Re:We've Built Cities We Can't Afford
by AnthonyMouse on Saturday April 18, 2020 @02:37PM
(#22910006)
There isn't a separate thing called catabolism which can increase available value by neither creating nor transferring it.
Converting one resource to another at an overall net gain is growth. Converting one resource to another when the original resource was equally or more valuable net doesn't improve lives, it's either completely neutral or net harmful.
Note that there are a lot of growth metrics out there that inappropriately fail to account for this, e.g. they measure sale price but not consumer or producer surplus (which are harder to measure because there is no market pricing information available). If someone invents a cheap way to turn farm waste into motor fuel and then suddenly gas is $1/gallon, that's growth -- there is a surplus being created -- even if there is a net reduction in GDP because oil companies are making less money while most of the surplus goes to the consumer. (Though in most cases the reduction in GDP doesn't happen anyway because then consumers have more money in their pockets and spend it on something else.)
Converting one resource to another at an overall net gain is growth. Converting one resource to another when the original resource was equally or more valuable net doesn't improve lives, it's either completely neutral or net harmful.
Note that there are a lot of growth metrics out there that inappropriately fail to account for this, e.g. they measure sale price but not consumer or producer surplus (which are harder to measure because there is no market pricing information available). If someone invents a cheap way to turn farm waste into motor fuel and then suddenly gas is $1/gallon, that's growth -- there is a surplus being created -- even if there is a net reduction in GDP because oil companies are making less money while most of the surplus goes to the consumer. (Though in most cases the reduction in GDP doesn't happen anyway because then consumers have more money in their pockets and spend it on something else.)