I know, right? So in the same way that Midgley contaminated our world with lead, Malthus on population contaminated demography, ecology, and economics with fatalistic justification for antidemocratic action by elites.
Ding, ding, ding! David Harvey is great! The Condition of Post Modernity is useful work, too.
1 Like
You mean this stuff?
1 Like
Do you mean the welfare program of the welfare rights movement associated with other Great Society programs and establishing a legal right to a minimum income?
Or the block-granted, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families âThird Wayâ welfare program of 1996.
Or something else?
2 Likes
You say that like itâs a bad thing. Skimming through the manifesto, I think they are on the right path.
Also, I chuckle when some people want to frame this man vs nature. Man IS nature. Nature has naturally fucked it self many times in the earthâs past with mass extinction, including âsnow ball earthâ that had the world covered in ice, a huge volcanic event in Siberia, multiple meteor impacts, massive ice ages, and life ebbing and flowing since it began.
2 Likes
Donât know that one. Iâll check it outâthanks!
1 Like
[quote=âanon61221983, post:7, topic:76778â]
Itâs not liberal in the modern use of the term, but liberal to refer to a belief in free markets.[/quote]Your definition is OTM, but the word youâre looking for in this sentence is American not modern. Elsewhere in the world we know a liberal isnât a leftist.
2 Likes
Interesting article as usual from Cory. A few dodgy claims need calling out thoughâŚ
Because this kind of utopia has been presented by technological fundamentalists for decades. Somehow working hours, pollution, and topsoil losses continue to rise.
But this doesnât discount the low-tech, optimum (instead of maximum) efficiency, low-pesticide, permaculture farming models where yields from competent growers can best commercial monocultures without mining the soil.
Ecological Biologist David Blume notes âthe argument that we donât have enough food to go around is specious anyway. We currently produce more than twice the amount of food we need to feed everyone, even with the extremely inefficient model of monoculture. What starving people lack is money to buy food which is not considered a right but a commodity.â
7 Likes
Perhaps, but thatâs kind of a belabored comparison. Anyway, I wasnât addressing economics or democracy, just noting the mathematics. From a scientific view Malthusian ideas about population and famine are accurate and have been observed in nature â confining herbivores to an island, for example.
And the Earth is an island. While I recognize human intelligence and ingenuity, I also know we can act selfishly and egotistically, and we often look more at short term gains instead of long term stability; as smart as the human race is, we still have a tendency to act stupidly.
There is the story of the guy falling off the top floor of a skyscraper, and people near the windows could hear him saying âso far, so goodâ as he fell. Climate change, droughts, the collapse of huge ecosystems, a domino effect-- we may not know if weâve passed a point of no return until itâs too late, meanwhile weâre extrapolating future crop yields based on previous years, and assuming science will always find a way to save us. Maybe it will, maybe it wonât, the future is unwritten.
2 Likes
From a scientific view Malthusian ideas about population and famine are accurate
No they arenât. Not with humans in any demogaphic science published since demographers realized that Malthus and Erlich were (and are, in Erlichâs case) full of shit. The data donât match with any of their predictions in any developing country past industrialization. Look it up. It didnât happen with Britain at the beginning through East Asia now. It wonât/isnât happening in Africa.
As Sen states, when women are educated, when they are educated in family planning, and when family planning is made available, population growth comes to a halt. No proscription against childbirth, no genocidal sterilization needed.
In fairness to Malthus, the data on British demography that gave the lie to his yammering didnât start coming out until his later years and just after his death, but the hatred of the little people, characterizing them as insects (or herbivores) continues. Itâs a toxic layer of Midgleyesque genocide youâve decided to swim in, whether through ignorance or agenda.
Regardless of your motivation in defending him, Malthus was incorrect, and Malthusian ideas are aristocratic bullshit.
8 Likes
I believe we are on the same page, largely. I also donât believe in moralizing arguments.
I do believe, however, that we need to give up on the concept of âgrowthâ in economics. Our aim should be stability and sustainability, not growth. This is for practical, not moral reasons btw. The idea of replacing the notion of economic capital with human and/or intellectual capital is interesting, though. Kind of harks back to the old socialists of the 19th century who imagined that we could all work a couple of hours a day to maintain a decent standard of living, and then be free to pursue other projects the rest of the time.
If you donât educate yourself about the technical details of what make up economic growth, you are going to fail badly at your (our) goals.
More arm-waving. Ehrlich did his major work just as exponential growth in total global population was peaking. It was an entirely reasonable warning that continued 2%pa exponential growth was unsustainable. What he didnât foresee was that it was written right on the cusp of the transition in the logistic S-Curve from exponential growth to linear growth of 80m pa or 1b every 12-14 years. Weâve maintained that linear growth for about 50 years now. If anything current growth is just slightly above that. That linear growth is just sustainable and things like food production and fossil fuel powered nitrogen fixing are just keeping pace with it, but weâre beginning to hit fundamental limits. On energy sources, resource consumption and pollution sinks. Now just maybe weâre on the next transition of the S curve from linear growth to a gradual slow down and population peak, but the best demographers out there (the UN, figures used by people like Rosling) are still revising their figures for faster growth than previous forecasts and donât see a peak this century with ~10b around 2055 (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/publications/files/key_findings_wpp_2015.pdf).
If you want to deny this and promote a model that shows a faster slow down, or mechanisms to support >10b total population, then show your working. Just shouting a lot about aristocratic bullshit doesnât cut it.
3 Likes
Ecomodernism: Californian Techno-Cornucopian cult tract or corporate green washing spin from the nuclear industry. You decide.
2 Likes
And what does make up economic growth, pray tell?
Normally, we talk about the economy âgrowingâ. My claim is that it should remain stable and sustainable, or (in cases of underpopulation) reflect population growth.
Of course, by saying so, Iâm referring to the material wealth. I believe it should not be growing at anything resembling a fixed rate. Indeed, such behaviour resembles exponential growth which is normally a Very Bad Thing on a limited planet. Thatâs not really Malthusianism, itâs common sense. So sustainability, closer to what was found in Amazonas before the arrival of the Europeans, appears to be a worthier goal.
But, youâre welcome to suggest reading matter etc. for me to become more enlightened on the virtues of (non-material?) growth.
Sen and others have already done it. Developmental econ isnât that obscure.
200-level macro textbooks? Hell, first year macro surveys should touch on it.
So what do you think of supplemental currencies such as LETS schemes? E.g., the Puma in Sevilla: https://monedasocialpuma.wordpress.com/
And if I understand you correctly, there will be economic growth in a stable, sustainable state?
Yeah thatâs the one. There are a few useful grains in it but mostly it tries to promote an idea that ecomodernists are level headed, pragmatic and technology centred and everyone else in the environmental movement isnât. Basically if you promote a massive roll out of nuclear power and intensive farming / GMOs then youâre a pro-technology ecomodernist but if you promote pretty much anything else (however high tech it might be) youâre a dirty stinking hippy Luddite.
4 Likes
⌠and in fact, nuclear power is at best a dangerous respite, and monoculture/industrial farming is destructive; in this country, our topsoil is disappearing rapidly. Real change could actually be achieved with sustainable energy and permaculture - âecomodernismâ is really a red herring in that sense, I believe.
