13 ms·

Growth is an international arms race. I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-base

by b0rsuk 7y ago

Growth is an international arms race. I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. This is similar to the situation Africans were during Industrial Revolution. Europeans needed a lot of workers for factories and plantations, so they would visit a coastal African country and buy slaves. You could refuse to sell them slaves, but then they would sail to your neighbors and sell them firearms. Then those neighbors would have substantial military advantage and could invade you. There were only two options: be the ones that receive the rifles, or form a large alliance which refuses to sell slaves to Europeans. Forming large alliances is HARD. Africans weren't stupid - they tried to negate the technical advantage, for example the king of Kongo wanted to pay well for ship technology. (source: "Black Mother" by Basil Davidson) Back to prosperity without growth. To resist pressure from neighboring states that practice economic growth, you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. Produce terminator-like killer machines and drones to make up for less numerous army. Have super advanced science, strategy or diplomacy. The only country I know that comes close is Switzerland, and it has the advantage of mountainous terrain away from major transport routes. Ideally the advantages you have should be ones that can't be taken away from you or "stolen" via espionage.

nickik 7y ago
> I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. Or the population including the elites get sick of living poor country and the wont defend the government letting it be overthrown. > Back to prosperity without growth. To resist pressure from neighboring states that practice economic growth, you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. If you are improving efficiency your economy is growing. Unless you assume people will deliberately use less resources once efficiency grows and I don't think that has ever happened.
merpnderp 7y ago
1% growth difference over 100 years is the difference between the per capita income of the US vs Mexico. So yes, unless you arbitrarily limit the entire globe to some level of prosperity like a novel about a disutopian world ruled by an evil anti-science theocracy, people are going to look at countries growing faster than them and wonder why they have to slum it like peasants without their flying cars and vacations on the moon.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >So yes, unless you arbitrarily limit the entire globe to some level of prosperity like a novel about a disutopian world ruled by an evil anti-science theocracy, I don't see much evil to that (limiting the "the entire globe to some level of prosperity"). Nor it has anything to do with being anti-science. You could be pro-science (pro understanding the world, physics, math, etc), and against continuous growth. Better that models that treat the environment as externalities, or which convolute and stress the daily life for ever more trinkets to fuel the growth machine...
  - shaftoe 7y ago
    You don't see much evil to handicapping the entire human race?
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      You don't see much evil in the absence of strategic intelligence required to avoid terraforming your own planet to make it less habitable?
      - Kaiyou 7y ago
        Evil needs agency, so no, I don't see evil in the absence of something.
        rbrtl 7y ago
        "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
adolph 7y ago
Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. In a fixed sized pie any increase for one slice is a decrease for another. This begins a downward spiral since defection rather than cooperation is rewarded.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. That's not a problem when there are plentiful resources. It's also the only option when many resources are not renewable, and this zero-sum themselves.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I think that the problem is that many resources that people care about are limited: - desirable land - desirable mates - equipment for certain hobbies (e.g. sailboats, machine shops, etc.)
    - adambyrtek 7y ago
      I understand the first two points, but I don't really get what this has to do with hobbies and sailboats in particular? As a sailor myself I guarantee that you could easily deliver many more boats if only there was demand for them. Sailing is considered by many as an elite hobby, but in reality you can buy a second-hand yacht cheaper than a decent car.
      - harimau777 7y ago
        Ya, I should have explained that more clearly. Basically my thinking is: - There are going to be certain luxury goods whose supply is limited. - I framed it in terms of hobbies in order to point out that in many cases "luxury goods" aren't just frivolous comforts but are instead things that people need to achieve meaningful personal goals. (Also, on a completely off topic note: that's really interesting to hear about sailboats. I'm going to have look into how much they would cost to own and maintain in my area!)
paulintrognon 7y ago
> The only country I know that comes close is Switzerland Another example is Bhutan, which implemeneted Gross National Happiness [1] as their primary goal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness
- b0rsuk 7y ago
  Thank you for reminding me, I've seen a documentary including that country.
zeveb 7y ago
I don't think that your African simile holds historically, as the slave traders were IIRC typically Arabs, not Africans, who just went on slaving expeditions into the interior, and had no scruples doing so.
logicchains 7y ago
>you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. You can't improve efficiency without creating growth. If you find a way to create widget X twice as efficiently using less resources, that will show up in GDP growth (or at least idealised GDP; obviously the actual number is subject to approximation error).
- dwiel 7y ago
  You mean because with cheaper widgets, demand would increase and so monetary value of finished goods and would rise and so GDP as well? Wouldn't GDP actually decrease if the same number of widgets are made, but now for cheaper and so through competition have less "value"?
  - vlovich123 7y ago
    What if halving the price now makes it possible to start producing a new product not economically feasible before? Hell the phone you use is only possible because of continued minituarization and cost cutting of previous generations’ computers.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    >Wouldn't GDP actually decrease if the same number of widgets are made, but now for cheaper and so through competition have less "value"? Cheaper doesn't mean less "value". If we have inflation, prices go up but value doesn't increase, and if deflation decreases prices, that doesn't mean a decrease in value. GDP calculations try to account for this, to capture the fact that e.g. a $500 phone today contains a lot more "value" than a $500 phone from 1995. GDP would hence (ideally) account for the change in value-per-dollar. It would also include whatever new output was made possible by there being more resources left over now due to less being spent to fulfill people's widget needs (i.e. the money now not being spent on widgets will instead be invested or spent on something else).
    - dwiel 7y ago
      Thanks for answering my honest questions. I didn't realize GDP accounts for perceived value. I had assumed it was restricted to the economic value strictly defined by the dollar. Thanks.
gumby 7y ago
That seems cynical and zero sum to me. By and large the wealthier countries aren’t fighting wars (especially among themselves); in any case they have too much to lose by doing so. The larger economics are reversing to the mean, and smaller economies are patchily catching up. Just as wealthier people (in aggregate) have fewer kids, wealthier countries these days have less reason to right wars. Costa Rica abolished its milirptary years ago and is more prosperous than its neighbors. The US is an outlier but like China its military serves several purposes like a jobs program, not just defense. And its economy many not have really grown in any but a statistical sense over he past 40 years. Instead it’s just become more “lumpy” in response to optimization for imperfect measures.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Mutually Assured Destruction certainly changed things... at least for the countries that managed to get in the club !
  - gumby 7y ago
    I'm not sure it did for them, though it certainly did for the non-nuclear countries that ended up being the sites of proxy wars. Small by the reckoning of the big powers but large of course for the victims.
agumonkey 7y ago
It's worth investigating how much the economic growth was a military proxy (and a human trait emerging upward).
mathattack 7y ago
It’s not just an arms race. Growth funds everything, including social programs and saving the environment. Granted some growth (productivity driven) is better than others (resource driven.) For better or worse we can’t fund solutions to the world’s problems with austerity.
- fhood 7y ago
  Also isn't growth a natural result of human progress? As science and technology move forwards they allow for more productivity per person and thus drive growth right? Or is that an overly simplistic notion?
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Yes, but the whole issue is how we are running out of mineral/natural/ecological resources. And at an exponential speed.
    - mamon 7y ago
      Progress also means that we can use resources more efficiently, e.g. by recycling them. By limiting progress (and growth) you're also making resource use less eficient, so that we'll run out of them faster.
      - BlueTemplar 7y ago
        Jevon's Paradox means that increasing efficiency also increases resource use, and us running out of them faster !
    - nradov 7y ago
      Environmental damage is a problem but we certainly aren't running out of most minerals. Mineral extraction volume worldwide is steady or increasing for most types.
      - BlueTemplar 7y ago
adamsea 7y ago
In an ideal world, growth which took true account of things we currently consider externalities (i.e. pollution), would be ecologically sustainable, and, drastically reduce the human suffering and loss of life of countries which practiced it. In my fantasy world, out of all the people who didn't die of cancer from air pollution, that lost human potential, translates into scientific, cultural, and technological advancements which balance out whatever military disadvantage may or may not exist : ).
- b0rsuk 7y ago
  Pollution is something so abstract, hard to measure and put a finger on that a lot of people get away with it. When you punch a person in the face or rob someone, soon there's one very angry person wanting to get even with you. Because of its nature, pollution diffuses in air or water. It's hard to see, put a finger on, point to the wrongdoer. There's a little bit of it everywhere, everyone is a bit harmed by it, but it's hard to reason about and notice until it's really bad. And by that time the guilty is either dead or far away. Or everyone is a little bit responsible. Which reminds me of... democracy. The easiest way to make people not care about something wrong happening is to diffuse it. Like, diffuse responsibility.
vkou 7y ago
> Growth is an international arms race. How do you reconcile the existence of MAD with this? Proponents of MAD insist that once attained, it makes military conflicts unnecessary - and this justifies the expense and the risk of the world walking a tightrope above nuclear Armageddon. If I'm not mistaken, either they, or you are wrong about this point.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Permanently achieved MAD is a myth. The US has been developing its defenses, becoming increasingly capable of intercepting the delivery systems responsible for MAD. Its enemies are responding by developing more nuclear warheads delivered by more and faster missiles. This will keep going back and forth, it must if the balance is to be preserved. The moment one side gets a substantial advantage over everyone else, MAD is no longer assured. If you just build some nuclear weapons and consider yourself in the MAD club because you've checked the "nuclear" box, then cease all relevant R&D and your nation goes permanently out to lunch afterwards, it's not going to go well in the long run unless every other nation does the same (they won't).
hliyan 7y ago
A few months ago, I argued that the most realistic way to curb unsustainable growth is to curb inflation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663922
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
As I see it, there are a few ways for a nongrowing country to 'win' against a growing one. One is simply a decisive first strike, before growth is able to widen the gap too much. Probably effective, but morally questionable. Another would be to keep growth 'coiled' and let it ramp up quickly if a rival started growing. Morally less troubling, but exactly how one would keep growth in 'reserve' has not been worked out, as everyone wants it to happen sooner than later. Finally, it might also be possible to stick to one's nongrowing principles and accept a subservient role, while 'locking up' sections of the dominant country's economy and waiting for a mistake - perhaps by monopolising a good or service that the growing economy values beyond reason. Highly moral, but the effectiveness would be the most dependent on outside factors.
dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
This is a idea that needs to be flipped on its head. Nobody is an American, or a Canadian, or an Australian to a greater extent than they are a human. Also, individuals represent things that their respective countries never will.

by b0rsuk 7y ago

nickik 7y ago

> I think the biggest problem is that economic growth gives countries a (military) advantage. If you opt out of growth-based economic system, your neighbors will have more army or resources or manpower. They will eventually invade you or dominate you economically. Or the population including the elites get sick of living poor country and the wont defend the government letting it be overthrown. > Back to prosperity without growth. To resist pressure from neighboring states that practice economic growth, you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. If you are improving efficiency your economy is growing. Unless you assume people will deliberately use less resources once efficiency grows and I don't think that has ever happened.

merpnderp 7y ago

1% growth difference over 100 years is the difference between the per capita income of the US vs Mexico. So yes, unless you arbitrarily limit the entire globe to some level of prosperity like a novel about a disutopian world ruled by an evil anti-science theocracy, people are going to look at countries growing faster than them and wonder why they have to slum it like peasants without their flying cars and vacations on the moon.

coldtea 7y ago
>So yes, unless you arbitrarily limit the entire globe to some level of prosperity like a novel about a disutopian world ruled by an evil anti-science theocracy, I don't see much evil to that (limiting the "the entire globe to some level of prosperity"). Nor it has anything to do with being anti-science. You could be pro-science (pro understanding the world, physics, math, etc), and against continuous growth. Better that models that treat the environment as externalities, or which convolute and stress the daily life for ever more trinkets to fuel the growth machine...
- shaftoe 7y ago
  You don't see much evil to handicapping the entire human race?
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    You don't see much evil in the absence of strategic intelligence required to avoid terraforming your own planet to make it less habitable?
    - Kaiyou 7y ago
      Evil needs agency, so no, I don't see evil in the absence of something.
      - rbrtl 7y ago
        "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

adolph 7y ago

Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. In a fixed sized pie any increase for one slice is a decrease for another. This begins a downward spiral since defection rather than cooperation is rewarded.

coldtea 7y ago
>Perhaps a shorter way to put it is that without growth the allocation of resources is zero sum. That's not a problem when there are plentiful resources. It's also the only option when many resources are not renewable, and this zero-sum themselves.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I think that the problem is that many resources that people care about are limited: - desirable land - desirable mates - equipment for certain hobbies (e.g. sailboats, machine shops, etc.)
  - adambyrtek 7y ago
    I understand the first two points, but I don't really get what this has to do with hobbies and sailboats in particular? As a sailor myself I guarantee that you could easily deliver many more boats if only there was demand for them. Sailing is considered by many as an elite hobby, but in reality you can buy a second-hand yacht cheaper than a decent car.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      Ya, I should have explained that more clearly. Basically my thinking is: - There are going to be certain luxury goods whose supply is limited. - I framed it in terms of hobbies in order to point out that in many cases "luxury goods" aren't just frivolous comforts but are instead things that people need to achieve meaningful personal goals. (Also, on a completely off topic note: that's really interesting to hear about sailboats. I'm going to have look into how much they would cost to own and maintain in my area!)

paulintrognon 7y ago

> The only country I know that comes close is Switzerland Another example is Bhutan, which implemeneted Gross National Happiness [1] as their primary goal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness

b0rsuk 7y ago
Thank you for reminding me, I've seen a documentary including that country.

zeveb 7y ago

I don't think that your African simile holds historically, as the slave traders were IIRC typically Arabs, not Africans, who just went on slaving expeditions into the interior, and had no scruples doing so.

logicchains 7y ago

>you would need to continuously improve efficiency and that's hard. You can't improve efficiency without creating growth. If you find a way to create widget X twice as efficiently using less resources, that will show up in GDP growth (or at least idealised GDP; obviously the actual number is subject to approximation error).

dwiel 7y ago
You mean because with cheaper widgets, demand would increase and so monetary value of finished goods and would rise and so GDP as well? Wouldn't GDP actually decrease if the same number of widgets are made, but now for cheaper and so through competition have less "value"?
- vlovich123 7y ago
  What if halving the price now makes it possible to start producing a new product not economically feasible before? Hell the phone you use is only possible because of continued minituarization and cost cutting of previous generations’ computers.
- logicchains 7y ago
  >Wouldn't GDP actually decrease if the same number of widgets are made, but now for cheaper and so through competition have less "value"? Cheaper doesn't mean less "value". If we have inflation, prices go up but value doesn't increase, and if deflation decreases prices, that doesn't mean a decrease in value. GDP calculations try to account for this, to capture the fact that e.g. a $500 phone today contains a lot more "value" than a $500 phone from 1995. GDP would hence (ideally) account for the change in value-per-dollar. It would also include whatever new output was made possible by there being more resources left over now due to less being spent to fulfill people's widget needs (i.e. the money now not being spent on widgets will instead be invested or spent on something else).
  - dwiel 7y ago
    Thanks for answering my honest questions. I didn't realize GDP accounts for perceived value. I had assumed it was restricted to the economic value strictly defined by the dollar. Thanks.

gumby 7y ago

That seems cynical and zero sum to me. By and large the wealthier countries aren’t fighting wars (especially among themselves); in any case they have too much to lose by doing so. The larger economics are reversing to the mean, and smaller economies are patchily catching up. Just as wealthier people (in aggregate) have fewer kids, wealthier countries these days have less reason to right wars. Costa Rica abolished its milirptary years ago and is more prosperous than its neighbors. The US is an outlier but like China its military serves several purposes like a jobs program, not just defense. And its economy many not have really grown in any but a statistical sense over he past 40 years. Instead it’s just become more “lumpy” in response to optimization for imperfect measures.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Mutually Assured Destruction certainly changed things... at least for the countries that managed to get in the club !
- gumby 7y ago
  I'm not sure it did for them, though it certainly did for the non-nuclear countries that ended up being the sites of proxy wars. Small by the reckoning of the big powers but large of course for the victims.

agumonkey 7y ago

It's worth investigating how much the economic growth was a military proxy (and a human trait emerging upward).

mathattack 7y ago

It’s not just an arms race. Growth funds everything, including social programs and saving the environment. Granted some growth (productivity driven) is better than others (resource driven.) For better or worse we can’t fund solutions to the world’s problems with austerity.

fhood 7y ago
Also isn't growth a natural result of human progress? As science and technology move forwards they allow for more productivity per person and thus drive growth right? Or is that an overly simplistic notion?
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Yes, but the whole issue is how we are running out of mineral/natural/ecological resources. And at an exponential speed.
  - mamon 7y ago
    Progress also means that we can use resources more efficiently, e.g. by recycling them. By limiting progress (and growth) you're also making resource use less eficient, so that we'll run out of them faster.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Jevon's Paradox means that increasing efficiency also increases resource use, and us running out of them faster !
  - nradov 7y ago
    Environmental damage is a problem but we certainly aren't running out of most minerals. Mineral extraction volume worldwide is steady or increasing for most types.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago

adamsea 7y ago

In an ideal world, growth which took true account of things we currently consider externalities (i.e. pollution), would be ecologically sustainable, and, drastically reduce the human suffering and loss of life of countries which practiced it. In my fantasy world, out of all the people who didn't die of cancer from air pollution, that lost human potential, translates into scientific, cultural, and technological advancements which balance out whatever military disadvantage may or may not exist : ).

b0rsuk 7y ago
Pollution is something so abstract, hard to measure and put a finger on that a lot of people get away with it. When you punch a person in the face or rob someone, soon there's one very angry person wanting to get even with you. Because of its nature, pollution diffuses in air or water. It's hard to see, put a finger on, point to the wrongdoer. There's a little bit of it everywhere, everyone is a bit harmed by it, but it's hard to reason about and notice until it's really bad. And by that time the guilty is either dead or far away. Or everyone is a little bit responsible. Which reminds me of... democracy. The easiest way to make people not care about something wrong happening is to diffuse it. Like, diffuse responsibility.

vkou 7y ago

> Growth is an international arms race. How do you reconcile the existence of MAD with this? Proponents of MAD insist that once attained, it makes military conflicts unnecessary - and this justifies the expense and the risk of the world walking a tightrope above nuclear Armageddon. If I'm not mistaken, either they, or you are wrong about this point.

newnewpdro 7y ago
Permanently achieved MAD is a myth. The US has been developing its defenses, becoming increasingly capable of intercepting the delivery systems responsible for MAD. Its enemies are responding by developing more nuclear warheads delivered by more and faster missiles. This will keep going back and forth, it must if the balance is to be preserved. The moment one side gets a substantial advantage over everyone else, MAD is no longer assured. If you just build some nuclear weapons and consider yourself in the MAD club because you've checked the "nuclear" box, then cease all relevant R&D and your nation goes permanently out to lunch afterwards, it's not going to go well in the long run unless every other nation does the same (they won't).

hliyan 7y ago

A few months ago, I argued that the most realistic way to curb unsustainable growth is to curb inflation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663922

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

As I see it, there are a few ways for a nongrowing country to 'win' against a growing one. One is simply a decisive first strike, before growth is able to widen the gap too much. Probably effective, but morally questionable. Another would be to keep growth 'coiled' and let it ramp up quickly if a rival started growing. Morally less troubling, but exactly how one would keep growth in 'reserve' has not been worked out, as everyone wants it to happen sooner than later. Finally, it might also be possible to stick to one's nongrowing principles and accept a subservient role, while 'locking up' sections of the dominant country's economy and waiting for a mistake - perhaps by monopolising a good or service that the growing economy values beyond reason. Highly moral, but the effectiveness would be the most dependent on outside factors.

dwnvoted2hell 7y ago

This is a idea that needs to be flipped on its head. Nobody is an American, or a Canadian, or an Australian to a greater extent than they are a human. Also, individuals represent things that their respective countries never will.