6 ms·

The important idea here IMO is that "free markets" don't exist and don't drive anything. States create policies (Ideally, these policies would be entirely democ

by wazoox 6y ago

The important idea here IMO is that "free markets" don't exist and don't drive anything. States create policies (Ideally, these policies would be entirely democratically chosen, alas that's rarely how it works). Markets appear. No market can make any meaningful decision on what to do and where to go at any time out of day to day operation. Unfortunately the EU commission (and most of our governments) seem to believe that "let the magic invisible hand of the market work, and all will be great". Not. On another note, it's fascinating to see that about 80-85% of our energy in Europe is from fossil fuels. A very large (and rapidly increasing) part of these fossil fuels are imported (because North sea is in rapid decline), often from quite unpleasant countries (Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc). But apparently noone in power seem genuinely interested in sorting out this big problem in a way that would be advantageous to the European public (not even mentioning the climate). Some actively behave like foreign agents, in fact. Go figure.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago
They do, actually. Consumers make choices, you know. They want things. Them not caring about the environment is a very realistic and actual theme, because that is exactly what is going on. No one giving a substantial shit, only talk, no walk.
raverbashing 6y ago
> to see that about 80-85% of our energy in Europe is from fossil fuels Only if you mean total energy and not only electricity > In the EU in 2018, 40 % of the electricity consumed came from power stations burning fossil fuels and 33 % from renewable energy sources, while 26 % came from nuclear power plants. Among the renewable energy sources, the highest share of electricity consumed came from wind turbines (11 %), hydropower plants (13 %), biofuels (5 %) and solar power (4 %). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-3b.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-3...
- wazoox 6y ago
  Of course I mean all energy. I don't understand why everyone think only of electricity. Globalisation relies on transports, and transports rely at more than 90% on oil. Oil is the blood of our global world, and there's no credible alternative in sight (the peak, OTOH, is well in sight and could even be behind us already).
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Alternatives were around for at least 40 years - all large ships could be nuclear powered, and everything that can't run on batteries could run on synthetic methane, biofuel or hydrogen. And perhaps transport is too cheap, how does it make sence that a pair of jeans travels the world 3 times before it lands on the shelf, or that fish is caught in scotland, de-boned in malasia and sold in US. Perhaps what we call globalisation is a poorly designed, tax-evading, fragile, energy-wasting system.
    - wazoox 6y ago
      > Perhaps what we call globalisation is a poorly designed, tax-evading, fragile, energy-wasting system. Oh boy yes indeed.
    - deepnotderp 6y ago
      It takes almost as much energy to transport your food by car from the supermarket as it takes to ship it by cargo ship. Also: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        This is great, very informative. I was grinding my axe against the transport that exploits cheaper workforce elaewhere, rather than georgraphy/resources that might actually reduce emissions.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> apparently noone in power seem genuinely interested in sorting out this big problem in a way that would be advantageous to the European public I disagree. Europeans have effortfully elected for policy that moves the problem. Merkel shutting down Germany’s nuclear fleet, for example, remains popular [1]. Switching energy sources is costly. I have seen zero evidence of Europe being unusually willing to bear that cost. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/polls-reveal-citizens-support-energiewende https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/polls-reveal-citi... See “Survey by the Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster”
- wazoox 6y ago
  > Merkel shutting down Germany’s nuclear fleet, for example, remains popular [1]. Alas, I know. But in that case that really was a terrible decision because the public has been thoroughly misinformed for 40 years (I'm a staunch nuclear advocate).
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > the public has been thoroughly misinformed for 40 years I agree. Voters in Germany and West Virginia aren’t evil. They are responding to near-term incentives with the information they have. But the effect is clear. They vote for policies that appear virtuous but minimise impacts to their way of life.
    - wazoox 6y ago
      It doesn't minimise the impact: coal mining and burning kills several thousand Germans every year, alas. It's the usual safety bias, like being afraid of flying but driving fast on the motorway.
dantheman 6y ago
Free markets are people voluntarily interacting and have driven almost all technological development throughout history. At the frontier, sometimes the government spends money on things where the risk is too high or the payoff too small in short term. But look at all the innovation around you - how much of that is directly government funded/directed?
- wazoox 6y ago
  Almost all of it. Rockets, computers, internet, almost everything of any significance has been bootstrapped by governments. Particularly in the US, government spending has been the root of all innovation since forever. The legend of SV garages startup is just that, a legend. The Valley started up thanks to a huge influx of government (mostly military) money around WWII. See the very interesting "secret history of Silicon Valley", digest here: https://unherd.com/2019/04/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/ https://unherd.com/2019/04/the-secret-history-of-silicon-val...
  - dantheman 6y ago
    I completely agree - many early technologies are bootstrapped / funded by the government. There is no argument there, but once the initial prototype is complete - it is almost always better for progress for it to move toward commercialization and that is where rapid innovation takes place.
    - alexashka 6y ago
      > it is almost always better for progress for it to move toward commercialization and that is where rapid innovation takes place. In what context? A capitalist society that's not at war, with limited crime/corruption, with established trade routes where most people are literate and a banking system that's willing to give out loans? If in that specific context, then probably yes. Do you see how that is an extremely narrow set of circumstances that's subject to change? This idea of government = less efficient, markets = efficient, is paid for propaganda by American billionaires that's been well documented. I forget the name of the book that goes through this in detail. It is not to say government = more efficient, markets = less efficient. The world is not that simple and anyone trying to make it out to be, is selling you an ideology that benefits them - check to see if it benefits you to believe in ideas that have insufficient empirical evidence to justify them.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Also, an often-forgotten historical fact is that the Dutch Golden Age – (circa 1600-1700, highest per capita income of the world, 60% urbanization) – was also (mostly?) powered by a fossil fuel : peat. (Which drowned their country in the process of digging it.) https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil...
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  That's a great article, thanks for linking to it. Energy can explain so much about human endeavours in so few words. I've read quite a lot of history, but Richard Rhodes' book Energy, A Human History, gave me a perspective unlike any other. Who would have thought that the laws of thermodynamics would be so important a mechanism for social science? Well, I suppose physicists might, but social scientists usually not.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Well, after all societies are also dissipative structures... http://www.francois-roddier.fr/blog_en/?p=29 http://www.francois-roddier.fr/blog_en/?p=29
- AareyBaba 6y ago
  That was a very interesting article. The seperate thermal and kinetic energy usage in medieval times was something I hadn't thought about.
disown 6y ago
> "let the magic invisible hand of the market work, and all will be great". Just because the hand is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that we can't see it. The "invisible hand" doesn't mean "natural market forces" as people think, it really means the "hands of the elites" who work behind the scenes. In modern capitalist societies, it's the cabal of bankers who work behind closed doors and direct economies. > But apparently noone in power seem genuinely interested in sorting out this big problem in a way that would be advantageous to the European public (not even mentioning the climate). Europe is trying to some degree - like hosting ITER. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER Until there is a revolution in energy generation, the world will continue to run on fossil fuels. There is no viable alternative. And fossil fuel use is only going to increase as ASEAN, India and africa further industrialize.
Gibbon1 6y ago
My description of the free market fantasy is buying a house with a nice natural looking garden Then thinking it got that way by itself. And then being confused a few years later that your back yard is all weeds and bermuda grass. That said story from the early nineties. Some friends that worked at an engine diagnostic tools company. Talking how bad Hyundai cars were. I told them I thought Hyundai would eventually become a reliable brand. Because they and South Korea were all in. I've seen that again and again a willingness to commit to see something through overcomes a lot of negatives. What that says to me that economists idea of comparative advantage really about that, not about much else.
ernst_klim 6y ago
> No market can make any meaningful decision on what to do and where to go at any time out of day to day operation. > Unfortunately the EU commission (and most of our governments) seem to believe Maybe because people in EU commission are not that arrogant and ignorant to ignore the resource allocation problem and need for markets? While subsidies could change the incentives and outcomes, they also imply some inefficiency which usually makes people worse off. Such matters are not black and white, you can't just steer the society with policies as you want totally ignoring economic effects policies produce.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Markets do exist within a set of rules and they always have. Markets can be self adjusting if there is healthy competition. What has been a much much bigger resounding failure has been large scale socialism. Even China decided to leave Maoism and Marxism behind and become an autocratic capitalistic society.

by wazoox 6y ago

mrmonkeyman 6y ago

They do, actually. Consumers make choices, you know. They want things. Them not caring about the environment is a very realistic and actual theme, because that is exactly what is going on. No one giving a substantial shit, only talk, no walk.

raverbashing 6y ago

> to see that about 80-85% of our energy in Europe is from fossil fuels Only if you mean total energy and not only electricity > In the EU in 2018, 40 % of the electricity consumed came from power stations burning fossil fuels and 33 % from renewable energy sources, while 26 % came from nuclear power plants. Among the renewable energy sources, the highest share of electricity consumed came from wind turbines (11 %), hydropower plants (13 %), biofuels (5 %) and solar power (4 %). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-3b.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-3...

wazoox 6y ago
Of course I mean all energy. I don't understand why everyone think only of electricity. Globalisation relies on transports, and transports rely at more than 90% on oil. Oil is the blood of our global world, and there's no credible alternative in sight (the peak, OTOH, is well in sight and could even be behind us already).
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Alternatives were around for at least 40 years - all large ships could be nuclear powered, and everything that can't run on batteries could run on synthetic methane, biofuel or hydrogen. And perhaps transport is too cheap, how does it make sence that a pair of jeans travels the world 3 times before it lands on the shelf, or that fish is caught in scotland, de-boned in malasia and sold in US. Perhaps what we call globalisation is a poorly designed, tax-evading, fragile, energy-wasting system.
  - wazoox 6y ago
    > Perhaps what we call globalisation is a poorly designed, tax-evading, fragile, energy-wasting system. Oh boy yes indeed.
  - deepnotderp 6y ago
    It takes almost as much energy to transport your food by car from the supermarket as it takes to ship it by cargo ship. Also: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      This is great, very informative. I was grinding my axe against the transport that exploits cheaper workforce elaewhere, rather than georgraphy/resources that might actually reduce emissions.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> apparently noone in power seem genuinely interested in sorting out this big problem in a way that would be advantageous to the European public I disagree. Europeans have effortfully elected for policy that moves the problem. Merkel shutting down Germany’s nuclear fleet, for example, remains popular [1]. Switching energy sources is costly. I have seen zero evidence of Europe being unusually willing to bear that cost. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/polls-reveal-citizens-support-energiewende https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/polls-reveal-citi... See “Survey by the Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster”

wazoox 6y ago
> Merkel shutting down Germany’s nuclear fleet, for example, remains popular [1]. Alas, I know. But in that case that really was a terrible decision because the public has been thoroughly misinformed for 40 years (I'm a staunch nuclear advocate).
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > the public has been thoroughly misinformed for 40 years I agree. Voters in Germany and West Virginia aren’t evil. They are responding to near-term incentives with the information they have. But the effect is clear. They vote for policies that appear virtuous but minimise impacts to their way of life.
  - wazoox 6y ago
    It doesn't minimise the impact: coal mining and burning kills several thousand Germans every year, alas. It's the usual safety bias, like being afraid of flying but driving fast on the motorway.

dantheman 6y ago

Free markets are people voluntarily interacting and have driven almost all technological development throughout history. At the frontier, sometimes the government spends money on things where the risk is too high or the payoff too small in short term. But look at all the innovation around you - how much of that is directly government funded/directed?

wazoox 6y ago
Almost all of it. Rockets, computers, internet, almost everything of any significance has been bootstrapped by governments. Particularly in the US, government spending has been the root of all innovation since forever. The legend of SV garages startup is just that, a legend. The Valley started up thanks to a huge influx of government (mostly military) money around WWII. See the very interesting "secret history of Silicon Valley", digest here: https://unherd.com/2019/04/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley/ https://unherd.com/2019/04/the-secret-history-of-silicon-val...
- dantheman 6y ago
  I completely agree - many early technologies are bootstrapped / funded by the government. There is no argument there, but once the initial prototype is complete - it is almost always better for progress for it to move toward commercialization and that is where rapid innovation takes place.
  - alexashka 6y ago
    > it is almost always better for progress for it to move toward commercialization and that is where rapid innovation takes place. In what context? A capitalist society that's not at war, with limited crime/corruption, with established trade routes where most people are literate and a banking system that's willing to give out loans? If in that specific context, then probably yes. Do you see how that is an extremely narrow set of circumstances that's subject to change? This idea of government = less efficient, markets = efficient, is paid for propaganda by American billionaires that's been well documented. I forget the name of the book that goes through this in detail. It is not to say government = more efficient, markets = less efficient. The world is not that simple and anyone trying to make it out to be, is selling you an ideology that benefits them - check to see if it benefits you to believe in ideas that have insufficient empirical evidence to justify them.

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Also, an often-forgotten historical fact is that the Dutch Golden Age – (circa 1600-1700, highest per capita income of the world, 60% urbanization) – was also (mostly?) powered by a fossil fuel : peat. (Which drowned their country in the process of digging it.) https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil...

wombatmobile 6y ago
That's a great article, thanks for linking to it. Energy can explain so much about human endeavours in so few words. I've read quite a lot of history, but Richard Rhodes' book Energy, A Human History, gave me a perspective unlike any other. Who would have thought that the laws of thermodynamics would be so important a mechanism for social science? Well, I suppose physicists might, but social scientists usually not.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Well, after all societies are also dissipative structures... http://www.francois-roddier.fr/blog_en/?p=29 http://www.francois-roddier.fr/blog_en/?p=29
AareyBaba 6y ago
That was a very interesting article. The seperate thermal and kinetic energy usage in medieval times was something I hadn't thought about.

disown 6y ago

> "let the magic invisible hand of the market work, and all will be great". Just because the hand is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that we can't see it. The "invisible hand" doesn't mean "natural market forces" as people think, it really means the "hands of the elites" who work behind the scenes. In modern capitalist societies, it's the cabal of bankers who work behind closed doors and direct economies. > But apparently noone in power seem genuinely interested in sorting out this big problem in a way that would be advantageous to the European public (not even mentioning the climate). Europe is trying to some degree - like hosting ITER. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER Until there is a revolution in energy generation, the world will continue to run on fossil fuels. There is no viable alternative. And fossil fuel use is only going to increase as ASEAN, India and africa further industrialize.

Gibbon1 6y ago

My description of the free market fantasy is buying a house with a nice natural looking garden Then thinking it got that way by itself. And then being confused a few years later that your back yard is all weeds and bermuda grass. That said story from the early nineties. Some friends that worked at an engine diagnostic tools company. Talking how bad Hyundai cars were. I told them I thought Hyundai would eventually become a reliable brand. Because they and South Korea were all in. I've seen that again and again a willingness to commit to see something through overcomes a lot of negatives. What that says to me that economists idea of comparative advantage really about that, not about much else.

ernst_klim 6y ago

> No market can make any meaningful decision on what to do and where to go at any time out of day to day operation. > Unfortunately the EU commission (and most of our governments) seem to believe Maybe because people in EU commission are not that arrogant and ignorant to ignore the resource allocation problem and need for markets? While subsidies could change the incentives and outcomes, they also imply some inefficiency which usually makes people worse off. Such matters are not black and white, you can't just steer the society with policies as you want totally ignoring economic effects policies produce.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Markets do exist within a set of rules and they always have. Markets can be self adjusting if there is healthy competition. What has been a much much bigger resounding failure has been large scale socialism. Even China decided to leave Maoism and Marxism behind and become an autocratic capitalistic society.