There is an article on The Conversation (a web site reserved for comment by academics) Today that discusses the possibility of post-growth capitalism. Written by Adam Barrett , a multi-disciplinary researcher at Sussex University, it is based on macroeconomic modelling based on Minskian theory. As he notes:
[Minsky] argued that financial crises are to be expected in capitalist systems because periods of economic prosperity encourage borrowers and lenders to be progressively more reckless. Minsky's work was rather overlooked prior to the 2008 crash, but has received increased attention since.
To test the hypothesis that capitalism might survive in a post-growth model he notes:
The model included a banking sector that charges businesses interest on loans. That way, it could address the concern that this key feature of capitalism might in itself create a need for growth. (While other aspects of finance could be reformed for a post-growth economy, it is hard to imagine a capitalism without debt and interest.) The model also included a basic labour market, with dynamic wages.
I stress, I have not read any more on his work, but he concludes:
There are of course reforms that would have to be made to the global financial system. I found that an end to growth reduces profits for business owners. Therefore, if it remains relatively easy for money to flow across borders, then investors might abandon a post-growth country for a fast-growing developing country. Also, businesses are beholden to shareholders keen on growth as a means to rapid profit accumulation.
And adds:
It may be that environmentalists trying to protect the Earth's resources do not have the power themselves to curb the excesses of capitalism. However, growth has slowed in advanced countries, and some mainstream commentators and economists are now predicting a transition to a post-growth era, whatever our environmental policy — which means the study of post-growth economics is a field which itself will grow.
Instinctively I agree with the findings. I cannot see why very low interest rates and so banking as we know it, could not survive in a post-growth economy. But, I stress the essential condition of low rates. The old ‘normal' was the aberration.
I can also see no reason why the profit motive cannot survive. Indeed, I cannot see how it in its genuine, return to entrepreneurial activity, form it could be suppressed without considerable harm to human rights and society at large.
What I think the model really suggests is that what is required is a control on rent seeking. After all, that is what most of the return that is now called profit really is. It is actually rent extracted from land, resources, the exploitation of people, the abuse of power, the arbitrage of regualtion including that on tax, and so much more that is antisocial and harmful to society at large. What I suspect the model suggested is that in a post growth world such abuses have to be curtailed but that there may be a potential first mover cost to those who taking first steps to challenge that abuse.
Should that stop such moves? Clearly not. But that is, for example, not what anyone in politics will say to justify their leaving the EU, if that is their motive. I also happen to think such moves will, of course, work best cooperatively, and so by staying in the EU. I also happen to think such organisations now offer the best way to deliver such change because they now seem vastly more responsive to change than once they were (but it's been a painful progression, a characteritistic that will remain, no doubt as old style rentier capital fights back, as it is in Brexit campaigns).
In that case the debate is completely worthwile. As is the research. For that reason the linked article is worth reading.
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On the face of it the case being made is that ‘growth’ is required to pay for the cost of money.
Because….we have come to regard ‘Money’ as a commodity or asset in itself, subject to the same rentier principle as any other commodity.
If that follows we need, therefore, a new ‘currency’ with which to trade money as an asset class.
Property is an asset class we trade using money as currency. What currency can we use to trade money ? Ideally it should be something we can use to buy food and the other necessities of life.
I am not sure I quite follow your logic
But that is likely to be me in your case. I am not suggesting there is not one.
Might you expand?
“The model included a banking sector that charges businesses interest on loans. That way, it could address the concern that this key feature of capitalism might in itself create a need for growth.”
It’s this that I’m picking-up on, Richard. Whilst admitting that I have not yet read the whole linked piece.
The implication of that paragraph is that growth within the capitalist model is the price we pay to cover the cost of allowing the banking sector to charge interest on money. This is not a charge for a banking service, which would be quite acceptable –
the service has cost overheads -, but it is a charge in the money itself.
The money doesn’t belong to the banks under the logic of MMT, it belongs to the issuing government, yet the government gives permission to the banking sector to both literally and metaphorically ‘print money’.
It’s a bit like if I were to squat in your house and sublet some rooms for my own profit. And then expect you to foot the bill for regular maintenance and refurbishment. I’d maybe pay a pittance to you as a gesture to help with paint and wallpaper.
And the result is banks should pay rate on their gain – or seigniorage to be correct
I think he’s saying we need Bitcoin or, perhaps more accurately, what Bitcoin was planned to be. Those original ideas look like manifesting as Litecoin, but we’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
I hope not
There is no non-state solution to this
“And the result is banks should pay rate on their gain — or seigniorage to be correct”
So is this what actually happens ? The banks pay seigniorage (to the government) for the privilege of acting as the government’s agent/contractor supplying cash into the economy.
If so I wonder if there is any competition between the banks (bastions of competitive market preaching that they are) or whether they simply act as a monopoly cartel. They have the government ‘by the balls’ in that case with an unspoken threat of liquidity crisis at the first hint of terms they do not like the sound of.
If ever there was a de facto natural monopoly it is surely the supply of money ?
Natural monopoly is not rightfully the business of the private sector.
This circles back to my earlier comment on the commodification of money. The same principles (antitrust et al) should surely apply as they do to any other commodity market. I’m suspecting a blind spot of massive proportions exists here concealed in the whole mystique of finance.
No they don’t pay it
I am saying they should
“No they don’t pay it
I am saying they should”
Well not to put too fine a point on it and to use language I deplore and I’m sure you do too….they fucking-well should.
That they don’t is an outrage.
Isn’t it ?
I think it’s a trick we’re missing
Reply to Bill Kruse,
“I think he’s saying we need Bitcoin or, perhaps more accurately, what Bitcoin was planned to be. ”
No. Absolutely not. Bitcoin is a maverick currency. The potential that Bitcoin demonstrates is only in terms of an alternative ledger system, which may or may not prove to be useful in currency transactions. And according to some proponents also other species of transaction records in a distributed system which would be relatively safe from attack. (Imagine what treasures of literary antiquity we might have if the great library at Alexandria had not been all housed in one place vulnerable to fire)
Issue of currency is the preserve of government. What I’m querying is the right of the private sector banks to profit from interest payments which should accrue to the issuer not the agent.
“I think it’s a trick we’re missing”
I think it’s rather more a fundamental flaw we are ignoring. The system is not fit for purpose. It’s an out and out negation of state responsibility.
Isn’t it ?
I’m assuming it was to get this interest-bearing wealth-extraction model of banking set up here that the Dutch banks funded the invasion of 1688. William wanted to be king here, the Dutch authorities wanted a buffer state between them and the Sun King over in France who had his eyes set on conquering toute le monde, and the banksters wanted to get the country working, effectively, for their enrichment, as it largely does. I gather George Downing, our guy at The Hague, twigged this and made strenuous efforts to get set up in this manner in his own right. In effect he blazed the trail the market traders who made up the BofE later sauntered down.
I really do not think over simplifying things or re-writing history does help
Perhaps the government could issue some kind of ……token ?
Could it be that Andy is alluding to what the late Richard Douthwaite seemed to advocate: that we need to segment the pricing of money (credit) depending on what the end result or use is?
So for example the more speculative flows (the cause of much overheating and crashes) could have higher interest rates?
Green investments would attract lower interest rates?
Manufacturing – again perhaps lower rates?
Savings – detatched from any general interest rate and encouraged with higher rates than rates for consumption?
Thinking like this might mean that we get more real sustainable growth rather than growth that goes up and down like a yo-yo.
The BoE could do this
It is technically possible
We pretty much do the reverse now
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“Could it be that Andy is alluding to what the late Richard Douthwaite seemed to advocate: that we need to segment the pricing of money (credit) depending on what the end result or use is? ”
Well no, Pilgrim. not knowingly so. However the market, as Richard implies does the exact opposite, and the only way a democratic government can control such a process is by nationalising the banks.
Which in theory is sort of where we are with the BofE already – except it doesn’t seem to work. The orthodoxy seems to say that the only role of the Central Banks is to make a stab at the price of money by tiddling about with the interest rate in the hope that it might mitigate the tendency towards inflation. (Or, rarely deflation).
I suppose they must do something else at Threadneedle Street. It can’t possibly take a couple of months just to organise tea and biccies for the MPC seances.
Oops. Did I say seances ? I meant meetings of course.
I blame spellcheck 🙂
I read about Douthwaite’s ‘idea’ of a more mixed ‘market’ of interest rates in his booklet ‘The Ecology of Money’.
It made perfect sense to me. And reified just how one sided current policy is (i.e. it favours the City of London and their rent seeking clientele).
I think environmentally sustainable growth is feasible (indeed the transition itself is an will be a source of growth) but it requires strong regulation, and I still think there will be a role for capitalism but as you correctly point out
“what is required is a control on rent seeking.”
Low growth encourages rent seeking (as returns from production are suppressed) and rent extraction further suppresses growth so you end up in a vicious vortex where the real economy is bled dry. My impression is that the UK is bleeding more than most, and I am sad and angry about that ;(
Agreed
Charles Adams says:
“I think environmentally sustainable growth is feasible ”
I think the fact that there is a human race still extant demonstrates that beyond peradventure.
But let’s not worry about the future. It’ll be just hunky dory after Brexit. No sweat 🙂
Have you no faith ?
No ?
Me neither.
This is a very interesting and very big question and it is a question I have asked myself in recent years. For me it is an ongoing, complicated question, as someone who has built a business from scratch which has been in existence for thirty years in a niche sector which is subject to the vagaries of fashion I think I can say ‘ yes ‘ , but ( and I am speaking for myself here ) only if a business grows to an optimum ( meaning : most conducive to a favourable outcome ) level , which I fully accept is a subjective judgement by the management of the business, but this is one of the tasks of management anyway. Mine is a small , private business so the issue is different to that of a public company in the present paradigm where ‘ shareholder value ‘ has become the all-important metric and I think that begs a much bigger question relating to investment and pension funds etc etc which I am sure the astute readers of this blog can work out. I’m not sure I follow Andy’s logic about growth being required to pay for the cost of money . The cost of money for any business is an overhead which may be fixed or variable according to the means by which money has been borrowed ( overdraft or fixed term loan , fixed or variable rate of interest ). There is a very long way to go with this question, but I am glad the question has been posed on this blog which is the great thing about it as far as I am concerned, that it allows this kind of question to be debated.
I may return to the theme
“I may return to the theme”
You will Oscar. You will 🙂
Well I hope you will. Even if not tomorrow.
Maybe not tomorrow…..
John Hope says:
“… as someone who has built a business from scratch which has been in existence for thirty years …..” Congratulations. Seriously. I have failed through lack of application.
” I’m not sure I follow Andy’s logic about growth being required to pay for the cost of money . The cost of money for any business is an overhead ….”
There ! You understand perfectly. The cost of money is an overhead. Your business is making profit for the money lender. A money lender who is charging you to borrow money which rightfully it does not own. (It belongs to the government).
Yes, the bank deserves some recompense for the administrative costs incurred in providing the service and making necessary capital available to you for your business, but over and above that I don’t see why they ‘deserve’ to charge you for the money itself.
The fact that banks are allowed to charge interest means that you must grow your business in order simply to pay rent on the money – because you must pay back more than you borrowed. You do the work the bank gets the profit.
Why do we think it acceptable that we must all work to provide wealth to bankers ? (That is to say wealth which is over and above anything paid as income for the administrative service they provide.)
This as the very definition of a parasite in nature. Isn’t it ? – Sucking the life out of its host and giving nothing back.
Worth viewing, the late, sadly missed, Margrit Kennedy who has given deep consideration to the subject of banking and interest https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Margrit+Kennedy+speaks+on+interest+free+economy She’s written on the subject too.
Speaking of ‘Killing the Host’… Michael Hudson has given this thought, https://www.amazon.co.uk/KILLING-HOST-Michael-Hudson/dp/3981484282/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
“in a post growth world such abuses [rent extraction] have to be curtailed”. But we need to change too (something rarely mentioned) and be satisfied with less, or at least be satisfied with what we have rather than continually wanting more and wanting it “Now”.
“The rise of ‘compensatory consumerism’ for the working classes is supplemented by conspicuous consumption of ‘hedonistic goods’ within all classes that add up to nothing more than conspicuous waste. The endless pursuit of satisfactions of wants, needs and desires that can never be fulfilled, necessarily parallels endless compounding growth in production.”
(David Harvey -“Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason”)
Capitalism requires consumption, growth requires increasing consumption (or more consumers – like a Ponzi scheme), but even zero growth will require a pattern of repeated consumption – or the capitalists will go out of business. Perhaps, like Harvey, we should be content to use our grandparents’ cutlery and eschew the capitalists tricks to make us buy more.
I have to say that I think you’re wrong
The capitalism we have works in the basis you suggest
But do markets and the profit motive really require that? Why?
G Hewitt says:
“in a post growth world such abuses [rent extraction] have to be curtailed”. ……
…..But we need to change too (something rarely mentioned) and be satisfied with less, or at least be satisfied with what we have rather than continually wanting more and wanting it “Now”.
I don’t agree that we must be satisfied with ‘less’. This is a counsel of despair and the basis of what neoliberals and their ilk wish us to believe whole they pile up the spoils.
The very essence of sustainable development is that we can have more, much more if we make that ‘more’ in away which does not wreck the natural resources that produce it.
There is a cycle. We take out and we put back and reuse. The killer at the moment is that as population has grown so large that we are experiencing strain on resources. To a great extent this is because we do not put back our residual waste.
A plant puts back all its material being to be recycled through composting for the next generation and other life around it. We don’t.
The energy for the entire cycle is Sunshine. Light. Fossil fuels are stored Sunshine which we are using to incredible excess instead of using the current account which is replenished daily. (And in many parts of the world is actually damaging because there is ‘too much’ of it creating deserts and the ‘need’ for air conditioning)
I have to agree with you about the problem of the human condition that says we ‘want it now’. But that is not really a problem it is a symptom. The true problem we should address is that what we ‘want’ today is what we ‘needed’ yesterday and didn’t provide in timely fashion.
‘Want’ is a negative condition. We want what we lack (by definition) That’s what the word means. There is only one cure for want and that is to provide for need before the want arises. As a species we have the capacity to achieve that. What we ‘want’ is the collective desire to meet our collective needs and the belief that we can do it.
As long as we have been talking about this, growth has been the opiate of the capitalist.
If we see the profit motive as being at the heart of a capitalist economy, that immediately begs a question – if some people can increase their wealth through a return on investment, does this mean others will lose wealth accordingly? “No!” exclaims the investor, “For we shall have growth!” As long as the economy as a whole expands, there will be more wealth/economic activity gained than lost – whether this means that there will be more winners than losers is a very different question, and one to which Piketty’s r > g provides a powerful answer. However, as long as growth persists, we can efficiently dodge many questions in inequality – why talk about how we are splitting the cake if the cake is getting bigger every day?
Any economy that is not based on the idea that steady growth is the norm would have to grapple much harder with questions of inequality. Imagine two scenarios:
A) you have an economy that is effectively frozen, there is no overall growth, because no individual business grows or shrinks. Stuff would still get produced and people would buy goods and services, but in a steady state. Managing this would require massive state control – essentially a planned economy without growth – and elimination of the individual profit motive, which seems as unfeasible as it would be overreaching.
B) alternatively, consider that great British invention, the lava lamp. It’s contents are in constant movement but the lamp as a whole never moves, nor grows or shrinks. This is achieved by a heat source at the bottom and passive cooling at the top, causing wax to rise and fall and the surrounding liquid to accommodate it. Equally, individual business could rise (allowing for individual success and innovation) and fall (allowing for failure of superseded technologies or poor systems), as long as they stay in balance. The job of facilitating these dynamics falls to the state – adding heat in the form of public investment encouraging growth in socially useful sectors, while cooling (through taxation) sectors that are determined to be socially harmful and providing solid walls of regulation to make sure the economic activity is socially and environmentally sustainable. Which sectors receive heating or cooling will change from time to time, though some (like healthcare or education) will naturally remain major inlets of state spending. On the whole, the state could facilitate highly competitive business environments, fully utilising the motivation deriving from private profits, without overall growth (ignoring short-term fluctuations). However, this would require a strong – courageous – state willing to confront the fact that this will require powerful individuals and businesses at the top losing to create space for the bottom and middle to rise.
Peter from Nairobi says:
“Any economy that is not based on the idea that steady growth is the norm would have to grapple much harder with questions of inequality. ”
And that would be ‘not before time’.
Re Lava Lamps: I’ve always rather wanted one. Now I have a reason to justify having one. It will be my inspiration.
I’m away to do the rounds of the charity shops immediately.
“I’m away to do the rounds of the charity shops immediately.” An excellent way to re-use…and be satisfied with less. But “I have to say I think you’re wrong” (both of you) You see, the neoliberals have pulled a double fast one – we think we must have never ending growth, that if we don’t and think we can be satisfied with less it is a counsel of despair and they have deliberately confused the concepts of “need” and “want” so that we don’t know if we need a new iPhone or just want one. And why do we need an iPhone anyway? or two cars or 3 foreign holidays or 20 pairs of shoes…….
In the long run, as JMK (might have) said, all species go extinct, sometimes due to exogenous factors like that comet heading our way, and sometimes due to their own “stupidity” such as appears to be happening to humans who seem to think infinite growth and use of resources is possible on a finite planet because a technological fix is just around the corner.
My counsel of despair is that disaster is certainly around the corner – soil erosion, water shortage and climate change will cause massive dislocation, loss of life and probably numerous violent conflicts a few decades from now – because despite many of us knowing so much about what is wrong (with economics, politics, fairness and equity etc) nobody knows how to get rid of the elites who are the problem in bringing about change.
There are many aspects to the question of Post Growth and much of the required thinking challenges many of the taboos around money.
On Minsky Steve Keen has done a great deal of work formalising Minsky’s theories into economic models His Minsky software is great fun to play with changing model parameters and running scenarios Here is a starter video from Steve Keen for those interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNFdPTKKYQ
A further aspect of Post growth capitalism is actually related to Energy returned on Energy invested and Dr Tim Morhgan has developed an index called seeds which tabulates where most major world economies are on the Energy Cliff. Tim postulates that the return of prosperity is challenged by the decreased and decreasing availability of cheap energy.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.com/2018/02/possibilist-perspective-on-post-growth.html
Here is the SourceForge download of Minsky the software Steve is using in the Video above.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/minsky/
Bernard Leitaers parable of the 11th round also figures in the landscape of looking at these Questions.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/09/money-does-not-initiate-economic.html
I wrote this to a friend this morning,
Hi Mike,
A lot of great things are happening with new technologies much of the application of such brilliant ideas relies upon a change of model for calculating profit and loss. I think that the Circular economy and blockchain technology offers a way to move from Use models over ownership models leading to Economies of scale through utilisation as opposed to economies of scale through production savings at scale. Localised portfolio solutions will lead to distributed production and a more cooperative as opposed to the competitive model, at least the possibility exists for that to happen. Thomas Raus ideas in this VPRO documentary are very powerful I think,
I blogged about it a few days ago, Dr Tim Morgans Blogs and his SEEDS index of energy costs is very good, I think he is not very up on technology and a lot of doom-mongers particularly Green types are anti-technology and very much closed minded when it comes to seeing the latent Potentials ( pun intended )
Last Bit of this post seems to be stuck in moderation?
I blog on Steemit when I remember too, it is a distributed platform with its own coin Blogger and word press are centralised platforms as are Google and Facebook and Youtube. I have played around with other streaming video sites but they all struggle at the moment as network adoption is still low Steemit will grow It is a very good platform we tube is a new streaming video platform again slowly getting its feet http://www.wetube.io/video/if-dirt-were-dollars-dirty-dimiter/ *
it’s not just new technologies either Mike a lot of work in Electricity was sidelined after the 1930’s when Oil took off / was promoted over other solutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWgkl7W9xU0
There are many aspects of distributed computing and block-chain ledgers which allow trust-less exchange the great change we are witnessing is the dis-intermediation of social relations as expressed through civil society.
James Burke in this Video gives a glimpse of this dis-intermediated world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pou1vggtkE
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2014/06/james-burkes-seminal-connections-series.html
at 2.48 He posits that states and Governments will no longer exist in 100 years time they will no longer be needed as their predication on Scarcity and conflict will simply no longer be valid and demonstrably so.
For the sharing economy here is Slocket if you do not know about Slocket you probably do not know about distributed computing and the aspects of Block-chain outside of the Bitcoin Bashing.
https://slock.it/
Tim says he sees no alternative to state-based solutions to this post-growth problem, I say that sort of thinking is part of the problem a paradigm shift requires building our political economy from the ground up based on first principles.
Roger G Lewis says:
….Interesting things with some interesting and encouraging links.
Thanks Roger.
Far too many dinosaurs in the Green movement who reject the (to me) obvious proposition that the way to sustainability is to harness technology suited to the purpose and phase out the mistaken processes of the past.
Much of the dinosaurism, I suspect is media propaganda which seeks to rubbish good and sensible progressive ideas at the behest of the established abusive, extractive industries.
Greens have been losing this perceptual battle for decades. The fossil fuel lobby has plentiful resources to promote its case and to buy political favour. The Trumps of this world are available for hire and only the black-hats can afford them.
A one degree celsius increase in Northern hemisphere sea temperature will keep us warm for about as long as it took to create the damage. Now that’s what I call recycling.
G Hewitt says:
“…. charity shops immediately.” An excellent way to re-use…and be satisfied with less.”
G, I don’t go to charity shops in order to be satisfied with less. I go to get what I want affordably. I’d rather have quality second hand than brand new tat.
“And why do we need an iPhone anyway? or two cars or 3 foreign holidays or 20 pairs of shoes…….”
We don’t. I’ve never had a smartphone, haven’t been abroad for …more than five years and my passport has expired. I confess to having more shoes than I actually need, but they do have different qualities to suit different circumstances.
All this consumption is the result of advertising which, as you imply, confuses ‘us’ about the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’. Advertising in fact creates ‘wants’. Artificial wants and dresses them, if it can, as ‘needs’. Imagine – some people feel the ‘need’ to dress fashionably ! It’s 45 years since I was suckered that way.
Africa however does need Mobile phones (smart or otherwise) and these are environmentally sound(ish) because they preclude the need for copper infrastructure, poles etc.
“My counsel of despair is that disaster is certainly around the corner — soil erosion, water shortage and climate change …” all these things are dealable with. Albeit we are cutting it fine with climate change I suspect.
The crux is economics. Strictly politics and economics. We have to win the argument that says we can’t afford to do what we need to do. We have to win the argument that says that we produce what we need because we need it, not because some wiseacre can screw money-profit from it.
When Milton Friedman declared that the business of business is profit he did us a massive disservice, because far too many people believed him and it’s a totally stupid proposition. Utterly vacuous. (Which might well explain why Margaret Thatcher understood what he was saying)
“nobody knows how to get rid of the elites who are the problem in bringing about change….” Graffiti in Athens spotted recently suggests ‘Eat the Rich’ apparently.
How do we feel about benevolent cannibalism ? I can think of a number of prime candidates from Westminster who would probably roast beautifully, have thick enough skin to produce excellent crackling and we need have no concern about the issue of sentience 🙂
“How do we feel about benevolent cannibalism ? I can think of a number of prime candidates from Westminster who would probably roast beautifully, have thick enough skin to produce excellent crackling and we need have no concern about the issue of sentience”. Why did nobody think of that before. We used to keep pigs, did the butchery ourselves (not the killing) and would be happy to help with jointing the carcases. And the great thing about pigs is that they will happily eat up the leftovers – I suspect some of the neoliberal parliamentarians would happily do the same – until they moved to the front of the queue.
But since we’re talking growth, most growth (stats) is entirely hocus and doesn’t count the debit side, like pollution, early death, climate change.
This Riffkind Talk is well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3M8Ka9vUA
“This Riffkind Talk is well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3M8Ka9vUA”
Is it about spit roasting politicians ?
Having now watched this link I realise it’s not exactly about spit-roasting politicians.
Much more radical and realistic. Great stuff.
Its something of a mixed bag Andy but worth watching I left this Comment.
The reason all this happens, will happen, might happen is possible has nothing to do with CO2 and Climate Change or Cows farting. A curates Egg and on balance a good talk this VPRO documentary is actually much better. http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2018/02/possibilist-perspective-on-post-growth.html for climate change do some reading.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/11/climate-change-agw-and-all-points-from.html
The talk is referenced back constantly to Climate Change and is not at all focused on Debt but very much upon productivity, where it ranks high for me are its angle on the circular economy and sharing economy and the idea of use rights over ownership rights.
With this sort of presentation the wise words of Hendy Morely are worth bearing in mind so that the whole idea can be consumed without pre judgement.
”The reader of Pope, as of every author, is advised to begin by letting him say what he has to say, in his own manner to an open mind that seeks only to receive the impressions which the writer wishes to convey. First let the mind and spirit of the writer come into free, full contact with the mind and spirit of the reader, whose attitude at the first reading should be simply receptive. Such reading is the condition precedent to all true judgment of a writer’s work. All criticism that is not so grounded spreads as fog over a poet’s page. Read, reader, for yourself, without once pausing to remember what you have been told to think´´.
Henry Morley.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/03/globalisation-un-entangled-found-poem.html
the idea before it was clothed in words
heard in minds, as uttered thought
the communication of arranged ideas
Thoughts lifting mist from the poet´s page.
Roger G,
The Jeremy Rifkind lecture is dynamite. Sure it’s A picture of future rather than THE picture of the future, but the startling thing is the extent to which the technologies this scenario is built on are with us now. No longer Sci fi, but working systems, albeit with need for refining, developing and rolling-out to scale.
I have a couple of forums in mind where this sort of material can be aired. And there is screeds more offering variants of these insights.
It is not to save the planet that we will use renewable energy from the sun and wind is because it is the only sustainable source of the energy we need, and economics will eventually mean it is therefore the only viable source.
The economic models we struggle with at present make that realisation obscure, but even the neoliberal neanderthals * can see the writing on the cave wall. The future of humanity is green or it will be short.
* Neanderthals get a bad press. I suspect they were much nicer than Home Sapiens and we killed them in a fit of jealousy. (or because they were tasty)