The National Bureau of Economic Research Business Cycle Dating Committee has just announced its judgement that the current US recession began in December 2007. A year old, and the decline is just beginning to accelerate. As these forecasters quoted in the NY Times say, the recession is virtually certain to be the longest since World War II (in fact, since the 1929-33 slump), and quite possibly the deepest as well.
The only silver lining I can see is that we might not hear any more silliness about the “technical definition” of a recession being two quarters of negative growth.
John Quiggin 
Ian Gould @ 47:
China GDP (2007) $3.4 trillion USD
China Exports (2007) $1.2 trillion USD
I’ll bet my house it won’t grow by that much in 2009. Besides, even if Chinese domestic spending was growing at 100%, that wouldn’t come close to making up for the collapse in demand in the US, Europe, Japan etc
Most Chinese are natural savers. When times are tough they’ll save even more. You watch.
carbonsink,
Now subtract the imports from the exports to get their trade balance and see what it actually contributes. In any case, do you seriously believe the Chinese government statistics?
AR, have you taken on board what Malthus actually wrote, or only vulgarisations? He never denied that progress could defer the constraints he foresaw, he only supposed it couldn’t do so indefinitely (for pretty much the reasons Ikonoclast gave, about different rates of change of the different processes involved). His theory has poor predictive power, because short of hitting those constraints it cannot be said to have been tested – but it might still turn out to be correct. You cannot take lack of falsifiability as proof of falsity, you can only say it’s not a fruitful area to look at. Things could well still go wrong, and by then you would know.
Carbon Sink the value of Chinese exports is equivalent to roughly 33% of their GDP – but their contribution to Chinese economic growth is sufficiently lower than than that because:
a. domestic Chinese demand is growing faster than exports and has been for yesrs and
b. as I already pointed out, the value of Chinese exports is inflated because it includes the value of the imported components that go into making Chinese goods for export. As an even more extreme example, consider Singapore where exports are several times the size of the island’s total GDP because it’s a major trans-shipping hub.
Consider, a Taiwanese company ships components worth $10 to China, they put them in a locally paid case that costs a dollar to make; pay the assembly works 50 cents and ship them on the US as a DVD player work $12 wholssale. Who’s likely to be hurt more if the US buys fewer DVD players? China or Taiwan?
@Andrew – like you I am optimistic with regard to our capacity for innovation. Whilst I am more familiar with neuroscience I have colleagues and friends involved in other areas of research (eg biotech) and have had a keen interest in technological innovation for many years. However there is a lag between idea, proof of concept and commercial realisation – and most ideas probably have no commercial or widespread value even if true.
My concern is that we are about to enter into a period of high cost whilst resources decline for existing technologies yet new technologes have not reached commercial scale production. In the long term this is fine, but in the short to medium (next decade or two) life might be more difficult or worse for many people.
An important issue for developed nations into the next few decades is that there is no geographical necessity for the location of the innovations that will underpin the new technological base.
Lip service to ‘smart states’ or ‘creative nations’ won’t cut it. So even though we – as a world population – might innovate our way forward to a bright future, there is no particular reason that bright future will be brightest here in Australia.
Ian Gould @ 54:
I’d love to share your optimism. I’ve read in several places that the Chinese consumer really needs to “step up to the plate” if we’re going to get ourselves out of this mess. Unfortunately, much of what I’ve read suggests its not happening, and its unlikely to happen, at least in the short term.
But I hope you’re right.
Andrew Reynolds #50, your offensive denigration of Ike only diminishes yourself.
Humanity’s capacity for invention and progress will of course save us from extinction but at what cost. The invention and progress we need to avoid catastrophic environmental damage and consequent misery and death of large numbers of humans is quite different to what is generally being supported at this moment.
Do we continue with the ‘growth fetish’ which is plainly stupid, or do we encourage a new regime of frugality of procreation, consumption and environmental exploitation?
everybody knows that humans have a capacity for invention and technological progress. but that doesn’t mean that civilizations cannot fail – they have before. the question is will this invention and technological progress continue at the necessary exponential pace to keep up with population and economic growth, an especially pertinant question considering that this century is witnessing an industrial revolution in Asia that dwarfs the one that took place 200 years ago in Britain, when a whole world empire was available for exploitation.
Malthus was right in one regard – that population growth cannot increase exponentially. His solution was “moral restraint” – having less babies. In the twentieth century, contraceptive technology and the liberation of women have achieved this in the developed world – it is the developing world, where population growth is explosive at present, where measures must be taken to empower women and introduce family planning. unfortunately the Right has blocked these efforts at every turn.
now speaking of the developing world – remember that the largest country on Earth has, for the past twenty odd years – imposed a strict one child policy. this has contributed a large measure to China’s ability to raise living standards dramatically. imagine if over the past two generations every Chinese family could have had three to six kids instead of one. what would China look like today? what would be the impact on the wider world? You might not take Malthus seriosly, but the government of the world’s largest nation takes it seriously enough to impose extreme limits on reproductive freedom.
it’s easy to be sarcastic and entrust everything to inevitable exponential increase of invention and technological progress. it’s harder to be specific – how will the fertilizer be produced as topsoil is depleted and hydrocarbons become more expensive – how will water supplies be maintained at a reasonable cost – how will energy be produced in a manner that will not cause irreversible climate change, or if irreversible climate change is already underway, how will we adapt to it without drastically reducing our standards of living.
it’s not enough to entrust all these things to an invisible hand as if that’s the end of the story. they are real technical questions requiring technical answers. So it’s very easy for an economist to address the questions by waving invisible hands around – it’s a bit harder for the engineers and scientists who actually have to work out the solutions.
“I’d love to share your optimism. I’ve read in several places that the Chinese consumer really needs to “step up to the plate” if we’re going to get ourselves out of this mess. Unfortunately, much of what I’ve read suggests its not happening, and its unlikely to happen, at least in the short term.”
I’m optimistic only in the sense that so far I think the evidence is there for a moderately severe recession in the US and a somewhat less serious recession in Australia.
As far as I can see, the evidence for a depression simply isn’t there.
Maybe when US unemployment doubles (putting at roughly half the peak reached during the 1930’s) I’ll start taking the depression claims seriously.
Chinese domestic consumption is limited by China’s Dickensian social system. Chinese people have to save in case of medical emergency (China’s healthcare system is utterly evil, it makes the US looks decent), and for their kids education, which is becoming ever more expensive.
if the Chinese government wants to increase consumer spending they could do something about the abysmal state of public health and education there.
Actually Gerard the Chinese announced a major reform of the medical system about six months ago and pledged tens of billions od US$ in additional spending onrural medical services.
In response to Obama’s new “green stimulus” package, the neocons are now saying that $100b is too much to spend on programs which create jobs and fight climate change, as opposed to borrowing $8t to bail out defunct car makers and banks…
NYT, 4/12/08
“Now they’re talking about some large amount of money — what, $100 billion? — and spending it on windmills, job training, whatever,” said David Kreutzer, who studies energy economics and climate change at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. “But where do you get the $100 billion in the first place? Are you going to take $100 billion from some other part of the economy, are you going to tax some people to pay for it? Are you just going to print it or borrow it? The money has to come from somewhere.”
There are not enough resources left in the world for India and China to complete their modernisation and create 2 billion more middle class consumers.
Ironically, when the global crash comes, peasant communities and peasant societies (as large parts of India and China still are) may well cope better than Europe, Nth America and Australia. The peasant superpowers may yet dominate the world.
If one were a (Machievellian) Chinese leader this is exactly what one would be planning; a tiny elite, 300 million middle class and a billion peasants. Mind you, the way the world is headed it cannot sustain even the current 1 billion or so middle class lifestyles around the world.
Ikonoclast @ 63 said ;
“There are not enough resources left in the world for India and China to complete their modernisation and create 2 billion more middle class consumers..”
Singapore has a population density of 6,489 people per square kilometre and is a bearable density to live in.
South Australia has a land area of 1,043,514 square kilometres.
The worlds population of about 6.7 billion people could fit comfortably into an urban area with the equivalent density of Singapore and only take up a land area the equivalent of South Australia, “About” 0.72% of the worlds total land area of 148,940,000 km²
Maybe I am missing something, but I fail to see how we are close to wearing out our welcome on this planet, let alone the universe which is infinite.
@Tony #64 ecological footprint is the measure you are missing Tony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint
Yes Ian, I heard about that reform – part of Hu and Wen’s “New Socialist Countryside”. But I’ll believe it when I see it – what fraction of the promised money that is actually raised by the government will probably go primarily into graft. and if any journalist wants to investigate they’ll probably end up with a horse’s head being delivered to their front door by the local government/mafia.
Anyway I think that the emphasis on spending on rural health just goes to show that the government thinks that health is a rural problem – but it’s not. The difference between urban and rural China is that the urban Chinese have to fork out huge amounts of money out of their modest incomes to pay for “healthcare” (which in many cases is just an opportunity for “doctors” and “pharmacists” to cheat whatever money they can get out of their patient , wheras the rural folk simply go without altogether. I’m sure that rural health in China must be dreadful beyond my imagination, but the healthcare system in China’s cities is still a complete abomination, and the government doesn’t give a rat’s @ss.
Sometimes I think that the Chinese government’s attitude toward healthcare is part of their overall plan to limit the population. Just let the poor die, the place is too crowded already.
also rural health is not really what I’m talking about when I say that the Chinese have to save in case of a medical situation. I’m talking about the urban Chinese here – the rural Chinese are basically living at subsistance level and can’t save anything.
Tony, instead of dividing the world’s total land area by population, try dividing the world’s total topsoil and freshwater by population. I think you are missing the fact that humans do more than simply inhabit space. They also eat food and drink water, among other activities. As for the infinite universe, perhaps you could go and try eking an existence off another planet (preferably exosolar), or even better, out of the intergalactic vacuum. let us know how it turns out.
“They also eat food and drink water”
The water cycle dictates that freshwater is only limited by the suns energy, which in human terms is nearly infinite.
If mankind chose to live in an urban environment the density of Singapore, that would leave 99.28% of the worlds landmass to scratch out enough food.
0.72% is a pretty small footprint.
Ikonoclast,
Another bald statement, without even any attempt to provide evidence or argument. Thanks for that.
.
gerard, others,
The only real limit for just about everything is energy. With sufficient energy you can desalinate (for example) enough water to give everyone on the planet more water than you can possibly need. With sufficient energy you can re-cycle everything that is used into new items to use. You can break down the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into carbon and oxygen etc. etc. etc.
Even on this planet there are more than enough resources to support an enormously increased population if we use resources in this way.
The only question is where does the energy come from?
We have been answering this question for the last century or two by the use of fossil fuels. This has been cheap and convenient, but these will (eventually) deplete. I am personally confident that there are enough possible alternative sources out there (including several that are currently being used) to replace fossils as they deplete. As Tony G points out we do not actually require much land to live on.
If you want to imagine that humanity is not capable of working out how to use the alternatives, fine – but I do not share your sad view of the future.
Cornucopians make me angry. I see them as a threat to my children. It also frustrates me that otherwise intelligent people could be so utterly lacking in wisdom.
Tony G and Andrew Reynolds, how can you seriously suggest that where Humans dwell is the only ecological footprint we have on this planet? How can you miss the news that major fisheries are collapsing around the world? How can you not know that more Humans equals less other species, or if you do, why is it acceptable to you for Humans to contimue to extinguish other species.
Neither of you bothered to read the link nanks posted, did you? Why do you want more Humans over-running this planet? Can’t you see the beauty in the natural world?
If you cornucopians want a challenge, why not apply yourselves to an economic system which doesn’t require the growth fetish. Use your ‘invention and progress’ to create a more egalitarian and sustainable world.
If you think most of humanity likes being jammed together in an artificial environment you are wrong, witness the exodus from cities on weekends.
so the people of the Sahel will buy their water from nuclear powered desalinization plants? at a reasonable price I’m sure.
it may be a happy view to be personally confident, but it’s not a sad view to be worried about the specifics.
Salient Green,
Please stop using labels.
Fisheries are collapsing due to incorrect use of the resource, not because fish are incapable of reproduction. Fix the system and there will be enough fish. Tragedy of the Commons every time.
On the “more humans” bit – you seem to believe that there will always be more and more humans. This is not backed up by evidence. The evidence is that population growth tops out as the level of wealth increases, so development actually reduces the total growth in numbers. In the wealthy countries this is actually in reverse, with the best example being Japan.
.
gerard,
It is a sad view to be so worried that it clouds your ability to deal with those specifics.
The people of the Sahel have been using solar powered desalination of their well water for decades. Australians have been using wind-powered methods to raise water from the artesian basins for over a century. No nuclear power in either place – just good innovation and applied knowledge. No reason why either one cannot be extended. OTOH, if you want to build the nuclear plant to crack a nut, go ahead.
I’m not cracking a nut here. Desertification in the Sahel is causing extreme distress which is likely to worsen, and even a first world country like Australia is finding it difficult to deal with the collapse of its major river systems that has been the result of our course so far. There are many books on the specifics of resource depletion and how expensive the transition is likely to be considering the low EROEI of most of the available alternatives – it’s not ‘sad’ to be worried, it’s perfectly rational. Especially if you live in the 3rd world where the pain is likely to be concentrated.
A world civilization that urgently needs to restructure its industrial systems inside out is not going to get there easily by concentrating all of its energy on generating immediate-term profits, which is what it has been doing.
Andrew Reynolds, you don’t listen to anyone else here so I have no reason to listen to your request to ‘stop using labels’.
It has already been said in this thread that the planet does not have the resources to bring the entire population up to a class where they would voluntarily reduce population.
It has also been said in this thread that the Earth’s resources are over-exploited, and I added the point that the oceans too were so. Therefore, fixing one system will only lead to more pressure on the other.
Population decline in developed countries is good and needs to be encouraged while assisting the developing world to do the same and raise their standard of living.
SG,
Where have I not listened? I may have not agreed, but they are clearly not the same thing. If you like an echo chamber, then I suggest using a wheat silo. If you only want agreement then talk about your opinions alone in that wheat silo. If you comment on a blog then, subject always to the wishes of the host, you can expect some disagreement.
Glad you agree with the “raise their standard of living” bit, though.
Salient Green@ 71 said
“Why do you want more Humans over-running this planet?”
Salient, as I stated above humanity is only a minor infliction in the scheme of things with an achievable actual footprint of 0.72% of the worlds land mass. Considering the surface area of the world has another 70% that is water, humanity is even more insignificant.
The latest population projections put the total fertility rates (TFRs) below 2.1 , the replacement rate from 2028 see XLS HERE
“The probability that growth in the world’s population will end during this century is 88%, somewhat higher than previously assessed”
In their most recent research the IIASA are saying the most likely scenario is the world population will peak at 9 billion in 2070 and start declining from there. That’s right declining n.b. the first steps toward extinction not overpopulation.
There is heaps of room and heaps of resources. It is not a question of over exploitation, more one of mismanagement and equitable distribution of those resources.
@TonyG – I don’t think the physical space people occupy is a particularly useful measure of footprint. Let’s say everyone is squeezed into a big mob – how does the food get produced, how does it get transported etc etc. The footprint should include the resources used to maintain that mob.
This is where the ecological footprint provides a useful measure.
nanks.
I hear what you are saying, I just do not agree with you.
A “physical” footprint can be measured and touched and is in fact real. For that reason it is useful.
An “ecological footprint” is just a conceptual view of reality. Its usefulness is yet to be proved in the real world.
Tony G – a road takes up space, any transport system does. Food must be grown – even if in a vat – that takes up space. They are physical things, as physical as a person’s body. You can model all these things realistically and they certainly exist in the world we actually inhabit.
You can estimate upper bounds of productivity of waterways and oceans and so forth. No more a fiction than modelling people as stationary units of a certain volume.
Andrew Reynolds, I see the problem. Ike and nanks and gerard have stated opinions and supported them with facts which you have also treated as opinions. I could suggest some good sites to broaden your knowledge about the state of the natural world but they wouldn’t fit your ideology.
It would be good if you answered my other questions.
SG,
They have presented opinions as facts. Where I have stated an opinion I have made it obvious (I hope) that it is an opinion. Where it is a fact I have, again I hope, presented it as such.
If you regard something as an obvious fact, I must apologise if I ask for some verification of it.
Perhaps you could point me to a specific question I have missed, or something I have presented as a fact which you regard as an opinion. Either will do.
.
gerard,
Apologies, I missed your #74. You presented desalination from nuclear as a possible solution – perhaps employing a little bit of straw man there. I have not advocated nuclear power under those circumstances. Personally, I would regard using a nuclear plant as overkill where a big plastic sheet and some salty water would more than do.
In any case, desertification in the Sahel is at least partially and IMHO almost entirely due to the sorts of policies that concentrate power in the governments of the region, with short-term thinking the almost inevitable result of the greed and cariciousness of their governments. You will forgive me, I hope, if I do not see more government action as being a solution.
These, for example, are opinions presented as facts:
Two opinions with something I accept as a fact in the middle – but the fact is not going to be solved by more government intervention (IMHO) as it is the government that have ignored the tragedy of the commons in the first place, too busy helping their own people to actually realise that the root cause has not been dealt with.
Value judgement followed by opinion.
At least two opinions, neither backed up with, say, evidence.
Another opinion. Any evidence? Not on this thread unless I missed it.
Can you point to any facts you and the others you mentioned have actually brought up that were both non-trivial and have not been answered? Just one would be good. Any one.
Seems you just cannot escape the 2nd law of thermodynamics in any system, entropy and disorder.
AR, do your own research or stay delusional. Try The Oil Drum, Oceana, RealClimate, Green Car Congress, Treehugger.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/growth-economics-on-a-finite-planet/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/september-23-2008-ecological-debt-day.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/china-eco-footprint-is-growing.php
Any day now AR and Tony G are going to fire up that ole fuson reactor and everything will be business as usual. All our meat and fish will come from intensive farms where the polluting wastes will be filtered and recycled. Even the anti-biotics will be filtered out with all that cheap energy. Anti-biotics did you say? Those over-used things that don’t work so good anymore which are necessary for intensive farming? We’ll just slip down to the Amazon and find a few more. Whats that, you destroyed it all for beef cattle and biodiesel?
Current world population growth is about 1%. Thats about 67million more mouths to feed every year. 67million more cars, mobile phones, computers, TVs. 3x Australias population every year polluting and trampling on the ever barer grass. Better get cracking on that fusion power boys. Any day now.
SG, clearly fusion power is overkill, plastic sheets and salty water will suffice for our civilization’s water needs (if it’s good enough for the people of the Sahel it must be pretty effective). The Australian government is wasting its time trying to deal with the Murray-Darling collapse, since the free-market will take good care of our water requirements just like it’s been doing so well all this time. But if you want fusion power, just leave it to the invisible hand, and it will eventuate just in the nick of time. Just make sure you don’t let any governments get involved in its development – that might distort the fusion power market.
Salient Green, you may be interested in the article “Fusion Illusions” by particle physicist Michael Dittmar in The Final Energy Crisis (2nd edition) Pluto Press (2008) (RRP AU$44.95) edited by Sheila Newman. His description of the staggering technical and logistic problems that need to be overcome if nuclear fusion is ever to work should confirm to anyone that the hope held out that nuclear fusion will become a source unlimited energy is a pipe dream.
—
Andrew Reynolds refusal to contemplate the basic mathematics entailed in giving hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians the same material living standards enjoyed by the middle classes in the first world is yet further confirmation that the ideology of economic neo-liberalism that he upholds is in no way scientific or in any way based on an understanding of the material world in which we live.
That the destiny of so many countries across the planet is still in the hands of similarly seemingly deluded people should be of grave concern to us all.
To those interested in considering the mathematics, I commend the article “The Chinese Car Bomb” by Andrew McKillop also in the abovementioned The Final Energy Crisis.
it’s not a matter of refusing to consider the mathematical impossibility of giving hundreds of millions of 3rd world people a 1st world living standard. it’s more a philosophy that regards the poor as superfluous garbage who don’t deserve any more than the market will provide to them (plastic sheets and salty water).
“the basic mathematics entailed in giving hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians the same material living standards enjoyed by the middle classes in the first world is”
I don’t think you should think of this in terms of “giving”. There’s no entitlement to being rich in this world — you sound like a patronizing Westerner. The world is a competitive place, and I don’t see why the average Chinese citizen is somehow going to be worth a tenth of the average Australian or American in the future, especially given the trajectories of their education system and infrastructure development. If there really are such finite resources, an alternative is that China becomes comparatively richer by being smarter and more industrious than other places, and thus other rich countries comparatively poorer. That’s not giving — it’s taking.
I don’t want to attack Andrew over his views – at least he enters into a public debate. But I would like to put this question to him.
Assume infinite energy resources.
How would you place the current protein consumption levels onto a sustainable basis? That is, all inputs (outside of energy) are recovered. This is the sort of possibility I’m interpreting your previous posts as indicating is possible either now or in the next few years – given existing technology and the will to achieve such a program.
gerard, you are, of course right. The selfish greedy elites now in control of our destiny do, indeed, regard the poor, both in the First World and the Third World as superfluous garbage. However, you still appear to be side-stepping on of the most critical questions of our age.
It serves the interests of those wealthy elites to pretend that it is possible for this planet to provide such material prosperity and that they, in fact, intend to spread to all the people of our planet (or, at least, all those with sufficient drive and determination) the material prosperity of First World middle class living standards. Listen, for example, to Rupert Murdoch rant in “The global middle class roars”, the fifth of his propaganda broadcasts to his Australian subjects, otherwise known as the “Boyer Lectures”:
Of course, whilst elsewhere paying token lip service to the global ecological crisis we all face, Murdoch makes no mention of how our natural capital, both renewable and non-renewable, has been destroyed in order to raise the material consumption levels of some in those countries (and he ignores how misleading measures such as the GDP have both exaggerated the prosperity of many and concealed actual decline in the living standards of most others). Instead, he would apparently have us belief that all this wealth has been conjured up at no ecological cost whatsoever.
We have a serious problem of population overshoot. The only way we can hope to fix this is by without delay implementing steps to prevent further population growth and by ending the profligate consumption of the wealthy both in the First and the Third World starting with the likes of Rupert Murdoch himself.
Of course, most of use will also have to be prepared to accept materially more modest standards of living if we are to hope to pull through this crisis.
If we had heeded the timely warnings of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome in the 1970’s the task before us now would not be nearly as difficult.
conrad, maybe the Chinese will want to get rich the same way that the West got rich – by going out and conquering the rest of the world. Maybe they can make some money by addicting the British to opium at gunpoint.
conrad, whether or not the wealth of the world should be more equitably shared the fact remains that for many decades the Australian public were told that China’s economic growth would increase everyone’s living standards, when common sense and intuition should have warned us that a growing Chinese economy would draw upon the same non-renewable natural resources that our own economy also depends and that ordinary Australians would be forced to compete with slave labour working conditions in China.
I think it’s time that the globalisation propagandists acknowledged their past deceit and its time that those who have the most obscenely wasteful lifestyles in the First World led the way by sharing their wealth with the people of the Third World before expecting poor people from the First World to do the same.
“globalisation propagandists acknowledged their past deceit”
What deceit? Hundreds of millions of people have come out of poverty at very little expense to the average Australian, and if China gets rich enough, we won’t be competing with slave wages in any case. If Australia happens to have wasted the huge amounts of money that came from selling all those resources, then who’s to blame anyway ? This is hardly the fault of people that think globalisation is good — it has made billions for Australia. You are better off blaming the people who fritter money away on useless things in Australia.
It seems to me the main lesson for those that think resources are extremely finite is that it would be a good time to start trying to think of technology that is mutually beneficial or admit that some things like nuclear power are better than the current alternatives. I’m sure the average Chinese citizen would just love to have some nice sources of cheap clean power — and since they’re going to have it whether people in Australia happen to like it or not (being dirty and rich is better than clean and poor), the main mitigation for all these problems is going to be better technology.
I see my points about the ecological carnage in China, the unsustainable levels of consumption of the world’s finite non-renewable natural resources, and unsuitable indexes of prosperity such as the GDP, upon which conrad’s claims are based, have gone right over his head.
Conrad asks “what deceit?”
The deceit was manifold.
One of the lies was that everyone’s material prosperity would rise as a consequence of globalisation, when, in fact, the objective material living standards (if we disregard the nonsensical GDP and measures of inflation) of most have fallen.
Another was the (racist) promise that only the dreary boring work would go the Third World, when, in fact, much of the skilled middle class livelihoods have also been off-shored.
If the globalisation proponents had believed this outcome to be fair and reasonable, then, at least they should have told us so at the outset.
conrad wrote “… it would be a good time to start trying to think of technology that is mutually beneficial …”
The Final Energy Crisis edited by Sheila Newman does precisely that. It neither rules out nor uncritically endorses a number of technologies (with the exception of bio-fuels, and nucler fusion) – nuclear fision, geothermal, wind, solar, tidal, hydrelectric, etc.
But it does make the point that all technoligies, whether ‘renewable’ or more established, incur considerable ecological costs and that we can’t expect any to support the ever greater levels of material consumption for ever larger numbers of people that so many economists still insist is possible.
“the objective material living standards (if we disregard the nonsensical GDP and measures of inflation) of most have fallen”
Are you living in the same world as me? For whom have material living standards gone down since, say, 1970 (excluding places in Africa)? In places like Australia, the majority of the population has better education, healthcare, housing, and cheaper disposable goods. Life expectancies have also gone up. Ditto for most of Asia. You can complain about other things all you want, but life as an individual is surely better for most.
“unsuitable indexes of prosperity such as the GDP, upon which conrad’s claims are based, have gone right over his head.”
You can make up whatever index you want, but in the end being dirty and rich is better than being clean an poor (not that this second one exists — things like sanitation etc. cost money). You might not want to admit that, but most people in China will. I also think it works like a U-shaped curve. The traditional method to become rich and clean has been to be dirty first.
conrad,
Simon Kuznets, who devised the GDP measure in the 1930’s for different purpose than what it is used for today warned against it being misused in the way that it has been by economists (see Page 5 of Economia by Geoff Davies).
It’s a ridiculous measure of prosperity, because it counts all economic activity, including, for example, fixing up the damage caused by fires, floods, earthquakes, civil unrest etc, as contributing towards prosperity.
Yes, levels of consumption have increased, but does this equate to greater prosperity?
Also, have all increases in the cost of living been taken into account in inflation?
The most glaring omission is the cost of housing which had driven many into poverty. What about car parking charges, toll charges, etc. How many people own cars, mobile phones, computers etc out of necessity and not choice, because their livelihoods now depend upon them?
Have you noticed that most are forced to work longer hours these days? How man ordinary households can hope to survive on one income?
Have you noticed how complicated life is these days? How congested our traffic is, etc, etc?
Where are these factors measured?
I wrote of this in the Online Opinion article “Living standards and our material prosperity” (at this moment off-line) of 6 Sep 2007. Most contibutors to the discussion agreed with my arguments.
Also, the GDP fails to measure many activities to which monetary values are not assigned, particularly in 3rd world agricultural societies. The idiocy of using the GDP to measure Third World prosperity and to compare the performance of countries that have undergone globalisation with those who have not, is shown up in “Dr. Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty: A Political Review” of 18 Jul 2005 by George Caffentzis:
‘extreme poverty means an “income of $1 per day per person, measured at purchasing power parity.”‘ is an inadequate description in another way. I recently posted the following at the Mises blog, which illustrates how it is inadequate:-
…
gerard Said:
“clearly fusion power is overkill, plastic sheets and salty water will suffice for our civilization’s water needs”
Maybe you could piss in this and have a perpetual supply of potable water.
interesting contraption Tony G. do you think it could convert your comments into something useful?