Enough Already
2007-06-17 18:05:46 UTC
Let's examine what's really going on behind all the hype of "economic
growth."
There was a time when jobs didn't need to be "created" to keep people
busy and provide paychecks. People just did what they needed to stay
alive. They gathered, grew or hunted food, and commerce was done
through barter. Life was simple and crude by today's standards, but
mostly sustainable.
After awhile, things naturally got more complicated, trading distances
increased and people sought more from life. Time passed and money
(coinage at first) became essential for pragmatic reasons. It was a
workable concept in theory, but nature had existed in balance without
it for millions of years. Nobody had been putting price tags on
resources they didn't fully understand.
Due to human nature, money was quickly prone to abuse. The
introduction of credit notes was a turning point, since it allowed
something from nothing in the short term (millions today still don't
see the danger of that.) The value of goods and services became skewed
and manipulated by greed, lies and sales techniques. Most
significantly, human activities became detached from the natural
systems that support them. Crafty people began believing that the
money supply could expand indefinitely without physical restrictions.
This was the beginning of "economic growth" as we know it. Petroleum
(the burning of ancient solar energy) allowed people to replace
pragmatic conservatism with greed.
For a time, during the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th
Century, economic growth was creating gains in human welfare.
Production efficiency increased as manufacturing scale grew. Many
burdens of dealing directly with nature were lifted. Hygiene improved,
death rates dropped and the population grew, and grew, and grew.
Throughout it all, nature was being stripped and poisoned but it
seemed intact enough to handle the load.
At some point (the exact time is debatable, but the 1950's are a good
benchmark) the benefits of growth and mass production were being lost
to growing waste and congestion. People were not feeling better off
than their predecessors. Large expenditures like homes and cars were
not getting easier to afford, despite tricks with cost of living
adjustments. National deficits were reaching unforeseen amounts. The
welfare state was getting out of control.
Today, people remain unaware that trade deficits reflect carrying-
capacity overload. Borrow from Peter to pay Paul economies can't last,
yet they are the foundation of modern trade. Free markets chase
distant resources and consumer populations like lawyers chasing
ambulances. Nations that have finally achieved zero population growth
call for more births when they should be seeking a steady state.
As of mid-2007 the world population is growing by over 70 million
annually. The old dream of perpetual economic growth persists, but, in
developed nations there would be relatively little GNP/GDP growth were
it not for population growth. The two have become synonymous and
people haven't paid attention. Outside of specific technical
innovations like computers, the economy can't grow and pay off debts
without increasing its physical size. This is not economic growth,
it's overpopulation. It's a cancerous process no matter how many at
the top of the pyramid benefit.
Nature is shrinking as economic expansion continues around the clock.
Nature's ability to sustain the physical underpinnings of the economy
is being destroyed daily. This is critical. We can't keep growing the
population and hope to solve problems like global warming,
overfishing, over-logging, traffic congestion, high home prices,
crowded schools, crowded prisons, crowded parks, crowded skies, noise
pollution and the general multiplication of ignorance. But few people
really take a stance against growthism. They just seek more of it to
fix its own ills. Economic growth steals from nature like a drug
addict steals from his neighbors.
A strange concept has been invented called "sustainable growth," which
tries to wish-away the physical realities of more consumption and
pretend the money supply can keep expanding. Urban planners came up
with the idea of "smart growth," which pretends that sprawl can be
controlled by redefining it as bad planning (not too many people).
They ignore the fact that denser cities only create denser crowds in
vacation spots. "Mitigation" is the buzzword for dealing with these
mathematically impossible predicaments. This environmental mitigation
itself creates jobs; just one example of wealth from thin air. For
details on the illusory value of money, see http://enough_already.tripod.com/money.htm.
The supposed benefits of more jobs and production are constantly
negated by longer work hours, more land use and more resource
consumption. The number of average people aware of this predicament
seems small. At least their actions don't reflect real awareness. The
usual thought-process is to stay fixated on money and blame the
government for mismanaging its allocation. Respect for scarcity was
largely forgotten when we started burning oil
Everyone should wake up and see growthism for what it really is:
constant overcrowding and depletion. Nobody is winning this zero sum
game. Birth control is really the only technology that can save the
planet.
E.A.
http://enough_already.tripod.com/
When animals breed out of control we call it overpopulation.
When humans breed out of control we call it "economic growth."
growth."
There was a time when jobs didn't need to be "created" to keep people
busy and provide paychecks. People just did what they needed to stay
alive. They gathered, grew or hunted food, and commerce was done
through barter. Life was simple and crude by today's standards, but
mostly sustainable.
After awhile, things naturally got more complicated, trading distances
increased and people sought more from life. Time passed and money
(coinage at first) became essential for pragmatic reasons. It was a
workable concept in theory, but nature had existed in balance without
it for millions of years. Nobody had been putting price tags on
resources they didn't fully understand.
Due to human nature, money was quickly prone to abuse. The
introduction of credit notes was a turning point, since it allowed
something from nothing in the short term (millions today still don't
see the danger of that.) The value of goods and services became skewed
and manipulated by greed, lies and sales techniques. Most
significantly, human activities became detached from the natural
systems that support them. Crafty people began believing that the
money supply could expand indefinitely without physical restrictions.
This was the beginning of "economic growth" as we know it. Petroleum
(the burning of ancient solar energy) allowed people to replace
pragmatic conservatism with greed.
For a time, during the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th
Century, economic growth was creating gains in human welfare.
Production efficiency increased as manufacturing scale grew. Many
burdens of dealing directly with nature were lifted. Hygiene improved,
death rates dropped and the population grew, and grew, and grew.
Throughout it all, nature was being stripped and poisoned but it
seemed intact enough to handle the load.
At some point (the exact time is debatable, but the 1950's are a good
benchmark) the benefits of growth and mass production were being lost
to growing waste and congestion. People were not feeling better off
than their predecessors. Large expenditures like homes and cars were
not getting easier to afford, despite tricks with cost of living
adjustments. National deficits were reaching unforeseen amounts. The
welfare state was getting out of control.
Today, people remain unaware that trade deficits reflect carrying-
capacity overload. Borrow from Peter to pay Paul economies can't last,
yet they are the foundation of modern trade. Free markets chase
distant resources and consumer populations like lawyers chasing
ambulances. Nations that have finally achieved zero population growth
call for more births when they should be seeking a steady state.
As of mid-2007 the world population is growing by over 70 million
annually. The old dream of perpetual economic growth persists, but, in
developed nations there would be relatively little GNP/GDP growth were
it not for population growth. The two have become synonymous and
people haven't paid attention. Outside of specific technical
innovations like computers, the economy can't grow and pay off debts
without increasing its physical size. This is not economic growth,
it's overpopulation. It's a cancerous process no matter how many at
the top of the pyramid benefit.
Nature is shrinking as economic expansion continues around the clock.
Nature's ability to sustain the physical underpinnings of the economy
is being destroyed daily. This is critical. We can't keep growing the
population and hope to solve problems like global warming,
overfishing, over-logging, traffic congestion, high home prices,
crowded schools, crowded prisons, crowded parks, crowded skies, noise
pollution and the general multiplication of ignorance. But few people
really take a stance against growthism. They just seek more of it to
fix its own ills. Economic growth steals from nature like a drug
addict steals from his neighbors.
A strange concept has been invented called "sustainable growth," which
tries to wish-away the physical realities of more consumption and
pretend the money supply can keep expanding. Urban planners came up
with the idea of "smart growth," which pretends that sprawl can be
controlled by redefining it as bad planning (not too many people).
They ignore the fact that denser cities only create denser crowds in
vacation spots. "Mitigation" is the buzzword for dealing with these
mathematically impossible predicaments. This environmental mitigation
itself creates jobs; just one example of wealth from thin air. For
details on the illusory value of money, see http://enough_already.tripod.com/money.htm.
The supposed benefits of more jobs and production are constantly
negated by longer work hours, more land use and more resource
consumption. The number of average people aware of this predicament
seems small. At least their actions don't reflect real awareness. The
usual thought-process is to stay fixated on money and blame the
government for mismanaging its allocation. Respect for scarcity was
largely forgotten when we started burning oil
Everyone should wake up and see growthism for what it really is:
constant overcrowding and depletion. Nobody is winning this zero sum
game. Birth control is really the only technology that can save the
planet.
E.A.
http://enough_already.tripod.com/
When animals breed out of control we call it overpopulation.
When humans breed out of control we call it "economic growth."
