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>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.

>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.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> 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. Just one report puts the top 100 companies in the primary sector at $7.3 trillion / year in externalized costs related to the environment [1]. Still, measuring these things in capital doesn't capture the problem, since you can't buy back environment and it has far reaching consequences. This doesn't account for social well being either. [1] http://www.teebforbusiness.org/news/article/teeb-for-business-coalition-study-shows-multi-trillion-dollar-natural-capital-risk.html http://www.teebforbusiness.org/news/article/teeb-for-busines... > 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. I see you're back at analogies. Social welfare for calves... what are you talking about anyway? I'm talking about capitalism not providing the best solutions to concrete problems the society faces, despite being - in theory - a system that allows the best solutions to strive. In practice, we know it's parasitic, and the solutions that strive are the ones that move the economy itself forward, in detriment of society.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  >Just one report puts the top 100 companies in the primary sector at $7.3 trillion / year in externalized costs related to the environment [1]. Still, measuring these things in capital doesn't capture the problem, since you can't buy back environment and it has far reaching consequences. This doesn't account for social well being either. Well, if you want to account for externalities like that, then we need to account for positive externalities not captured by these corporations either, as GDP or profit figures do not adequately capture the difference between a $200 smartphone and a $200 feature phone. >'m talking about capitalism not providing the best solutions to concrete problems the society faces, despite being - in theory - a system that allows the best solutions to strive. In practice, we know it's parasitic, and the solutions that strive are the ones that move the economy itself forward, in detriment of society. Capitalism does not promise to solve global optimization problems which are not priced in or demanded, that's the whole point of having a democracy in order to set the constraints of the game, a negative external feedback system. And best solution to what? If you have an optimization algorithm, you have to set up the constraints so that it optimizes for what you want. Market competition optimizes for the demands of individuals, not for the demands of society. If you want capitalists and entrepreneurs to do this, then the incentives have to encourage a gradient in that direction. If you want more fuel efficient cars, than tax carbon and pollution, the capitalists will quickly find that their profits are dropping as their cars get more expensive and will seek out alternatives. Tax an incandescent lightbulb, and the market will start competing on LEDs and CFLS. You're making the same fallacy people make when talking about "survival of the fittest" in an ecosystem, they think natural selection is optimizing for a certain kind of creature, rather than just the creature that can reproduce the best in that ecosystem. Capitalism is undirected evolution, and if we want it to solve global problems, we need to guide it via political feedback in a mixed economy. You started this thread by trying to criticize the analogy of capitalism to natural selection, but nothing you've said has debunked it. You've criticized capitalism for not solving global first or second order costs, but a market can't solve these problems if there's no price signals for them, in much the same way that species have naturally gone extinct in the past, because individual selection doesn't necessarily select for health of the group. If there's one criticism of capitalism, it's that the 'best' product or service doesn't always win (assuming you can objectively define best). Sometimes superior marketing wins out, sometimes superior execution wins out, and sometimes underhanded tactics win out, especially if it involves political favors. No one's denying that, but you're criticizing a strawman of a pure, perfect capitalist system. I am not, nor has anyone here, asserted such a perfect system, My point is simple, capitalism, for all it's flaws, is a useful system to have to optimize productive capacities along the lines that we want (in contrast to top-down centralized control), and that we should have a mixed economy, where political decisions adjust costs to factor in externalities, and to ensure that the capitalists are working on optimizing the problems that we want solved as a society. It needs to be managed for costs, for transparency, for corruption, but there isn't any real alternative to the current mixed systems we already have, we just need to work on them to improve them. That's it, nothing more. If you came to do battle with Ayn Rand, you're in the wrong thread.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> 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. Just one report puts the top 100 companies in the primary sector at $7.3 trillion / year in externalized costs related to the environment [1]. Still, measuring these things in capital doesn't capture the problem, since you can't buy back environment and it has far reaching consequences. This doesn't account for social well being either. [1] http://www.teebforbusiness.org/news/article/teeb-for-business-coalition-study-shows-multi-trillion-dollar-natural-capital-risk.html http://www.teebforbusiness.org/news/article/teeb-for-busines... > 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. I see you're back at analogies. Social welfare for calves... what are you talking about anyway? I'm talking about capitalism not providing the best solutions to concrete problems the society faces, despite being - in theory - a system that allows the best solutions to strive. In practice, we know it's parasitic, and the solutions that strive are the ones that move the economy itself forward, in detriment of society.

cromwellian 13y ago
>Just one report puts the top 100 companies in the primary sector at $7.3 trillion / year in externalized costs related to the environment [1]. Still, measuring these things in capital doesn't capture the problem, since you can't buy back environment and it has far reaching consequences. This doesn't account for social well being either. Well, if you want to account for externalities like that, then we need to account for positive externalities not captured by these corporations either, as GDP or profit figures do not adequately capture the difference between a $200 smartphone and a $200 feature phone. >'m talking about capitalism not providing the best solutions to concrete problems the society faces, despite being - in theory - a system that allows the best solutions to strive. In practice, we know it's parasitic, and the solutions that strive are the ones that move the economy itself forward, in detriment of society. Capitalism does not promise to solve global optimization problems which are not priced in or demanded, that's the whole point of having a democracy in order to set the constraints of the game, a negative external feedback system. And best solution to what? If you have an optimization algorithm, you have to set up the constraints so that it optimizes for what you want. Market competition optimizes for the demands of individuals, not for the demands of society. If you want capitalists and entrepreneurs to do this, then the incentives have to encourage a gradient in that direction. If you want more fuel efficient cars, than tax carbon and pollution, the capitalists will quickly find that their profits are dropping as their cars get more expensive and will seek out alternatives. Tax an incandescent lightbulb, and the market will start competing on LEDs and CFLS. You're making the same fallacy people make when talking about "survival of the fittest" in an ecosystem, they think natural selection is optimizing for a certain kind of creature, rather than just the creature that can reproduce the best in that ecosystem. Capitalism is undirected evolution, and if we want it to solve global problems, we need to guide it via political feedback in a mixed economy. You started this thread by trying to criticize the analogy of capitalism to natural selection, but nothing you've said has debunked it. You've criticized capitalism for not solving global first or second order costs, but a market can't solve these problems if there's no price signals for them, in much the same way that species have naturally gone extinct in the past, because individual selection doesn't necessarily select for health of the group. If there's one criticism of capitalism, it's that the 'best' product or service doesn't always win (assuming you can objectively define best). Sometimes superior marketing wins out, sometimes superior execution wins out, and sometimes underhanded tactics win out, especially if it involves political favors. No one's denying that, but you're criticizing a strawman of a pure, perfect capitalist system. I am not, nor has anyone here, asserted such a perfect system, My point is simple, capitalism, for all it's flaws, is a useful system to have to optimize productive capacities along the lines that we want (in contrast to top-down centralized control), and that we should have a mixed economy, where political decisions adjust costs to factor in externalities, and to ensure that the capitalists are working on optimizing the problems that we want solved as a society. It needs to be managed for costs, for transparency, for corruption, but there isn't any real alternative to the current mixed systems we already have, we just need to work on them to improve them. That's it, nothing more. If you came to do battle with Ayn Rand, you're in the wrong thread.