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“Steady state” is impossible because of one thing, and one thing only: Capitalism. It’s a system less than four centuries old, but absolutely requires growth a
by rekabis 4y ago
“Steady state” is impossible because of one thing, and one thing only: Capitalism.
It’s a system less than four centuries old, but absolutely requires growth at any cost: growth of the population, growth of resource extraction, growth of products produced, growth of profits. It demands infinite growth on a finite planet.
Until we move away from capitalism, any form of steady state or even degrowth will be impossible.
- bityard 4y agoI was wondering how long it would take for an anti-capitalist rant to show up. :/ Anyway, capitalism does not require the extraction of natural resources. That is a problem related to building a modern civilization. There is NO WAY to have the kind of technology (and therefore quality of life) we have today without digging things out of the ground to either burn for energy or manufacture into tools or products. We're making progress on solving parts of this (e.g. renewable energy sources, recycling) but it's fundamentally intractable and orthogonal to any economic system. If what you say is really true, then capitalism should spiral into non-existence and cease to exist whenever there is an economic downturn or decline in productivity. As it happens, we have those roughly once a decade and times get tough for some people but civilization doesn't end and eventually we pull out of it. Ergo, either world trade is not dominated by a capitalist economy, or your definition of capitalism doesn't align with reality.