it to not go stagnant and without any growth.
Also, there is still positive ways Socialism and Communism can be expressed, so it does not always have to be so negative. Maybe Capitalist economies should become more Socialist/Communist in some ways and for some countries.
There can be some more experimentation for the dynamics of the economy.
Yes and No. The basic tenents of private ownership of capital can certainly continue, but the economic structure of the western world that has existed since the renessance would collapse w/o growth.
Yes and No. The basic tenents of private ownership of capital can certainly continue, but the economic structure of the western world that has existed since the renessance would collapse w/o growth.
“Go forth and multiply”, bigger is better, keep up with the Jones’s - many have bought into more of everything. We are all aware (at least subconsciously) that this quest cannot go on forever. At sometime we have to learn to live with less - we might even be there now. India and China are starting to offer real completion for the world’s resources. The cost will go up and fewer will be capable of buying. Here is one link to the projection on our global metal reserves: Global Metal Reserves by Mike Hewitt
So; how do we adapt? Will we be the ones with four bicycles in the garage and others are arguing that we are excessive?
We face freedom and privacy issues that none before us ever worried about. Worse yet is the fact that we look like the deer caught in the headlights - frozen; with no clear path to salvation.
We grew up with the idea that more is better. We like bigger or more expensive vehicles; we like large houses, we like bigger and better TV’s and electronics - we like the idea of a lavish lifestyle.
But; bigger has a price. Our goods cost more as more people want the same as we have - supply and demand. As our population grows; so does pollution. We also loose our freedom. We also loose time as more people are in our way as we proceed to our destinations. There is just more competition for fewer products.
Because of the recent economic downturn; many have come to question this push for growth. Larger and more expensive looks like it might not always be the answer.
Should we ever control our population growth? Should we control the products that we buy - such as gas guzzling vehicles? Should we control the internet (don’t ask Wikipedia today)? How much should we control ourselves and others? Should everybody be required to be a productive member of our society? If we are all replaced by robotic and technology; how do we still make a living?
I guess I am asking is: Can we tweak the system; so that it still functions with our new realities - or; do we have to change the game? I would hope that we would debate the issues and have alternative solutions to the changes that are ahead of us.
1. "supply and demand"...The way I see it is supply is way ahead of demand. New stuff is put on the market every 10 days making the 'old' stuff redundant due to parts unavailability, this 'demands' us to constantly purchase new stuff.
2. "...everyone productive"...At the bottom end of town I believe everyone for the most part *is* productive. How is the top end of town judged to be 'productive'? Answer: The dollar sign on the bottom line of the spreadsheet. To maintain that bottom line the CEO's have to get productive by throwing more people on the unemployment line in an effort to maintain or *increase* that 'bottom line'...This is not sustainable today. Robotics and automation is replacing the worker all the time. We now are having automated heavy haulage ore trucks being introduced into the mining sector, hence more people will be in that unemployment lineup. How much can ANY government support?
3. "can we tweak the system"...No, I don't believe we can. Capitalism is self destructive, it's an ever increasing consumption machine that devours everything around it. Capitalism has run its course and will eventually collapse because it will gourge itself to death. Capitalism is not sustainable anymore, we have gone over that peak and are now on the downhill slide.
The Corporation no longer sees a need for more money, they have more than they can handle now, so what is the next challenge for the Corporation? POWER! Power over *people*, the ultimate challenge and achievement, that will be the next control and power agenda, control of people in every facet of their daily life. It's happening as we speak, but most seem oblivious to it because we are working more and more hours in the day supporting our families or whatever which distracts us from the reality of what's going on around us.
Most are so consumed by the distraction of how long they may *still* remain employed, so consumed with earning more money to be able to sustain lifestyles and to send kids to Unis or whatever that most haven't got time to consider what is happening around us.
What better way to keep people oppressed...Keep them preoccupied about where the next meal is coming from, or how they will ever be able to own a home of their own, or a car, or how long they will still have a job?
4. "solutions"...Fresh out of those for the moment, too consumed with the present events.
Just some of my thoughts, for what they are worth.
“Go forth and multiply”, bigger is better, keep up with the Jones’s - many have bought into more of everything. We are all aware (at least subconsciously) that this quest cannot go on forever. At sometime we have to learn to live with less - we might even be there now. India and China are starting to offer real completion for the world’s resources. The cost will go up and fewer will be capable of buying. Here is one link to the projection on our global metal reserves: Global Metal Reserves by Mike Hewitt
So; how do we adapt? Will we be the ones with four bicycles in the garage and others are arguing that we are excessive?
We face freedom and privacy issues that none before us ever worried about. Worse yet is the fact that we look like the deer caught in the headlights - frozen; with no clear path to salvation.
Well, to be honest I think people are always looking for some grand sweeping "Revolution" or "Leader" to take them to some "Promised Land". These concepts need to be swept away before any true change can begin. We as individuals have alot more power than we think to shape our enviorment. It simply means implying critical thinking to our lives. One thing that gets me is so many of the issues we face as a society have pragmatic and realistic solutions, but becuase of our emotional tendances we fail to see the simple and instead embark upon the grand.
One day, there was a town called Litterburg. As the name suggests, this place had a trash flow problem. Everybody, from every walk of life, from every part of the town littered. Kids littered, Adults littered, Women littered, Men littered. Pretty soon everyone was walking in trash.
One day, they had a big town hall to discuss how to stop the littering in litterburg. One woman suggested they hire 100 litter patrol agent to pick up litter. One gentleman said everyone caught littering should go to jail for 100 years! One person said we should pay people not to litter. One kid said we needed to hire litter police to hand out tickets to people who litter.
One woman said litterberg needed a trash can on every light pole. One man said we needed to lower taxes on the companies who create the products which become trash otherwise all of litterburgs jobs will go to China, and thus it's litter. And another said we needed a litter superhero to teach everyone not to litter.
In the end, more jails, more sweepers, more rubbish bins didn't stop the litter and eventually litterburg became too stinky to live in anymore and litterburg was abandoned. The tragedy was instead of all of these ideas or schemes, if everyone just simply did what they should have been doing in the first place and put their stuff in a garbage can this would never have happened.
This story is meant to be an allegory to what holds humanity back. We never stop to admit to ourselves that we personally need to take the bull by the horns and
do as individuals what needs to be done to make our world a better place.
I believe those "industrial leaders" met at Dravos not to discuss capitalism but to figure out new and more efficient ways to destroy it. Capitalism is based on full and open markets without barriers to entry and without any guarantees of profit. Full and open markets are anathema to business of any kind and devastating to the monopoly profits flowing to the world's biggest and most profitable financiers and industrialists. They were not discussing competition but collusion. That is what is worth 45 k per seat.
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