dagblog - Comments for "Perpetual Insanity - Growth with out limit is abusive at best."

All good comments and

cmaukonen — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:04:59 +0000

In reply to Perpetual Insanity - Growth with out limit is abusive at best.

All good comments and questions. From what I see so far, to keep humanity from this suicidal path we need to get really serious on space exploration - researching and developing new modes of propulsion and energy generation. Neither of these will yield any short term or even near long term financial gains for anyone. Which is why we as a culture and species, need to abandon the idea of personal gain for everything we do. In other words working for the betterment of all rather than the only short term personal benefit.

But personally I do not see humanity ever transcending it's current self centered ways.

I suspect that the former

Donal — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:24:54 +0000

In reply to What is the solution then?

I suspect that the former Soviet Union is an example of a declining economy. As seen in the wiki image below their population is in decline. The same wiki article claims that Russia's economy is growing, but Ignatius at the Post disagrees. Even Pravda disagrees. Russia has a lot of energy resources, but a lot of their men are drinking to death, and few of their women risk having children. It isn't a pretty picture.

What is the solution then?

Ramona — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:34:43 +0000

In reply to Perpetual Insanity - Growth with out limit is abusive at best.

What is the solution then? What is the opposite of a growth economy? Family farms? Bartering? Zero population growth?

The British Empire fell largely because of that sustainability issue--they had created a mighty monster and it was eating them alive. I don't see us in the same category, but we do seem to love our wars.

Killing off the buffalo in order to starve and conquer the natives is much like killing the unions to do the same to the workers. Sending jobs overseas was the coup de gras. But if we had kept up our manufacturing base and remained a huge industrial nation, with fingers spread far and wide, would we then have been a party to that perpetual growth economy?

Looking forward to this discussion. Good meat here.

We covered some of this

SleepinJeezus — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:44:46 +0000

In reply to Perpetual Insanity - Growth with out limit is abusive at best.

We covered some of this territory in Ramona's blog yesterday. It would certainly seem obvious that we cannot sustain growth of a consumer driven economy, especially as we expand it globally.

The dilemma I see is in the attempt to envision what it is that replaces it? How do we build a new economic system that is sustainable and that equitably shares the benefit of our common enterprise? Trying to envision an alternative here is mind-boggling, at least for a non-economist such as myself. Any ideas?

Great blog on an intriguing topic! I look forward to the discussion.