Recently I've been blogging about a framework for transitioning from our current growth-oriented economic system to a steady-state economy in balance with the ecos. The entry point to this transition is to first make money a meaningful measure of economic activity. That involves developing a currency standard based on free energy. Money represents an amount of free energy (available to do useful work) and the amount of money in circulation should represent the total amount of free energy extant at any point in time.

The point of an energy standard is that it pegs the value of a currency directly to what it actually is supposed to represent, the ability to do work in the future. The valuation of wealth can then be done with a measure such as emergy, representing past energy expenditures on useful goods and services.

It is vitally important that we know what things cost in energy terms so that we can budget appropriately. This will become absolutely necessary in an era of shrinking net free energy.

The blogs are available at: http://questioneverything.typepad.com/

You might want to go back to the March 14th entry, "What's wrong with this picture?", for some background and introduction. But the March 25 entry, "What is money - really?", conveys the basic idea. I will be continuing this series (with minor diversions) by looking at other economic phenomena such as financing and profit making, etc. in future blogs. Then I will begin looking at possible implementation scenarios.

The main point is that if we are to achieve a realistic steady-state economy at some nominal population size and per capita consumption rate, then we need to be in a position to measure accurately and concisely the true costs of work and products/services to judge their worth.

George
http://faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/

I am reminded of the Pacific Northwest Indian pot-latch tradition. Status was not what you owned but what you gave away. Very interesting tradition. Leadership was directly connected to generosity.

unless the 'rich' see that:
a)conspicuous consumption doesn't make them happy
b)other things do make them happy

Except that, for the elite, it's not about happiness. It's about power and winning. And power, much more than mere happiness, really matters.

Happiness is nice but it's a side dish, irrelevant to many for whom it actually gets in the way and slows them down.

Very thought provoking post! The idea that comes to mind with a "steady state economy" is not that the current system will evolve into a more humanistic system but that the system will devolve into Mercantilism.

"Mercantilism suggests that the ruling government should advance these goals by playing a protectionist role in the economy, by encouraging exports and discouraging imports, especially through the use of tariffs."

Conspicuous consumption may go out of fashion but old habits die hard. People will hoard wealth and resources and we will be looking at somewhat of a zero sum economy. In such an economic environment there will be winners and losers (just as now) but the difference is the losers will be hurting a lot more and over time will be unable to compete.

In America we have been sold the idea that "low taxes are good", "high taxes are bad". Our current tax structure is rigged for the wealthy and is punitive to those that are less wealthy, but any attempt to dismantle that system will be met with stiff (perhaps violent) resistance.

A lot of people are Utopian in outlook (I certainly fit in that group) but when you try and sell that idea to people who fear that they might be a "loser" in that new system, any further proposals to solve the "general problem" will fall on deaf ears.

I think that over time civilization will establish new systems that will be far more egalitarian and capitilism just as totalitarianism will fail, but these systems will initially take hold in small communal ventures (as they are already) but society at large will not reform.

Our current economic system will have to either collapse or be overthrown (violently).