Given the finite nature of the earth system, do you think we can build a sustainable civilization within the confines of neoliberal global capitalism? If yes, how? How can we incentivize regenerative behaviour and disincentivize destruction of our ecological life support systems? If not, why not? Perhaps a less dramatic sounding way of asking a similar question is, can we continue to set indefinite GDP growth as our economic policy goal?
Note: some people see questions like this as a tacit endorsement of socialism (or similar). That is not my intent. People often talk about human ingenuity saving us from the climate crisis, and I believe it might, not through some deus ex machina technological miracle, but rather through the development of new, innovative social paradigms — distinct from any of the traditional western economic structures we’ve seen — that encourage regeneration.
OK, just chewing through some of this economic stuff, and I am loving it. I admit that I may be in way over my head here, some of this stuff is a little hard for me to really grasp, so I have been trying to think of specific examples that resonate with me. I am reading a book called "Welfare Ranching", and (I may be way off base here), but am feeling like "we are currently spending tons of taxpayer dollars to keep these 'cowboys' playing on our public lands (destroying them, actually), so what if we paid these same people the same money to just... not do anything." I mean, sure ride your horse, walk around in ropers, jerk off to the fictional, politically expedient, white male dominated culture that celebrates the story of genocide and conquest that we call 'western culture', but for god's sake stop running your damn cows. This is a tiny example of what (I'm hoping) I'm taking from these readings. That the idea that we have to keep producing something (in this case, beef), to keep our economy 'going' is a false narrative because what we're loosing is bigger than what we are producing. So what if we put the same value/money into the same things, but stop expecting to produce a THING, and start to expect the preservation of - everything else. Intimidated to join in the discussion thread, because again, feeling a little out of my league, but giving it a shot anyway.
Do we think that the goal of indefinite GDP growth is intrinsic to a capitalist system? As a resource economist, I believe in the idea of incorporating non-market values into the price system of capitalism. This is of course not totally a "free" market - it requires a functional government that applies and enforces taxes (and perhaps subsidies) - but to me this is still capitalism/ a free market that, if we could estimate non-market prices correctly, would maximize overall utility. It is interesting to think about applying these ideas to social issues as well, like inequality or community-building, but this seems harder to do...and, given the imminent environmental problems we face, I am tempted to continue the traditional economist's position of pushing these social problems to the side while we have bigger fish to fry.
I definitely have a much better understanding of/useful opinions about these pricing ideas of microeconomics than the macroeconomic system. Do we think environmental economics is missing from macroeconomics or just easier to focus on in the externalities framework of microeconomics?
Also I think population size is a really big thing missing from these discussions. Is it just unpalatable? Is it not pc to talk about when overconsumption is *also* a huge problem? Are the authors just assuming it will flatten in a good amount of time so they don't need to address it explicitly? It seems that to be in the green doughnut, we would need an explicit tradeoff between the standards we set for the various human rights/social metrics that are "ok" and population size. Setting the standards for these social metrics seems like a whole other, impossible-feeling can of worms.
OK, just chewing through some of this economic stuff, and I am loving it. I admit that I may be in way over my head here, some of this stuff is a little hard for me to really grasp, so I have been trying to think of specific examples that resonate with me. I am reading a book called "Welfare Ranching", and (I may be way off base here), but am feeling like "we are currently spending tons of taxpayer dollars to keep these 'cowboys' playing on our public lands (destroying them, actually), so what if we paid these same people the same money to just... not do anything." I mean, sure ride your horse, walk around in ropers, jerk off to the fictional, politically expedient, white male dominated culture that celebrates the story of genocide and conquest that we call 'western culture', but for god's sake stop running your damn cows. This is a tiny example of what (I'm hoping) I'm taking from these readings. That the idea that we have to keep producing something (in this case, beef), to keep our economy 'going' is a false narrative because what we're loosing is bigger than what we are producing. So what if we put the same value/money into the same things, but stop expecting to produce a THING, and start to expect the preservation of - everything else. Intimidated to join in the discussion thread, because again, feeling a little out of my league, but giving it a shot anyway.
Do we think that the goal of indefinite GDP growth is intrinsic to a capitalist system? As a resource economist, I believe in the idea of incorporating non-market values into the price system of capitalism. This is of course not totally a "free" market - it requires a functional government that applies and enforces taxes (and perhaps subsidies) - but to me this is still capitalism/ a free market that, if we could estimate non-market prices correctly, would maximize overall utility. It is interesting to think about applying these ideas to social issues as well, like inequality or community-building, but this seems harder to do...and, given the imminent environmental problems we face, I am tempted to continue the traditional economist's position of pushing these social problems to the side while we have bigger fish to fry.
I definitely have a much better understanding of/useful opinions about these pricing ideas of microeconomics than the macroeconomic system. Do we think environmental economics is missing from macroeconomics or just easier to focus on in the externalities framework of microeconomics?
Also I think population size is a really big thing missing from these discussions. Is it just unpalatable? Is it not pc to talk about when overconsumption is *also* a huge problem? Are the authors just assuming it will flatten in a good amount of time so they don't need to address it explicitly? It seems that to be in the green doughnut, we would need an explicit tradeoff between the standards we set for the various human rights/social metrics that are "ok" and population size. Setting the standards for these social metrics seems like a whole other, impossible-feeling can of worms.