UK's Guardian: Are Capitalism and a Habitable Planet Mutually Exclusive?
Posted by Prof. Goose on February 3, 2006 - 7:05pm
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: capitalism, climate change, peak oil, social change, socialism [list all tags]
(hat tip: Energy Bulletin)
Robert Newman writes in UK's Guardian:
Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change.There's much more of an argument in the article, but this was rather my point a long time ago about the governance of the commons: with scarce resources, a society either needs to find another scarce resource to compensate, a way of creating/enforcing/reinforcing tribal/cultural norms that encourage people do not hoard more than their "share" of resources, or you need a central government/public sector that controls resource allocation.There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.
It is stupid to not build on the orders and organizations that already exist and has been proven to be good at listening to what people want and indeed to use peoples greed to get things done.
Finding a whole new order for our society adds numerous new ways to fail and a lot of them were tried and failed during the 1900:s.
This thread will probably end up being purely political.
it probably will get political Magnus, but what the heck. I'd like to hear intelligent people debate this intelligently, even if they do disagree.
Truthfully, I think there's ways around all of these things, but they demand effort, creativity, and the creation of options through those two concepts I just mentioned...
These only happen when society presses for change...which is the author's main point. But what kind of social change? What do we want it to look like? How do we get there? Is it only through government? Are there other options...?
Larger societies need central control. Perhaps a king whose advisors can keep tabs on the entire kingdom, so he can see the big picture even though his subjects cannot. The king derives his wealth from the entire kingdom, and wants his heirs to do the same, so it's in his interest to protect the whole kingdom.
Neither system works for middle-sized societies (and possibly large societies with weak central control). If the society is not large enough to support a central government, but too large for everyone to have a stake in everything, it collapses in internecine fighting.
It's worrying, because it suggests there might be some issues with democracy as a method of government. An elected leader may not have the same incentive to protect the entire nation that a king has, since his time in office is limited. In theory, that might encourage looting the nation while you can. In practice, we've seen it happen exactly that way, time and again.
And with our level of technology, the "society" must be global if we hope to protect the commons. Limiting our emissions will do little good if China decides to burn all the cheap coal they can get ahold of. A nuclear war that breaks out in the Middle East could rain radiation on the entire world, or worse.
I think Newman is right. Capitalism is a great system for quickly exploiting natural resources, but it won't work in resource-limited world.
Damned if I know what will, though.
In a very large one the king or other ruler can isolate themselves from most of the country. Democratically replaced leaders have to retire somewhere and who would want to do that as a refugee? It would be quite boring for them in a small enclave surrounded by people who hate them. This means that you do not want to have jet set party in any mega city people as your leaders...
The level above this is tricky. EU is one try for a continent wide solution for this problem. A good start is to see to that everything is owned by some country and that countries gang up on those who relese polutant into other countries seas etc.
I think capitalism also can exploit change and leftover resources like assets from bankrupt companies.
WOW!!!!!
Go figure.
This is not a hard thing. The economic system of a country can be separate from the political system.
So quit conflating dictatorship with any other system than capitalism.
I would like to point out that there have been systems of economic organization other than capitalism that worked just fine. The anarchists of Andalusia come to mind. It is unfortunate that the people in this forum are ignorant of history. (Please don't start in with how you know all about the history of communism or some such nonsense.) People educated in the US school system seem to believe that there was no human history before television was invented. So sad.
My point is that we are in a situation no society has been in before, due to the power of our technology. Certainly, people have died due to the ecological mistakes of other societies before (as Diamond points out with regard to Pitcairn and Henderson Islands). But we're at a whole new level now. We cannot just ignore what China or Russia or Israel or Iran decide to do, because what they do could end up exterminating us all.
There was a Harvard test showing that Harvard undergrads on average would prefer to make $75,000 per year when all their peers were making $50,000 than make $100,000/yr when all their peers were making $200,000/yr. Its all a relative game. On a full planet reaching resource constraints, we are all chasing the modern cultures goals and lead runners in the pack - Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson, etc. In my opinion, we need to a) through policy or social change, shrink the tails of the wealth distribution, and b) make things that are sustainable for the planet be the goals that make us 'fitter' than the next guy. If women thought organic farmers living off the grid and growing/canning all their own food were 'hot' and were turned off by profligate spenders who were mortgaging the planets future, then social change would follow
I wont lay the responsibility all on the women of course, but they sure have power....
Calls for central control are really a thinly disguised excuse for dictatorship, usually by those calling for the control.
History shows that once you give up control to a central group, they expand that control and abuse it for their own betterment. Were you asleep during the 20th Century?
Capitalism is really the ecology of economics - a lot of individual experiments and adjustments. Some work and prosper and some fail and die off. Economic biology, if you will.
This is one major problem with both global warming and peak oil - leftists seize on valid topics of concern to push their own authoritarianship. Some of the commenters here are more interested in their ideology than in human welfare. Most of the public is deeply suspicious and is on to the leftists' hidden agenda.
Seeking power through fear is demagoguery.
Which choise makes me a better demagouge?
Which one gives the least risk that some one else with worse implementation ideas takes my ideas and run with them? Ok, scaring people might be a very bad idea.
Corporations would not exist in a true "free market" society.
I'd say that rightists are doing that to a much larger extent these days...
Most of the public is deeply suspicious and is on to the lftists' hidden agenda
I am very disappointed that the public (in the USA) has not become more suspicious as yet of the rightists' not-so-hidden agenda: destroying the middle class and bankrupting the government, leaving only a military police state to protect the privileges of the rich from the poor.
Some of the commenters here are more interested in their ideology than in human welfare.
I think that happens on all sides, and is how "normative" issues enter the debate here. After all we here on TOD are pretty much in agreement on the "empirical" side, that oil will peak, and fairly soon.
I, for one, am hopeful that we will recognize that letting the greedheads who are currently ruining the country and the planet develop our Plan B is precisely the wrong path. We need to recognize the inherently flawed system that infinite growth through free market capitalism represents. It should be obvious to anyone who believes that we live on a sphere that there is a limit to growth -- gee, where have we heard that before?
Club of Rome, maybe?
All of my arguments to this point have been formulated around the simple premise that we live on a planet that has limits. Our economy is based on growth. If we continue to grow, or hell even stay steady, we are dooming the species to a painful crash.
Please look to Cuba for examples of what we can do to survive. Please consider alternative governments based on local production and FULL democracy as advocated on many post carbon sites. Do not let your ideological blinders prevent you from saving the planet.
Continuing the business as usual paradigm that relies on the latest new tech to drive our economy, to fix what tech broke in the first place, and to give false hope that we can somehow keep growing if the tech is cool enough, is the exact wrong path. It is the path to our species' destruction.
Let's pit your "workable economy in a solar driven world" against one based on petroleum, natural gas, coal, or nuclear. Your solar economy, really just substantance agriculture at best, will be overrun by those with more disposable energy. How many people would chose to live in Castro's Cuba?
Cuba will change rapidly with the death of Castro.
I certainly agree with the notion that the planet has limits. People will adjust without your dubious commands.
Do you have any evidence for this statement? Can you point to any poll data on the public's perception of the "leftists" and their "hidden agenda".
Neither agenda is hidden, they both want their peons to be dumb, so they can just worry about "ruling us". And the media plays right along. Keeping people as un-informed as possible. Just think how clueless we would be without the internet?
With the mess the Neo-cons have made of Iraq and the Middle East generally, and with the Enron top dogs on trial, the rightist agenda doesn't look too flash either.
The problem of any control mechanism to preserve the environment, or anything else, in that it leads inevitably to corruption. QUIS CUSTODIET IPSES CUSTODIES?
Maybe we have to acceot it as an inevitable price.
Hey, look over there, a terrorist! Nah, just kidding.
Now give me some more power, or a few more of your rights to I can keep you safe.
Our 'discount rates', or how much we value the present moment over the future, are therefore genetically very steep - long range thinkers were outproduced by those in power who grabbed resources while they were available (like Niall of Nine Hostages. (Animals discount rates are infinitely steep - ALL they care about is the present - ours are slightly less steep perhaps due to the sunk cost of our infrastructure.)
In any case, a world where we 'cognitively' recognize that global warming and peak oil 'might' have a negative impact on our lives, our neocortex thoughts are trumped by the deeper drives in the limbic and reptilian systems of our mind for immediate wants. Furthermore, the zen master of the neurotransmitters which regulates discount rates, serotonin, is massively suppressed in a society where ubiquitous offerings of sugar, alcohol and caffeine create chronic maladaptive 'wants' that can never be satisfied. (I am trying to live without sugar, and while difficult I find I can access my longer term thinking without pressing needs or anxiety better than before - sample size of one but I think Im on to something...)
Bottom line - for us to care about the 'possibility' of societal/individual collapse, we need to either a) reduce our genetically derived steep discount rates or b)increase the perceived 'present-value' impact of potential disastrous events to activate our impulses to fend for the moment. DDT, ozone depletion, leaded gas, all were examples where the public was concerned about immediate negative quality to their lives - global warming and peak oil are presently too far away. 3 degrees Celsius higher by 2050. Pass me another beer - let me show you my new condo...
Alas, a cold winter might have done it.....
I will point out that our esteemed President pre-SOTU press release read: "President to say Americans are addicted to oil..."
As you know, I believe one can approach the Peak Oil problem facing humanity in 4 quadrants:
- Supply problem - Hubberts curve, nat gas infrastructure, dwindling carbon-sink capacity etc
- Demand problem - human relative fitness algorithm, population, third world growth, Malthus, etc
- Supply solution: nuclear, renewable fuels,technology, EOR,etc
- Demand solutions: efficiency, government rationing (IEA rules), community living, new paradigms, well-being with less...
It is the fourth quadrant that I am most interested in (and as it relates to Quad 2). There is plenty of research on discount rates and behavior, but not so much on the origins of steep discount rates or ways to make them less steep. Here are some readings to get you started:Impulsivity and Substance Abuse
Heroin addicts have steeper discount rates
steep discount rates correlate negatively with grades Duh. If one needs to smoke pot, play video games, or eat chocolate, studying might be a bit tough.
mild-opiod deprivation STEEPENS discount rates
At issue here is if we are addicted (through genetic wiring which is maladaptive in an environment of energy-a-plenty) to oil or to the things oil gives us, then simply telling people to conserve wont work too well.
http://dericbownds.net/bom99/Ch07/Ch07.html
Founding member of the "ecologist" magazine, Jean Liedloff wrote a brilliant book in 1975 about her experiences with "yequana" tribe of venezuela, She wandered why they seemed happy most of the time.
After some years living with them she wrote "the continuum concept" which has helped shape modern thought on rearing infants.
As a monkey when we are born we expect to be held and fed nothing else for the first six months, babies scream for this until they give up, infants who do not recieve ANY touch will have serious problems when they grow up.
society has known about this link for a long time, seperate the babies from their mothers (cots/prams/work) and they will grow up to be insecure, always wanting, never knowing for what, many addictions spring from this.
back to the thread
I think Rob Newman is spot on
But nothing fails like success. Techonological advances such as the spear thrower and the bow and arrow allowed more meat to be obtained and population to increase, but over the generations the amount of game that can be captured decreases and people are forced into horticulture because the hunting and gathering existence no longer produces the life of relative ease and prosperity described by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. With horticulture, economic surplus can be accumulated, and that leads to social stratification, cities, slavery, writing, etc. But agriculture (with plow and draft animals) produces a bigger economic surplus than does horticulture, and hence agricultural societies become bigger, become nation states with military forces that can and do and destroy earlier types of societies. With industry and capitalism economic growth takes off bigtime, feeding on fossil fuels, and industrial societies can usually conquer agricultural ones (North Vietnam is an interesting exception for reasons we should study with care.)
In my opinion, John Maynard Keynes said it best in his famous 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." He recognized capitalism and economic growth as TEMPORARY phases that were needed to solve the economic problem of scarcity. Famously, he said that in the absence of war or big increases in population, the economic problem could be solved (or in sight of solution) by the year 2030, with only a real per capita rate of economic growth of 2% per year. (Note that he recognized that this optimistic forecast applied only to what he called "progressive" and are now called "developed" societies.)
Keynes looked forward to a time when economists would be humble people, like dentists, to whom we would go periodically for checkups and minor repairs, but with the economic problem solved, they would have no more importance than dentists and there would be no reason why they should have the huge weight they do now, where every political madman seems to be the disciple of some defunct scribbler. (The last words are a paraphrase of Keynes.)
Last thought on Keynes: He thought, "Most goods should be homespun." Why? Because comparative advantage diminishes in industrial (and even more in post-industrial society). Ricardo's example and thinking were based on facts of agricultural societies, where differences in soil and lattitude and rainfall really do introduce huge comparative advantages. Few economists are even aware that Keynes held this opinion, because (at least in my experience) few economists have done their homework of studying the great economists of the past--men and women who had far more good ideas than are generally recognized. Who reads Joan Robinson anymore? Who is seriously reading Max Weber or Josehph Schumpeter now in economics departments? How many graduate students in economics departments are now required to read and understand the whole "Wealth of Nations"?
Sorry, enough venting for this morning.
The problem with organizing a broad population response in situations like this is that sometimes a minority of "skeptics" can be spoilers on the response. Think of the guys who violate fish and game laws to get their trophies.
"skeptics" being a catch-all prhase of course for what may be an entirely non-cognative decision process.
Try fasting every other day.
Slightly off topic (BUT THEN AGAIN MAYBE NOT!), I have recently been researching Dr Robert Young's (great grandson of Brigham Young) diet and health philosophy of maintaining blood pH levels - His book "The pH Miracle - Balance Your Diet-Reclaim Your Health" along with other research finally allowed me connect the dots.
The dots are:
So what's to replace capitalism? Knee-jerk capitalists like to claim that the only alternative is communism, and that has been tried and failed. But capitalism is failing too, and there are more than those two choices.
What we need is a steady-state economy. Indeed, that is the only economy that can be called "sustainable". Read the books of Herman Daly. There is at least one chapter of one of his books on the web: http://dieoff.org/page88.htm - but that is a debunking of the growth fallacy, not a good explanation of the steady-state one. In the books he explains why it's inevitable, how it can work, how it widely incorporates a market mechanism - but with some restrictions, and how it differs from a failed (non-growing) growth economy. The essential elements of making it work, he says, include stopping population growth, limiting income inequity, and rationing the scarcest essential resources.