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70 comments on Right Sizing the Economy: Can Herman Daly's Prescription for a Steady State Economy Accomplish this Task?
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70 comments on Right Sizing the Economy: Can Herman Daly's Prescription for a Steady State Economy Accomplish this Task?
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Do we have to run seminars in politics, philosophy and economics in order to have a non-muddled discussion? Can we do it quickly in time for collapse? Here goes my (brief) attempt.
Socialism and capitalism are ECONOMIC systems. Democracies, oligarchies, monarchies, totalitarian societies, republics etc. etc. are POLITICAL systems. Capitalism can exist in a democratic society or in an oligarchy. Socialism can exist in a democratic society or a totalitarian one.
Most of the readers of this blog would prefer to live in a democracy. Most of the readers of this blog are fed up with the current economic system and believe that it is being propped up by an oligarchic political system. Others are worried about socialism because they believe it is always associated with a totalitarian political structure.
The readers and writers of this blog are also convinced that changes will have to come to the economic system because what cannot continue (exponential growth) will not continue. Given that collapse will come sooner or later, what sort of economic system would we prefer and is there a way to achieve it within a democracy?
I very much liked Roger K's response to Daly's post. I found Daly's prescriptions chilling because they sounded as though they would be imposed from a centralized regulatory authority that would slow exponential growth but not abolish it. It sounded like a plan that would fit nicely into a totalitarian political system. It is my opinion, based upon the history lessons that I was taught, that it will be very hard to maintain a democracy when economic decisions are taken far away from local authorities. That seems to be what RogerK is trying to say.
My thesis is that a democratic system of government must allow for most decisions about production and the use of surpluses to be made at a local level. On the other hand, I also think that restraints upon overuse of resources and pollution must be made at a regional level. And it may well be that a consensus about some matters, such as human rights and carbon use must be made and enforced at a national or even international level. The question is what should be decentralized and what should be centralized? I wish that someone would start to discuss that.
What RogerK is talking about, I believe, is an economic system where not all social benefits are measured in currency. The political structure would be democratic rather than totalitarian/oligarchic. Since we are far from that kind of a system it would require a real paradigm shift in political thinking. Is it utopian? Probably not. It appears that such societies have existed in the past. Will the western world make such a paradigm shift? Who knows but it is interesting to think about it and to see whether there is a way to help things to go that way.
The other question is how do you even begin to get from here to there? Again, my thesis is that economic collapse is going to take care of at least some of the oligarchy. If not, then they will perpetuate themselves as they now are. While that is happening, there may be a chance for local communities to establish their own currencies and local economies. That is what the Transition Town movement is trying to do. From what I have read they don't spend much time thinking about their economic underpinnings. I would like to see more discussion of local currencies, where and when they have been employed and how things worked out for them.
Forgive me for stooping into semantics but you started it. ;-)
Localism is more of a feature of libertarian rather than democratic institutions, isn't it?
The way I see it, whether decisions are made at the local level or not should be subject to a democratic decision in a society where democracy is the guiding principle whereas a liberal society would have principles guaranteeing local autonomy.
Semantics aside, you raise an important point about issues that are best dealt with in an international setting. The importance of issue such as climate change is a political game-changer in my view because I don't think they can really be dealt with liberal institutions such as federalism.
It seems to me the times do call for some kind of totalitarian world government. Not that I expect such an outcome, for lack of a way from here to there.
I think collapse would open many opportunities that are more politically palatable for many around here. Don't pin your hopes on wonky monetary or financial schemes though.
Short of a total collapse, local institutions will have to concern themselves with what happens at a larger scale one way or another. Even with liberal institutions in place internationally, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance as they say. So some kind of non-local democracy is unavoidable if totalitarianism is to be avoided, if only to establish a libertarian consensus and defend it against power-mongers.
Let me engage in some semantics: a "blah-blah" society is but a poor description of what people do. The labels are beyond pointless in my opinion, in part because the labels we use to attempt to explain to ourselves what we are doing become the thing they are trying to describe rather than remaining just a description of human interaction. This is the great failing of philosophy and politics.
fannybuckingham
I disagree. Splitting levels is part of the problem. Besides, things are far too integrated.
I was just thinking of a more integrated approach for important national decisions. 1. Local discussion and nomination of ideas. 2. Reps at regional level synthesize and present to constituents. 3. Revision. 4. The same Reps meet at state level. 5. Synthesis and present to constituents. 6. Revision. 7. Final state draft. 8. Some fraction of National Legislature reps meet at national level. 9. Final bill hammered out. 10. National vote.
Maybe 6 mo. in state legislature and 6 months in national legislature. Those reps back home just keep hammering away on stuff back home.
Power back to the people. This would really slow things down. **Good.** (One can always make provision for emergencies.) And, really, it decreases the size of gov't by eliminating a lot of people from it.
If this sounds strange it's because I literally just thought of it. However, we have to remake the system, not just tweak it, and power - and responsibility - in the hands of the people is vital.
Cheers
"The other question is how do you even begin to get from here to there?.. I would like to see more discussion of local currencies, where and when they have been employed and how things worked out for them."
Jct: That's how to get from here to there. Best of all, when the local currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars/hour child labor) Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture.
See my banking systems engineering analysis at http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers
I'd think that local currencies are just a childish make-believe until such time as you can use them to pay your rent, utilities, and travel fares with them, along with buying a house and a new computer. And that is not going to happen so long as there are meaningful governments etc. around requiring their own currencies be used (or even cards instead).
I see this as just one more example of the catastrophic unrealisticness of the Transition Towners. Consider Rob Hopkins' flagship Transition Totnes. Totnes should have very major things in its favour compared to other TT prospects.
-Rob lives there.
-He didn't just start the TT where he just happened to be living anyway; rather he moved to Totnes as his place to launch this project.
-It is a lot smaller than most uk towns or cities, indeed at 8000 population barely qualifies for description as a "town" nowadays.
-It is in the most favourable growing climate area of the uk, the south-west.
-Its residents are unusually well-endowed with spare cash, spare time, and higher-class skills.
-It's got lots of good agri land around it.
So Totnes should be a walkover compared to just about anywhere else.
Now, research by googling has a lot to disrecommend it as a general rule. But in this case it will do fine.
So let's Google "totnes":
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=totnes&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&a...
..... and ignore the link to the transition site itself for now (it came third in mine).
Note how the other top nine sites present Totnes.
Note that these sites say absolutely jack-all about transition but plenty about other (untransitionish) economic activities.
And that's what the TTers constantly call a successful movement.
You say some truly abhorrent things, such as your bigoted rant further down on Islam, but then you just say some things that make it seem you decided what the world was back in third grade and just stopped paying attention then.
That is, your slanted screed on Transition Totnes is utterly lacking in logic. The implications of your little rant are that 1. you don't understand process as opposed to completion, 2. you don't understand transition as opposed to stasis, 3. you don't understand movement as opposed being immobile, 4. you don't understand jack-all, so far as I can see.
What is the point of your little rant, after all? To tear down people doing something, as opposed to your nothing? I am not sure Transition is THE paradigm, but it beats the hell out of ranting at everything and doing nothing, which is about all I can see from you thus far.
Your arrogance, as devined from your posting, is astounding.
ccpo--Thanks for saying what you think of these things. But you are utterly wrong.
"Bigoted rant" is a rather accurate description of the Qur'an rather than of my accurate description of it. What part of (for just one example of many) 59:2-7 do you see as acceptably considered the authentic flawless words of God? Just to remind you, 59:2-7 shows "Allah's" endorsement of the start of the ethnic cleansing of peaceful [59:2] Jewish communities from Arabia. "Allah" tells us that it is good to chop down peoples' food trees in the desert in order to advance this Jihad [59:5]. And "Allah" tells us that the "spoils of war" property of the innocent refugees is now the rightful property of the Muslims even though they had done no work for them ["ye urged not any horse or riding camel for the sake thereof"; "Allah is able to do all things"][59:6-7].
I have to conclude that you endorse that unequalledly terrorism-inciting book and the many millions of terrorist murders which it has inspired over the centuries. So you're a fine one to be calling anyone a bigot or astoundingly arrogant. Show me any other, correction, any religion which was founded by an amply-documented warmonger liar murderer thief rapist.
As for the TT movement, again I made a coherent critique, or rather the facts I presented make a coherent and damning critique of the regular assertions that TT has been achieving real successes.
"What is the point of your little rant, after all?"
The point of my "little rant" is that just "doing something" can be a very bad idea if it is doing the wrong thing and distracting people from more realistic options. TTers spread a false message of hope which is severely flawed for various reasons which I was not proposing to get into here (being off topic). A bit is explained at www.energyark.net but from ccpo's language and attitude I don't expect it to bring much enlightenment thereto.
Christianity fits the bill to a tee!
Read the F'n Bible! Then take a look at history.
This of course predates Christianity but it is the kind of peace loving message the exemplifies what I'm talking about.
FMagyar--Excuse me but what the h has any of that got to do with the fact that Islam is a vicous personality cult founded by a terrorist warmonger etc ad nauseam (see above)?
You don't even know your facts about Christianity, the whole point of which is (as it sees itself) to advance humanity from the primitive barbaric world of the Old Testament (the Jews' ancient history book).
If before making an exhibition of your ignorance you first read the key texts the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles you would see that the very essence of Christianity is "love your enemies", "love your neighbour as yourself", and that the founder was a pacifist who died to save others. In sharp contrast to the cult of M who killed and enslaved to oppress others; conducted numerous terrorist ops in order to enforce by fear what he could not persuade others of by mere words. The book supposedly written by Allah documents quite a lot about the terrorism of M. A lot about what to do with "orphans", captured women and spoils of war, and those who are reluctant to fight in the Jihad. Go figure.
Of course, many warmongerers misrepresent Christianity as supporting their warfare, just as many well-meaning people delude themselves and others that the cult of the terrorist M is somehow the "religion of peace". As others have rightly said, to be a 'good' Muslim requires you to be a bad person, whereas there is nothing reprehensible about the message of Christ, which is the very foundation of modern human rights and respect for others and especially for the oppressed.
Robin,
What you say is neither rational nor based on any historical facts.
Disclaimer: I'm an atheist, a rationalist and a secular humanist and have equal disdain for the superstitious beliefs of both Islam and Christianity and the atrocities created by ordinary men in the names of their fictitious gods, or those of any other religion for that matter.
You're kidding right? If you are referring to JC as the founder of Christianity let's just say Christians in general did an awful lot of borrowing from Mediterranean pagan culture and certainly did a great job of creating their own cult. Which they then pushed on other people, often in the most barbaric of ways.
You could check out this site and learn some history, maybe open your eyes a bit and gain some perspective.
http://www.pocm.info/
Though my guess is that you are too far gone to even try.
Your "reply" in no way undermines the points of my reply, and in no way defends the ridiculous falsehoods presented in your previous reply, especially that "Christianity fits the bill to a tee!".
The bottom line is that the criterion of what is genuine Christianity is the content of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, whereas the criterion of what is genuine Islam is the Qur'an and the well-documented by the Muslims themselves (and by the book itself) facts about its terrorist author.
I'm going to say this at risk of being scolded:
I find your logic worm-holed, your biases disgusting, your hypocrisy monumental. Your energy ark crap was no less distasteful.
And that is all the ink your rants deserve this day.