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> What's bad is if growth is achieved by irrevocable destruction of the environment, or deterioration of the human condition. It's not growth itself that is the

> What's bad is if growth is achieved by irrevocable destruction of the environment, or deterioration of the human condition. It's not growth itself that is the problem, for there are many kinds of growth. Non sequitur. The notion of economic growth is tied to environmental and human labor exploitation, at fundamental levels. A large portion of any nation's GDP comes from mining, pumping oil, cutting forests for crops, and activities that produce a lot of waste, on which the rest of the economy relies on. Another large portion comes from the financial sector, which profits on the disparity of income by providing credit. These activities are only profitable because the environmental and social costs are externalized. Without that, other endeavors wouldn't even make sense cost-wise, making economic growth grind to a halt. > I'd analogize Capitalism to evolution in an ecosystem. I realize many people think like that, and it's a fallacy. Capitalism is not some sort of natural law, it's entirely arbitrary human invention, and in practice it's nothing like this pure, theoretical meritocracy that allows the best solutions to strive. Quite the contrary: it fails to address many concrete, contemporary problems, like ever increasing economic disparity, social welfare, research funding and environmental destruction. And don't come tell me it's because we don't have enough capitalism, that markets are not free enough... this is the same argument used to explain why communism failed (it wasn't pure enough). If we keep looking at it as some theoretical ideal, we will never tackle it's shortcomings in practice.

ahomescu1 13y ago
> Capitalism is not some sort of natural law Capitalism is based on trade, which IS a natural law. It seems pretty natural to me that people want to trade what they have for other things they need (for example, a musician trades their music for food&shelter).
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Capitalism is based on trade, which IS a natural law. All economic systems are "based on trade", since they are all mechanisms of arranging trade. That doesn't make capitalism at all special among the universe of all actual (or possible) economic systems.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    How so? Economic systems are mechanisms for arranging the distribution of surplus; that doesn't necessarily involve trade.
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    A better way to phrase this is that natural law (of rivalrous goods) is based on possession, not ownership. "Ownership" or property is a human invention. When a lion possesses a carcass, the hyena's don't respect it's property rights, they respect it's possession (unless they can over take the possessor), but the lion cannot leave dozens of killed carcasses stored around for future use. Our notions of capitalism are based on concepts of property rights which are human inventions. One could reasonably be expected to defend one's own immediate possessions, home, or farm, but the invention of property allows an individual to control a vast amount of possessions, backed up by the power of the state. When free marketers say "capitalism is natural", I think what they're really saying, is that market forces are natural, and by that they mean, individuals have demands, and are willing to trade possessions for them, and do not need a state or other framework for this 'bottom up' system to work. But that's a gross simplification, by taking a huge mental leap from a barter economy on the small scale to a modern capitalist economy. The modern market of trade bears little resemblance to the small scale microcosm thought experiments. Reality is, our modern system is based of hundreds of years of evolved civil institutions, common law, political structures. It's the reason why a 'free market' in some countries is a "failed state" of misery, and not a paradise.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
cromwellian 13y ago
>Non sequitur. The notion of economic growth is tied to environmental and human labor exploitation, at fundamental levels. Umm, no, that's not a non-sequitur. Our measurements of economic growth are mathematically tied to gross domestic product, whose definition doesn't demand anything about what that product is. The fact is, GDP is a human concept, not based on objective physical quantities in the real world, but on human demands and how we value them. >A large portion of any nation's GDP comes from mining, pumping oil, cutting forests for crops, and activities that produce a lot of waste, on which the rest of the economy relies on. Another large portion comes from the financial sector, which profits on the disparity of income by providing credit. These activities are only profitable because the environmental and social costs are externalized. Without that, other endeavors wouldn't even make sense cost-wise, making economic growth grind to a halt. That's what the current mix is, but there is nothing fundamental in the definition of GDP that would prohibit a society from which the majority of value is not derived from steady-state or virtual goods once all basic requirements of civilization are taken care of. Also, the implication that all profit in the system has come about externalities aren't accounted is unsupportable. I'd like to see your calculation on this, showing that the enormous profits gains in productivity over the entire industrial and green revolutions are cancelled out by these external costs. >I realize many people think like that, and it's a fallacy. Capitalism is not some sort of natural law, it's entirely arbitrary human invention, and in practice it's nothing like this pure, theoretical meritocracy that allows the best solutions to strive. Quite the contrary: it fails to address many concrete, contemporary problems, like ever increasing economic disparity, social welfare, research funding and environmental destruction. And don't come tell me it's because we don't have enough capitalism, that markets are not free enough... this is the same argument used to explain why communism failed (it wasn't pure enough). If we keep looking at it as some theoretical ideal, we will never tackle it's shortcomings in practice. You just proved my point. I said capitalism is like an ecosystem, you say it's a fallacy, but then go on to say it's not addressing disparity, welfare, environmental destruction, but nature ecosystems don't address these either. There's no social welfare for mothers of calves eaten by apex predators. You're jumping over into strawman land, I said nothing about capitalism being pure enough, I'm a progressive pragmatist, not an anarcho-capitalist. My point is, the issue isn't some abstract notion of "growth" or "debt". I'm all for carbon taxes, and government R&D, infrastructure, public health and education, and all that jazz. "Growthism" in this essay is just sloppy sloganeering just like "Corporatism". It gives populists something to rail against, but it's wishy washy terminology. If the author wanted to say that GDP is a bad measure of the health of society, the planet, or an economy, he could have said it a lot better. As it stands, the rant preys more on the emotions of the audience it is directed to, much like a Rush Limbaugh sermon, it's not going to sway many people, because it offers few if any specifics.

ahomescu1 13y ago

> Capitalism is not some sort of natural law Capitalism is based on trade, which IS a natural law. It seems pretty natural to me that people want to trade what they have for other things they need (for example, a musician trades their music for food&shelter).

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Capitalism is based on trade, which IS a natural law. All economic systems are "based on trade", since they are all mechanisms of arranging trade. That doesn't make capitalism at all special among the universe of all actual (or possible) economic systems.
- icebraining 13y ago
  How so? Economic systems are mechanisms for arranging the distribution of surplus; that doesn't necessarily involve trade.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  A better way to phrase this is that natural law (of rivalrous goods) is based on possession, not ownership. "Ownership" or property is a human invention. When a lion possesses a carcass, the hyena's don't respect it's property rights, they respect it's possession (unless they can over take the possessor), but the lion cannot leave dozens of killed carcasses stored around for future use. Our notions of capitalism are based on concepts of property rights which are human inventions. One could reasonably be expected to defend one's own immediate possessions, home, or farm, but the invention of property allows an individual to control a vast amount of possessions, backed up by the power of the state. When free marketers say "capitalism is natural", I think what they're really saying, is that market forces are natural, and by that they mean, individuals have demands, and are willing to trade possessions for them, and do not need a state or other framework for this 'bottom up' system to work. But that's a gross simplification, by taking a huge mental leap from a barter economy on the small scale to a modern capitalist economy. The modern market of trade bears little resemblance to the small scale microcosm thought experiments. Reality is, our modern system is based of hundreds of years of evolved civil institutions, common law, political structures. It's the reason why a 'free market' in some countries is a "failed state" of misery, and not a paradise.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

cromwellian 13y ago

>Non sequitur. The notion of economic growth is tied to environmental and human labor exploitation, at fundamental levels. Umm, no, that's not a non-sequitur. Our measurements of economic growth are mathematically tied to gross domestic product, whose definition doesn't demand anything about what that product is. The fact is, GDP is a human concept, not based on objective physical quantities in the real world, but on human demands and how we value them. >A large portion of any nation's GDP comes from mining, pumping oil, cutting forests for crops, and activities that produce a lot of waste, on which the rest of the economy relies on. Another large portion comes from the financial sector, which profits on the disparity of income by providing credit. These activities are only profitable because the environmental and social costs are externalized. Without that, other endeavors wouldn't even make sense cost-wise, making economic growth grind to a halt. That's what the current mix is, but there is nothing fundamental in the definition of GDP that would prohibit a society from which the majority of value is not derived from steady-state or virtual goods once all basic requirements of civilization are taken care of. Also, the implication that all profit in the system has come about externalities aren't accounted is unsupportable. I'd like to see your calculation on this, showing that the enormous profits gains in productivity over the entire industrial and green revolutions are cancelled out by these external costs. >I realize many people think like that, and it's a fallacy. Capitalism is not some sort of natural law, it's entirely arbitrary human invention, and in practice it's nothing like this pure, theoretical meritocracy that allows the best solutions to strive. Quite the contrary: it fails to address many concrete, contemporary problems, like ever increasing economic disparity, social welfare, research funding and environmental destruction. And don't come tell me it's because we don't have enough capitalism, that markets are not free enough... this is the same argument used to explain why communism failed (it wasn't pure enough). If we keep looking at it as some theoretical ideal, we will never tackle it's shortcomings in practice. You just proved my point. I said capitalism is like an ecosystem, you say it's a fallacy, but then go on to say it's not addressing disparity, welfare, environmental destruction, but nature ecosystems don't address these either. There's no social welfare for mothers of calves eaten by apex predators. You're jumping over into strawman land, I said nothing about capitalism being pure enough, I'm a progressive pragmatist, not an anarcho-capitalist. My point is, the issue isn't some abstract notion of "growth" or "debt". I'm all for carbon taxes, and government R&D, infrastructure, public health and education, and all that jazz. "Growthism" in this essay is just sloppy sloganeering just like "Corporatism". It gives populists something to rail against, but it's wishy washy terminology. If the author wanted to say that GDP is a bad measure of the health of society, the planet, or an economy, he could have said it a lot better. As it stands, the rant preys more on the emotions of the audience it is directed to, much like a Rush Limbaugh sermon, it's not going to sway many people, because it offers few if any specifics.