Re:After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat
by dredmorbius on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @02:52PM
(#16486178)
The "growth imperative" is ... complicated. I wouldn't put the cause / blame / credit / fault entirely with capitalism, and I'd specifically exclude fractional-reserve lending[1]. At the same time, there is a clear tendency for a growth-at-all-costs mantra. Seems to me there are several dynamics at play.
1. Given growth, redistribution is not as urgent.
2. Redistribution is politically exceedingly unpopular ...
3. Most especially with those who have the most wealth to redistibute. As Adam Smith wrote in one of his briefest sentences ever ...
4. "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power."
5. There's a great deal else that becomes more convenient in a growing economic domain, a topic also discussed at length by Smith (Wealth of Nations, book 1, chapter 8, on wages, particularly as concerns England, the Colonies, and China).
6. Though that argument largely boils down to the fallacy of consequences: "The alternative to growth is too horrible to consider, so we won't consider it." This bodes poorly.
There have been a few fairly long-term stable or negative-growth regimes. The Indus River Valley civilisation(s) seem to have been particularly equitable (archaeological evidence shows little diversity of housing stock or personal chattel property), and the Byzantine Empire effectively went through an extensive period of de-growth successfully, if not entirely happily.
Growth as a present economic mantra seems all but ubiquitous. You'll find it held as sacrosanct by voices as diverse as Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty, Lawrence Summers, and Christine Lagarde. It's the fundamental axiom of both hard-left and hard-right economic theologists (what they preach is not a science). See Mauricio Schoijet's "Limits to Growth and the Rise of Catastrophism" particularly for reflections on this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399
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Notes:
1. Brief counterargument: Fractional reserve + fiat currency + at your option any of a) a strong bankruptcy law / process, b) a gradual devaluation of all debt, including perhaps c) a gradual devaluation of all paper currency[2], and/or d) a periodic debt jubilee (see Steve Keen) would allow for a FR banking system without the spectre of debts-in-perpetuity.
2. China instituted this, historically, by requiring regular stamping of paper money. The stamps cost money, and this effectively became a tax on cash holdings. Other mechanisms might be instituted. Remember that money is not wealth, but rather is tokens of wealth. See generally Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China 1000-1700 (1996).
1. Given growth, redistribution is not as urgent.
2. Redistribution is politically exceedingly unpopular ...
3. Most especially with those who have the most wealth to redistibute. As Adam Smith wrote in one of his briefest sentences ever ...
4. "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power."
5. There's a great deal else that becomes more convenient in a growing economic domain, a topic also discussed at length by Smith (Wealth of Nations, book 1, chapter 8, on wages, particularly as concerns England, the Colonies, and China).
6. Though that argument largely boils down to the fallacy of consequences: "The alternative to growth is too horrible to consider, so we won't consider it." This bodes poorly.
There have been a few fairly long-term stable or negative-growth regimes. The Indus River Valley civilisation(s) seem to have been particularly equitable (archaeological evidence shows little diversity of housing stock or personal chattel property), and the Byzantine Empire effectively went through an extensive period of de-growth successfully, if not entirely happily.
Growth as a present economic mantra seems all but ubiquitous. You'll find it held as sacrosanct by voices as diverse as Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty, Lawrence Summers, and Christine Lagarde. It's the fundamental axiom of both hard-left and hard-right economic theologists (what they preach is not a science). See Mauricio Schoijet's "Limits to Growth and the Rise of Catastrophism" particularly for reflections on this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3985399
________________________________
Notes:
1. Brief counterargument: Fractional reserve + fiat currency + at your option any of a) a strong bankruptcy law / process, b) a gradual devaluation of all debt, including perhaps c) a gradual devaluation of all paper currency[2], and/or d) a periodic debt jubilee (see Steve Keen) would allow for a FR banking system without the spectre of debts-in-perpetuity.
2. China instituted this, historically, by requiring regular stamping of paper money. The stamps cost money, and this effectively became a tax on cash holdings. Other mechanisms might be instituted. Remember that money is not wealth, but rather is tokens of wealth. See generally Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China 1000-1700 (1996).