"It is time for reform, not the minor tinkering that constitutes reform in current political debate, but fundamental change."

Don't tell me, lemme guess: centralised government control of everything?

This is the Achilles heel of capitalism. The elephant in the room that everyone studiously ignores. Capitalism is not possible without never-ending growth, both in output and consumption. The apologists for capitalism would have you believe that technology will solve any problems and the world is infinite. Any person who opens their eyes to reality will see this for the self serving, wishful thinking it is.

Capitalism worked well for a time of growth and development as we have gone through for the last 400 odd years but there comes a time, and that time is now, where we have to step back and say enough. We have grown, progressed and prospered well from capitalism but now it is becoming pathological and destructive. Both to our environment and our society. The endless wars, consumption and environmental crises that are all par for the course with capitalism will only worsen until people realise that it is the system of authoritarian social economics that we live under that is the root cause of it all.

Common-sense does indeed demand radical change, but like all fundamentalisms, capitalism will go on extracting the last drop and the last penny unto total collapse and beyond. As you say Mikk, the apologists and devotees of the system refuse to acknowledge that one glaring and non-negotiable fact; that capitalism is based on endless growth in a closed system. As the author says, it grows or it implodes. Peak oil is shaping up as far more devastating than climate change (though they're part and parcel) because the effects will be dramatic, multivalent and concerted. We can continue to fob off climate change but peak oil, antithetical to capitalism, has the potential to halt everything with far more devastating effects than any political revolution.
Ironically, for once, the poor nations should fare much better than the wealthy ones, whose corpulent masses are so long remote from nature that they have no survival skills.
Interesting times ahead.

This is a hard article to digest. I don’t believe the main tenet: that capitalism is inherently dependent on growth. That is; dependent on the continuous expansion of supply and demand.

There is no reason why we can’t develop healthy capitalistic regimes with stable economies and populations. Some western European countries and small island states have essentially done this for a long time.

I can’t see any reason why a political party couldn’t be very successful if it pushed the line of a stable population and regime of sustainability, in Australia and in any developed country.

The Stable Population Party is up and running: http://www.populationparty.com/. Hopefully at the next federal election, they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

With the help of Sustainable Population Australia: http://www.population.org.au/ and people like Dick Smith, Kelvin Thomson, Bob Carr, etc, and with a great deal of concern about continuous rapid growth in the general community, we CAN achieve the essential swing away from continuous expansionism in this country.

As for being prepared for peak oil, or more to the point; being prepared for rising fuel prices well before any shortages of supply hit us, it goes hand in hand with a regime of stable population and sustainability, and there should be no reason why we can’t fully address it within our brand of democracy and capitalism.

But we really do need to get our collective headspace in order very soon.

Dear Ludwig
I find myself increasingly marginalised on OLO (which is as it should be since OLO is of course emblematic of the wider benighted community), which is good, it lends me objectivity.
OK, bully for you, you don't "believe" that capitalism is dependent on growth; why not? Can you defend your faith in solid-state capitalism (like cold-fusion) in the real world; that is, capitalism without the profit motive? How is this economic paradigm conceivable otherwise than as perpetual reinvestment in innovation and production? For money to circulate at all, capital must be reinvested in the next profit-making venture, i.e. growth. Growth is how we realise a surplus, and how (and why) new products and technologies are developed. Even supposing the economy was only grown sufficient to maintain current infrastructure against entropy (depreciation, if you prefer), where do the funds come from and how are they circulated? That is, how do we get the capitalists to circulate their money if there's not a pot of gold at the end of the production line? above and beyond the initial investment: growth?
I notice your populationparty says nothing about economics? So how, outside of the luxury of continuing to flog Australia's natural resources (which are no good to anyone without a growth market), does it propose Australia maintain its infrastructure (as well as continuously upgrading defence and medical breakthroughs and buying the latest commodities), for instance. And what about natural attrition; what do we do with the large percentage of mentally and physically ill, or just lazy and dysfunctional? They have to be maintained and replaced by the able-bodied, who might resent it unless they're properly remunerated.
Until the populationparty deals with economics, shows us the numbers, they're only dealing in bourgeois ideology. I agree that that we can live without growth, but such a dispensation would not BE capitalism.
It would be nice if, for once, someone on OLO actually thought about it before confabulating and defending their default ideology.
I don't expect a reply.

* I agree that that we can live without growth, but such a dispensation would not BE capitalism.*

Sure it would be. I am one of those many capitalists, quite content
with their lot. I don't want more. I simply want to enjoy what I have.
I don't need the latest this and that. But I do need to be able to
make choices about my life, no Govt authority knows better.

Some people still want more. Growth is all about giving them more.

*We have grown, progressed and prospered well from capitalism*

Mikk, thank you for conceding that, it was my point all along.

Now if capitalism has been too successfull, to the point where we
are dragging too many people out of poverty, so that we run short
of things like oil, which is what the article is about, well there
is only one solution. Human innovation.

There is no system which allows for human innovation as capitalism
does. No Govt dept can legislate for change, as people themselves
can achieve, given the freedoms to do so. So if anything is going
to solve problems like energy, it will be human innovation.

Squeers may be right to some extent so, OK, we change the economic system away from capitalism as we know it. What we need is a dynamic steady state economy - goods are made, bought and sold and people's needs are met but the whole economy doesn't expand - nor does population. The critical elements are that we cannot use more natural resoures than are supplied by nature nor produce more waste (particularly carbon dioxide) than can be absorbed by nature. Squeers is right on peak oil - it will be highly disruptive as our economy is so dependent on it. So what we will need is a contraction of population numbers (hopefully slowly) as the economy contracts and shifts over to renewables. Localisation of economies will go hand in hand with rising oil prices and we may well see a lot more bartering and a movement away from the money/monetary system as we know it. Capitalism may not go away completely, but it is certainly going to have to change its nature.

You guys are dreaming!
Capitalism is an entrenched world-system. There is no opting out or contracting to cottage industries. And for the record, growth "is" fundamental to the system. The only chance of change has to be an international effort and that ain't happening. We've just come out of the GFC and can anyone point out a country to me that's not obsessed again with economic growth?.
It is going to take something like a peak-oil catastrophy before any country even entertains the idea of moderation. They're still kidding themselves that AGW spells the next round of clean commodity production! but production a) means growth, b) demands oil, and c) means more emissions.
And Yabby, while its o-so humble of you to be satisfied with your lot, neither your opportunities nor your success were or are typical.

If I'm wrong, does anyone have any practical suggestions how these great reforms are going to be accomplished in bourgeois democracies addicted to conspicuous consumption? Not their fault btw, they were bred for it!

*And Yabby, while its o-so humble of you to be satisfied with your lot, neither your opportunities nor your success were or are typical*

Of course I am typical, Squeers. There are plenty of baby boomers
quite content with their lot, many downsizing for a seachange or
treechange. Not everyone always wants more. If fact as people
become more philosphical with age, their values commonly change.
A great many people are quite happy with their lot.

*If I'm wrong, does anyone have any practical suggestions how these great reforms are going to be accomplished in bourgeois democracies addicted to conspicuous consumption?*

Our whole little shindig right now, is based on the back of cheap
oil. I know Americans who live up in the snow, who hardly insulate
their homes, they just burn more oil. They hardly make a cup of
coffee, its off to the drive through coffee place. Once oil prices
spike, society will change. These people will be forced to change.

We lived quite happily 100 years ago, in village kind of communities,
with some chooks out the back, some fruit trees and a vegie patch.
There is no reason why we can't go back to that. No need to go
to the gym anymore, work your gut off by planting vegies. Its
refreshingly basic and healthy.

Squeers, from your first post:

<< …capitalism will go on extracting the last drop and the last penny unto total collapse and beyond >>

This is how I see it:

Capitalism, or the democratic or pseudodemocratic governments under which it operates, will adapt to change. It will only adapt after the situation looks particularly ominous and probably too late to prevent major upheaval, but change it will. Why? Because people will see the urgent need for change and governments, societies and businesses will make it happen.

Capitalism will NOT just blunder on into massive strife without some attempts, albeit probably last minute attempts, to greatly modify itself. And it certainly won’t just continue on as it now is after a major upheaval caused by its recklessness.

It’ll be different after a crash event.

From your second post:

<< Can you defend your faith in solid-state capitalism (like cold-fusion) in the real world; that is, capitalism without the profit motive? >>

Capitalism will always have the profit motive at its core. That doesn’t mean that it has to have constant expansion in supply and demand to make it work. If governments did their job properly, they’d regulate capitalistic regimes so that growth was dependent on technological advances and improved efficiencies rather than ever-bigger markets and ever-bigger workforces to cater for them.

This absurd growth spiral, which you seem to link inextricably with capitalism is NOT inextricably linked to it. If it was, capitalism wouldn’t work on small islands or in Scandinavian countries which essentially have stable populations and economic turnovers.

<< For money to circulate at all, capital must be reinvested in the next profit-making venture, i.e. growth. >>

Phoowey!

What about all those small businesses that don’t grow, but just continue to provide a steady income for many years? Are they not totally part of our capitalistic regime?

Here’s a bit of info on a steady state economy:

http://steadystate.org/

http://steadystate.org/discover/video-audio-and-presentations/video-gallery/ Check out the video called ‘sustainable society’, and others.

This is just a start. Could be a long discussion Squeersy.

Ludwig:
<Capitalism will NOT just blunder on into massive strife without some attempts, albeit probably last minute attempts, to greatly modify itself. And it certainly won’t just continue on as it now is after a major upheaval caused by its recklessness.

It’ll be different after a crash event.>

Gee really, so where's the action on climate change? which isn't exactly a recent phenomenon. And what about the GFC for a crisis event?
And those links..
I don't need to be told what's happening, I just question that anything's being, or about to be, done about it.
People like you almost annoy me more than the minimifidianists! You think you can have your cake and eat it too! Even without peak oil or AGW the Australian lifestyle is unsustainable and unconscionable, but you think you can make it work. And I'll bet you're not planning to down-scale or rationalise your family income? So how do we convince the billions in China and India (who we'll go on selling resources to, mind you!) that they can't have comparable lifestyles? And what hope do we have of addressing these issues while they play catch up on a scale the industrial revolution couldn't have begun to cater for?
I mean, just look at Yabby's last post; you'd think it was a level playing field, or that Australia and its egomaniac baby-boomers were typical! Yabby thinks all he has to do is grow a vegie patch, though I think he's deliberately baiting me. Even he can't be that smug.
And even if Australia was able to preserve its little Brigadoon, what makes you think it won't be taken from us, or that we don't deserve to lose it?
It's not going to be a long conversation, Ludwig. Unless you've got something sensible or plausible to say, I've got better things to do!

<< What we need is a dynamic steady state economy - goods are made, bought and sold and people's needs are met but the whole economy doesn't expand - nor does population. >>

Absolutely right popnperish.

Within a steady state economy, capitalism will be alive and well…. with the profit motive intact but without the continuous expansion in markets or the production of goods.

Capitalism WILL change its nature to conform to a steady state economy, sooner or later. That is guaranteed!

*Gee really, so where's the action on climate change? which isn't exactly a recent phenomenon. And what about the GFC for a crisis event?*

Squeers, I seem to recall that even you once commented on the
incredible ability of capitalism to adapt and change itself. So
true. The reasons are clear. Nobody is offering anything better.

So what about the GFC? We adapted, we changed, we move on.

So what about climate change? As we speak it is venture capital,
plowing billions into funding the most creative minds, to find
solutions to the energy story. Govt commitees are not going to do
it for us.

I think this is all about perceptions. You regard yourself as a cow,
under our system. That IMHO is just your personal situation, certainly
not mine or many others whom I know. For some reason, every time
I think about your situation and what you have written, Goldman's
"Emotional Intelligence' comes to mind. You sound like somebody who
has spent their life, following their feelings, as he so clearly
describes. Fair enough, but don't blame the rest of us, or the
system, for your personal situation.

If/when the oil runs out or becomes scarce, capitalism is the only
system which allows human innovation to thrive, to find solutions.

It will adapt, so will we, for the most permanent thing in life is
change.

Ludwig:
<Capitalism WILL change its nature to conform to a steady state economy, sooner or later. That is guaranteed!>

Yea right, you'll pardon me if I don't take that to the bank. Is that what's happening in China, India et al? Hmm, and I wonder who buys all their cheap goods??
<Within a steady state economy, capitalism will be alive and well…. with the profit motive intact but without the continuous expansion in markets or the production of goods>
Gawd! Read some political economy. Your scenario and capitalism are antithetical!

Yabby,
I have a large house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms and am as comfortable as I could wish, all paid for by mine and my wife's toil, with no handouts or lucrative accidents of birth. Yet I'm not so conceited as to think my material success comes down to mine or my country's merit. The Poms were just lucky to find the place "Terra nullius" and we are the inheritors of that blind luck, however much we pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we deserve it.
My comment that you allude to was based on capitalism's ability to adapt to its own internal contradictions, aided in no small part by ideology, which after a generation or two becomes entrenched false consciousness. That's where you're at and on what my cattle analogy was based.

BTW, everything I've read on peak oil suggests the effects will be so abrupt and broadscale that there will be no time to adapt. In any case capitalism will be out of fuel! But you keep dreaming. The world needs more spoiled dreamers. Look at Dick Smith--a national icon!

You both just have this teeny parochial mindset and can't grasp larger contexts.

<< It's not going to be a long conversation, Ludwig. Unless you've got something sensible or plausible to say, I've got better things to do! >>

Hehehe! Well Squeers off you go then. Don’t let me stop you from getting to all those really important things that you keep putting off in order to respond to the likes of little ol Luddie!

I presume you’ll hang in there for a bit longer.

So let’s explore what we do agree on.

From your first post:

<< Peak oil is shaping up as far more devastating than climate change (though they're part and parcel) because the effects will be dramatic, multivalent and concerted >>

Agreed!

From your third post:

<< Capitalism is an entrenched world-system >>

Yep.

<< It is going to take something like a peak-oil catastrophy before any country even entertains the idea of moderation >>

Pretty much.

From your fourth post:

<< Even without peak oil or AGW the Australian lifestyle is unsustainable and unconscionable >>

Absabloodylootely!!

So what is it that we actually disagree on? Not much really.

We are both enormously frustrated and angry with the way things are proceeding towards disaster by all accounts.

I’m no great supporter of capitalism. I agree that it has GOT to change, big time, if we are going to stave off a devastating social and economic crash, and that the likelihood of that change seems very low at the moment despite all the warning signs.

You and I and Yabby and others should be able to have a very good discussion here without being insulting or tetchy with each other. If insults have to be delivered on this forum, let’s save them for those who are shoving continuous growth down our throats and telling us that AGW and peak oil are nothing to worry about.

*The Poms were just lucky to find the place "Terra nullius" and we are the inheritors of that blind luck, however much we pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we deserve it.*

Err so what? Nature never was fair and never will be. You could
have been born really ugly, deformed, or really handsome. None of
it fair. You could have been born in Australia or elsewhere, so
be it. Its about making the best of the hand that we are dealt.

Some Australians do work hard for what they have and can
pat themselves on the back, for they have made the best of their
situation, whatever it is. Others expect life on a plate, because
they are Australian.

I'm really not sure what your point is. I certainly don't see how
your Marxism would make Australia a better place then it is right
now.

If you are worried about peak oil, so buy yourself an electric car.
Nearly every manufacturer will have a model on the road by 2012.

I've been unable to post till now.
Apologies, Ludwig, for the tone; you're right, I get frustrated.

Yabby,
your post illustrates exactly the attitude that has to change. You say:
<Err so what [to Australia's good fortune]? Nature never was fair and never will be>
Humanity has indeed been in a passive, fatalistic, indeed evolutionary, position hitherto, but we now have the brainpower to take control of our destiny (evolution), which is why I slipped in the word "husbandry" above. We remain subject to nature, ultimately (as peak-oil and AGW indicate), but we can work within those constraints. Why do we relegate human destiny to the vicissitudes of vicious competition? Why do we allow our affairs to be dictated by a so-called free market, which is both loaded and indifferent to all appeals to humanity, sustainability or ethics? The human world should not be run according to the dictates of any "operating system", but be reproduced and improved according to the cloth. Our aim should be to be the best that we can be in an impossible situation (we should not underestimate our existential position). Is humanity no better than that for you, Yabby, a mob of vicious opportunists? The more ruthless, the more successful? I have higher hopes for humanity!

<If you are worried about peak oil, so buy yourself an electric car.
Nearly every manufacturer will have a model on the road by 2012>

If this is all humanity is good for--adapt exploitatively, indifferently to the new conditions, so that our short-term comfort (delusion anyway) is all that matters--then the sooner we're deleted from the face of the Earth, the better.

I'm wondering if there's ever been an example of a capitalist economy that hasn't been predicated on continuous growth. Are there any "steady state" capitalist systems in existence?

*Humanity has indeed been in a passive, fatalistic, indeed evolutionary, position hitherto, but we now have the brainpower to take control of our destiny (evolution)*

Humans are influenced by our evolutionary past and will be influenced
by evolution, regarding the future. That is why we remain a mountain
of contradicitions. No disrespect to you Squeers, but you claim
to be concerned about the planet and too much growth. Yet you
have 6 kids and a huge house. I doubt if lightning is going to
strike humanity and change much.

Fact is that we are heading for 9 billion, all wanting to live the
cushy lifestyle and AFAIK the planet can't handle it. So nature
will sort it out eventually.

*Why do we relegate human destiny to the vicissitudes of vicious competition?*

It doesent have to be vicious. It can be about comparative advantages.
It can be about cooperation. I have made far more money from setting
up win-wins, then from screwing anyone. But we need competition,
because people by nature act out of self interest and without it,
they become fat and lazy at others expense.

* Why do we allow our affairs to be dictated by a so-called free market, which is both loaded and indifferent to all appeals to humanity, sustainability or ethics?*

The market is no such thing. The market is simply about consumers
voting with their wallets. If enough people insist on sustainably
produced, ethical products, that is what producers will create.

Let me give you an example. If everyone bought only free range eggs,
that is all that would be produced.

You seem to think that we can change the nature of humanity on a
global scale. I happen to disagree with you and think that
humanity needs pain to learn, for its easier for many to simply
delude themselves about reality.

Talisman, capitalist economies have been around for a very long time, in many countries since way before continuous growth became a major factor.

While capitalists might desire growth and capitalism might encourage it, they haven’t always been able to get it. Capitalism hasn’t died out in places where supply and demand have been static.

Look at many small Australian towns. They’ve had no economic growth or even negative growth over the years and have retained healthy economies based directly on capitalism [see definition of capitalism on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism ].

Also, the economic and population growth rate in Tasmania has been much less than in Queensland or Western Australia. But the quality of life there is not significantly different (apart from the weather!). The economy and the capitalistic regime on which it is based is just as healthy there as in high-growth states. In fact, if you delved right into it, you might well find that it is better than in Qld or WA.

I think that this notion that capitalist economies have got to have constant significant growth or else the economy and our quality of life will rapidly decline, is one of the greatest con jobs of all time!

Of course businesses want growth and will promote it vigorously. But governments are supposed to regulate this and not just pander to it. In fact, where growth pressure is significant, this has surely got to be one of the main roles of government. Alas, governments have gravely let us down in this regard.

The real problem with capitalism and growth is that governments the world over are in bed with big business and consist predominantly of people that have business and economic backgrounds who are all too often more interested in what they can get out of it than what is good for their country in the longer term. The result is that governments have just dismally failed to regulate growth.

The notion that capitalistic economies have to have constant growth is a total furphy. The problem lies with government.

Yabby:
none of your fatalism and rationalism is worthy a response.
I think it's worth seeing what human nature is or could be if it wasn't distorted from birth.

Ludwig,
capitalists do not "desire growth", they desire profit which, in our competitive system, entails growth.
In the real world, indeed in the "world-system", there is none of your romanticising of village economies. Your Australia towns are under the protection and maintenance of the Australian government and economy, or else they source their wealth from the crumbs of mining exports. They do not self-subsist. All the "real" world is subject to fundamentalist capitalism whose mantra is GROWTH (to begin with, how else do they pay of their staggering national debts?). Various nice little protectorates around the world are merely kidding themselves if they think they are independent of the world system, or would last a minute without powerful friends.
<I think that this notion that capitalist economies have got to have constant significant growth or else the economy and our quality of life will rapidly decline, is one of the greatest con jobs of all time!>
Think what you like, it's true of the present global system.
Australia's prosperity is born of luck and exploitation.
According to world-systems theory (very highly respected), "Among the most important structures of the current world-system is a power hierarchy
between core and periphery, in which powerful and wealthy "core" societies dominate
and exploit weak and poor peripheral societies."
Of course Yabby would heartily approve of this.
Have a read if you're interested, talisman:

http://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/WorldSystem.pdf

Alright Squeers. Let’s say that you are right and capitalism is dependent on continuous growth.

What would you have us do?

You are apparently as concerned about never-ending growth and the rush towards the cliff as I am. My main subject on this forum is continuous population growth (and continuous economic growth, environmental alienation, resource stress and all the other things that are connected to it) and how we deal with it and head towards genuine sustainability.

It seems that you share my concerns but just put them in quite different terms. Am I right here?

So, you think that capitalism is a dead loss, predominantly because you believe that it won’t work without growth. You apparently condemn the notion of a steady-state economy.

So again, what do you think we should do??

Ludwig,
first of all, let's not confuse ideas with reality; you've done a little dreaming about sustainable capitalism but you haven't made any practical suggestions how this miracle will be accomplished. I don't "condemn the notion of a steady-state economy", but I don't believe capitalism, that is the competitive cultivation of profit and its retention in private hands, can ever accomplish that. Nor can it ever be sustainable; it would then cease to be capitalism (you can't imagine how deep the rabbit hole goes). I don't believe in fiscal competition or private wealth, period, which will always lead to power-elites and corruption. Indeed I don't believe in economic fundamentalism; that there is some economic operating system out there that if adhered to will be sustainable in perpetuity. Why have we handed over human destiny to some dismal rubric? The so-called science of "economics" is an abstraction, lending it bogus respectability; the originators of the idea called it "political economy" to reflect its "social" dynamic. "Economism" has been a disaster for Humanity and the planet. We have to learn to husband resources and tailor our development according to "material" and "ethical" contingencies. The first step is realising this is one planet with one human race; it is simply not acceptable that a tiny minority enjoys obscene wealth, or that one half lives in comparative affluence while the other half starves. It's not only because "I believe that it won’t work without growth" that I'm against capitalism, it's also because the whole production-line is demeaning of human potential.
There is no economic pill.
<what do you think we should do??>

To begin with, WAKE UP!!
Become politically active, but also cultivate your humanity.
It's ultimately out of the individual's hands, but individual lives can be inspiring.

Thanks Squeers.

I was actually thinking of Wallerstein when I made
my last post. Capitalism is indeed predicated on
continuous growth and has shown itself to be incapable
of reining in its excesses.

My own view is that we probably need something cataclysmic
like Peak Oil/Peak Energy to bring the whole house of cards down.
It's also likely to be the only thing that might ameliorate AGW.

Maybe once that happens people might try and devise a
truly sustainable World System that doesn't rape and pillage
the periphery for the benefit of the capitalist centre/s.

<< …you've done a little dreaming about sustainable capitalism but you haven't made any practical suggestions how this miracle will be accomplished. >>

Squeers, Herman Daly has made a study of this for decades. Here’s a relatively recent overview: http://steadystaterevolution.org/files/pdf/Daly_UK_Paper.pdf . Note the ten point policy summary at the end of this paper.

<< I don't "condemn the notion of a steady-state economy", but I don't believe capitalism, that is the competitive cultivation of profit and its retention in private hands, can ever accomplish that. >>

If capitalism is incompatible with a sustainable economic system, then what is compatible with it? A full-on communistic regime where the whole economic system is operated by the state?

<< I don't believe in fiscal competition or private wealth, period. >>

It seems that you do believe in Communism. No offence intended, but this is my summation, at this point of our discussion. With respect, you seem to be <dreaming> of a much less realistic solution to continuous growth economics than I am.

We (in Australia and the rest of the democratic world) are never going to achieve anything like a non-capitalistic regime, are we? We’ve simply GOT to achieve a non-expansionist regime within a private enterprise capitalistic economic system.

<< it is simply not acceptable that a tiny minority enjoys obscene wealth, or that one half lives in comparative affluence while the other half starves. >>

Absolutely.

<< We have to learn to husband resources and tailor our development according to "material" and "ethical" contingencies. >>

YES. These things sit right at the core of SSE (steady state economics) and Daly’s suggested reforms to the current system.

*none of your fatalism and rationalism is worthy a response.
I think it's worth seeing what human nature is or could be if it wasn't distorted from birth.*

Of course Squeers. Lets just ignore the laws of nature and claim
that we are above nature. Brainwashing those kiddies the right
way will fix it all. Squeers, you are dreaming. I'll just stick
to the evidence of human behaviour, how we observed it in the past.
For that is most likely how humans will behave in the future.

Yup, peak oil will sort out alot, but it won't be the end of
capitalism. For those with the oil that is left, those with
scarce resources, are not going to meekly hand them over to the
rest. Those with oil wells, like the Middle East, will cash in
and live it up. For the rest it will be back to the laws of
the jungle, for the veneer of civilisation is thin indeed, as
we see when calamity hits.

All very predictable really. The elephant in the room remains
population and for all that claimed clever humanity, we can't
even fix that one and agree.

So my prediction is that we'll go down as a species which was
clever enough to invent new things, not clever enough to use
them wisely. So be it.

But of course what will happen, we'll have a whole bunch of
academic types who think that they are the 1% with all the answers
and if the rest of us 99% just followed there dictates, all will
be well. It won't happen, sorry.

All of them ignore the law of unintended consequences, for of course
none of them can predict the future. So good intentions, as per
Squeers and others, just won't be enough.

All I'm saying, Ludwig, is that a steady-state economy cannot, by definition, be capitalism. If such a capitalism were achievable it would still be debasing employees at the level of production, and society with the same economic disparities. Importantly, while I'm against private or conspicuous wealth, I'm for genuine individuality. Despite the hysterics of the system's minions, wealth does not the individual make; it distinguishes those with money but doesn't sort chaff from corn. By taking away the profit motive I don't believe we would leave individuals empty husks; they might actually draw their inspiration then from genuine need and propensity, both practical and creative, thus restoring them to their distinctive strengths as potential. It's a furphy that material equality would degrade humanity at some low level; this popular notion actually makes no sense.
My views do not mean, according to knee-jerk logic, that I crave <A full-on communistic regime where the whole economic system is operated by the state?> I don't know what this means? What you describe is a popular caricature, ideological fodder, nothing more. I believe in "real" democracy, not the anti-democratic perversion we have at present, but responsible and "inclusive democracy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_Democracy wherein no individual has anything to gain, materially, beyond the mutual prosperity of society, yet everything to gain in merited distinction and personal fulfilment.
Our only disagreement then seems to be that I don't believe the current system can be reformed, such is non sequitur, and the worm (profit motive) remains in the bud.
Thanks for the link. I also have a new book by Tim Jackson called "Prosperity Without Growth" (you can download a pdf here http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/file_download.php?target=/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf , but what he advocates is not capitalism, nor is there any sign of capitalism reforming itself anywhere in the world.
Capitalism is like any other cancer, if it doesn't grow it shrivels and dies, though in this case takes the host with it.

Yabby,
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I have chucked of doctrine, such as "laws" of human nature. Btw, where did I <claim
that we are above nature>?

I did not see anyone here make the point that growth is essential to
pay the interest bill and repay the capital.
That is why our present economies reliance on credit and interest has
had the whole world in a tizz over the banks in America and Europe.
They are now reaching the point where there is no growth to repay their
debts and pixel money is flooding the world in attempt to make water
flow uphill.

Squeers, what you are totally overlooking, is that innovative people
need capital investments to act on their innovation and without
profits, they could not do that.

Companies like Apple Computer would still be stuck in Steve Job's
garage, unable to grow, unable to innovate, unable to take risks.

At the end of the day, if humanity is going to overcome the
problems its facing, it will be through innovation, with the
smartest people taking calculated risks, or it simply won't happen.

Bazz:
<I did not see anyone here make the point that growth is essential to
pay the interest bill and repay the capital.>

I did make that point above, Bazz, but neglected to add that capitalism also put the world in this debt trap.

Yabby,
you've made that plea before, but it just doesn't wash. We got into this mess thanks to economism and your "smart" people. There are ways out without more of the same! In my view we have to abandon the whole capitalist enterprise and start living modestly and within our means.

*you've made that plea before, but it just doesn't wash.*

Squeers, of course it washes. Without innovation as we have it,
there would be no internet and cheap personal computers. Why would
the world be a better place?

The big buzzword in silicon valley right now is green energy so
tens of thousands of creative people are throwing their resources
at energy solutions, to replace fossil fuels. All you can propose
is rationing. Never mind new, better, more efficient solar cells and
all the rest.

*We got into this mess thanks to economism and your "smart" people*

Nope, we got where are due to human nature, of people wanting more.
Leave the creative, innovative people out of it. They are finding
solutions. Let them create better ways of family planning and all the
things that would be useful to us and to this planet.

Our problem is not innovative people and their innovations, it is
stupid people misusing what is developed. Not everyone is bright.

The best way to sort out the whole lot, is the market. When resources
become scarce, they will be valued, recycled and not wasted.
Peoples lifestyles will change to fit the new cloth.

But lets solve the first big elephant in the room, ie some people
breeding like rabbits. For if it continues, no matter what we do,
things can only get worse.

Yabby:
<Squeers, of course it washes. Without innovation as we have it,
there would be no internet and cheap personal computers>
Yabby,
a) that same innovation you celebrate, applied to economics, gave us the GFC, and b) you are reasoning from a "made", best of all possible worlds, as if the internet was inevitable or an unmixed blessing, or humanity's only destiny is flat-out progressive. Progressing to what, incidentally?
<All you can propose
is rationing>
I'm proposing living according to our needs (not appetite on steroids) and within our means; I thought thrift was a virtue?
Human life is short and precarious and ought to be devoted to contemplation (hence the big brains) once corporeal needs are met and constraints observed. Anyway, there's nothing to say we can't develop creatively/technologically in a more relaxed and salubrious manner. It's not a race and we need not always be responding to "self-imposed" exigencies!
<But lets solve the first big elephant in the room, ie some people
breeding like rabbits. For if it continues, no matter what we do,
things can only get worse.>
Well this is a contradiction in terms, Yabby; shouldn't we let the market decide?
Of course I realise you're trying to get a rise. My six kids were a big surprise to me (I never had my first till I was 36!) and it's a long story. Yet I can argue that if ours was a responsible society it should have been incumbent upon me to show restraint; but ours is a profligate society and it was incumbent upon me, urged on with the last two by Mr Costello, to breed. Then again, while you say "Population is the elephant in the room", it's actually conspicuous consumption that is the elephant when it comes to peak oil and AGW. If it comes to cutting population to save oil, or greenhouse emissions, taking out a few hundred thousand rich westerners (especially them with private jets) would do more for the planet than deleting Africa's starving millions.
Nature imposes her own economy sooner or later and that should be our rubric.

Given the IEA’s less than sanguine latest report, world economic growth is going to come to a standstill.
Let's step back a moment. We have economic growth because, for the last 200 years, it has given many of us (I didn't say all of us), prosperity. Because of Peak Oil we are faced with a decline in prosperity as economic growth becomes history. Capitalism is perhaps best seen as a pyramid scheme and all such schemes eventually collapse. This collapse is aided by Peak Oil.

Our options are to take to the bottle and have a final fling before we all die. Or we can find another way to prosperity. We can redefine ‘prosperity’. Fortunately a lot of work has been done in that area in Prosperity without Growth? http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining-prosperity.html among other works.
If we break down what ‘prosperity’ really is we come up with basic stuff like enough to eat, a roof and security PLUS all the mind stuff which makes people human. Family, esteem, respect, responsibilities, meaningful work are some of the important items. Money and ever more money is simply a method of achieving those human qualities.

In summary anyone who wants to believe in hell on earth will help get what they want. There IS an alternative. But we have to drop the consumer culture and that is a big ask. Would those who aren’t keen kindly bow out and make room for those who want to continue living and liking it

*gave us the GFC*

Hang on Squeers, don't blame the economic system, when the political
system designated to regulate it, completely fails. People might
steal your belongings too, if there were no policemen around.

*as if the internet was inevitable or an unmixed blessing,*

The internet, pcs etc, are only two of countless innovations from
which you and your family benefit, every single day. Judging by
your actions, you clearly agree.

*Human life is short and precarious and ought to be devoted to contemplation (hence the big brains) once corporeal needs are met and constraints observed*

ROFL Squeers, time for you to join a Bhuddist monastry :) You
are seeing the world from your small perspective and want everyone
else to live by that.

Large brains led to innovation from the wheel onwards.

*Well this is a contradiction in terms, Yabby; shouldn't we let the market decide?*

If the market decided Squeers, people would have
far less children. Parents would have to pay for all the costs of
raising their brood, they would think twice about popping them
out. Tax breaks, education, health, baby bonuses, all bankrolled
by taxpayers without large families, for social reasons, not economic ones.

*Of course I realise you're trying to get a rise*

I thought you might see it that way, but then I have been on about
people breeding like rabbits on OLO for years, long before you
came along. Mainly directed at the Catholic Church btw. So I was
not going to change my tune because of you.

*it's actually conspicuous consumption that is the elephant when it comes to peak oil and AGW*

Not really Squeers. If the planet was populated as Australia is
populated, neither would be a problem. 9 billion chopping down
trees for firewood and depleting the world's oceans, is hardly
sustainable. World oil will run out at some point. If it runs out
a bit sooner or later, is hardly going to matter in the bigger
scheme of things.

The resources that you and your 6 kids consume, plus their families,
would be little different from-a-bloke-flying-a private plane.

<< All I'm saying, Ludwig, is that a steady-state economy cannot, by definition, be capitalism. >>

Why not Squeers?

I can’t see why capitalism, by the definition below, and steady state economics, would be mutually exclusive.

< Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies. > [From Wikipedia]

Philip Lawn of Flinders University writes:

< a steady-state economy can accommodate the requirements of a capitalist system >

and

< …there is no reason why a steady-state economy and a democratic–capitalist system should not thrive in each other's presence >

http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/2/209.abstract

Squeers, you wrote:

<< I believe in "real" democracy, not the anti-democratic perversion we have at present, but responsible and "inclusive democracy… >>

From the Wikipedia definition:

< inclusive democracy is a form of social organisation which re-integrates society with economy, polity and nature >

Yes our brand of democratic is perverted. I’ve frequently referred to it on this forum as pseudodemocracy. Of course we need ‘inclusive democracy’ or real democracy if you like. But isn’t a steady state economy totally compatible with this? In fact it is essential, isn’t it?

<< Our only disagreement then seems to be that I don't believe the current system can be reformed >>

Well, I’m sure that if we were to have a verbal dialogue instead of this somewhat restrictive medium of short written exchanges, we would find that we do indeed have little to disagree about.

I think Squeers and Yabby agree with each other, it is just that they
are using different definitions of capitalism.

Capitalism if you define it to mean a private person can use his
resources to make a living by running a form of business, can be
sustainable.
However if you include the financial credit system we presently have
then there will be no way to repay the borrowings and interest in a
zero growth economy.

Because of the lack of growth or indeed contraction, our present
financial system must change dramatically.
Banks will very different and may have to change their whole method
of making a profit. They may charge you for minding your excess cash.
They may not be able to pay interest on deposits as they will not
be lending onwards your deposits.

All this will not happen overnight, but slowly step by step.
The risk however is that complex systems can collapse catastrophically.

Watch what is happening in Europe and US, growth has almost stopped.
The number of cars in the US is falling. If someone in the world buys
a car someone somwhere has to get off the road.

Without growth everything changes !

<< I think Squeers and Yabby agree with each other, it is just that they are using different definitions of capitalism. >>

Maybe Bazz. And Squeers and Ludwig too (?). I was conscious of that possibility. That’s why I specifically outlined the definition that I was using.

<< Without growth everything changes ! >>

Depends what you mean by ‘growth’. It’s another one of those works with fuzzy interp, which can be very different for different people.

On one hand, there is the constant growth of population and economic turnover, which can result in low, no or negative per-capita gain or long-term gain for the community.

On the other hand, there is growth due to innovation and the improved efficiency of resource usage, which can occur with a stable population and can translate into a low level of economic growth but a strong per-capita gain and improvement for the whole community.

These two sorts of growth are poles apart, but are seldom teased out, being almost always lumped together as one good or bad thing, depending on your outlook.

<< However if you include the financial credit system we presently have then there will be no way to repay the borrowings and interest in a zero growth economy. >>

Not sure about that. With zero population growth and steadily improving technologies and efficiencies, we should be able to both improve the return to the domestic community and pay off our debt at a faster rate. With a rapidly increasing population there will be both more pressure to spend our earnings on domestic issues and thus less on debt repayments, and more pressure to borrow more and put ourselves further in debt!

Sure, this debt trap will make it harder to achieve a steady-state economy and it will blow the timeline out somewhat, but it shouldn’t mean that it is not possible.

Ludwig, I have good reason to doubt that the capitalist model can be adapted to a steady-state model and remain capitalism. Capitalism is based on profit and profit on growth. This problem is fundamental. I’m also against capitalism for ethical reasons, and because I agree with Marx that it distorts and alienates human nature and society. Be that as it may, however, since I don’t have time to go into it any more, a glaring problem still remains. I’m pleased that most of us agree something has to be done, yet my objection is that in the real world it remains a loaded agenda favouring the wealthy, and instead of real action on conserving oil and reducing consumption, we will get the opposite. Consumption is showing no signs of declining and consumption is fuelled by oil. It’s not enough to start developing alternative energy sources via the same blunt instrument: competitive trial and error and mass-production. The necessary innovations should not be market-driven, but publicly-funded and conservatively based on sustainable population models. Meanwhile, what we should be doing is conserving resources first by cutting back usage; phasing out the private motor car, unnecessary air-travel, McMansions, the individual excesses of the wealthy and luxuries generally that are oil-expensive, while populations enter a phase of natural attrition. All this would buy time and give us the chance to ease into the new paradigm. But isn’t it obvious that these modest, yet vital, measures alone would bring the whole house of cards down? That instead, peak oil is being treated as another lucrative venture? As if all life’s ills can be cured by consumption. They cannot! Despite peak oil and climate change, every country in the world at the moment is obsessing about growth. Listen to the news. Capitalism grows or it dies. The world economy has to shrink or “we” die. I’ll bow out now, but I remain obstinate that capitalism will not, cannot, address peak oil or climate change, it will merely continue to precipitate them. In other respects too, it remains an obscenity.

I can't escape the feeling that there is a significant opportunity going begging in the discussion on this article.

The discussion has diverted into an irrelevant contention as to whether the capitalist system can continue to function without 'growth', running in parallel with advocacy of the virtues of a system of centralized control and 'rationing' that ignores the reality of innovation.

Yet we have had posting in this thread the author of the article 'The coming liquid fuel crisis', Jenny Goldie (userID 'popnperish'), the comments thread to which has highlighted the same unexplained silence from government in Australia as to any reaction to this foreseen problem, as has this article's author Cameron Leckie in his earlier article 'The questions we don’t ask: a review of the Australian Energy Resource Assessment', published on 9 March 2010.

As Cameron Leckie (OLO userID 'Leckos') put it:

" Thousands of hours of time and taxpayers money
invested into a product that is incomplete, misleading
and fails to grasp some fairly simple concepts. This
results in an assessment of Australia’s future oil and
liquid fuel situation that is not only unduly optimistic
but also fails to provide the basis upon which a plan B
can be developed for our nation as we enter the second
half of the age of oil.

This leaves us in the rather uncomfortable position of
having a plan A, business as usual, which is not viable
and no plan B. How, in a country as advanced as ours,
does this occur? "

Nobody seems to be asking the question of those who are supposed to be representing US, and OUR interests, as to what it is that government knows in relation to this coming liquid fuels problem that it does not seem to wish to share with the public at large?

Innovations have already been made in coal-to-liquid-fuels conversion that show great promise of averting this foreshadowed shortage. Australia has lots of coal. Where is the public policy that will convert this promise into a productive reality owned by its own market, the Australian public?

Forrest Gump:
<The discussion has diverted into an irrelevant contention as to whether the capitalist system can continue to function without 'growth', running in parallel with advocacy of the virtues of a system of centralized control and 'rationing' that ignores the reality of innovation.>
You're entitled to your opinion of, course, but I disagree that the thread has been “diverted”, or that the comments are irrelevant. The article was “about” economic growth and Peak Oil:
<Reducing the oil intensity of an economy will require significant capital investment, something that in the weakened economic state of many OECD nations is unlikely. Reducing oil intensity is also subject to diminishing returns, each increment of improvement in oil intensity will become increasingly expensive and difficult to achieve. In this context, significantly reducing the oil intensity of the economy would be a monumental achievement.>
This validates my realist contention (as opposed to idealism) that peak oil and capitalism are irreconcilable.
And who is advocating “the virtues of a system of centralized control”? I've been advocating “inclusive democracy”, while also urging that peak oil, like capitalism, is a "global" predicament that is not being addressed.
As for advocating “'rationing' that ignores the reality of innovation”; I have been advocating husbandry in general and the surely reasonable measure that we start taking real action to break our dependency and conserve a precious and dwindling resource. Of course I do not advocate taking to caves and giving up oil cold turkey, and certainly alternatives have to be developed, but in tandem with reasonable compromises in living standards that can no longer be sustained. As the author implies, peak oil does not admit of “business as usual” no matter what the alternatives; indeed, his bullet-point list includes changes similar to the “rationing” I suggest:
<Use less oil. Transforming our transportation system from one where the car and truck dominate to one where rail and public transport dominate is a logical risk mitigation strategy>.
Peak oil presents as a paradigm shift that demands sacrifices as well as innovations. And yes, we should be asking why this isn't happening.

I think the nearest I can get to what I believe is zero growth would be
sero growth in GDP. You could mix it up with all sorts of concepts but
even if your effort was in non energy projects or processes you still
have to eat and wear things out, so even that would not be energy zero.

As for alternate fuels, the Hirsch report pointed out that it will take
at least 20 years to get to a new energy regime.
So it is the time between now and then that is the problem.

*The necessary innovations should not be market-driven, but publicly-funded and conservatively based on sustainable population models.*

As it is, Govt spends something like 40-50% of GDP. Govt is free
to finance all the research that it wants to bankroll. Fact is that
Govt hardly has a great record of picking winners.

We haven't even scratched the surface of effiency, when it comes
to energy. Last time I checked, only a small % of Australian houses
even have a solar hot water system.

*phasing out the private motor car, unnecessary air-travel,
McMansions*

Meantime people like me will point out the hypocracy of all this,
whilst some people keep popping out unlimited kids. So are you going
to ban more then 2?

Try and ban the motor car in the country and you city slickers won't
have any food to eat, unless your grow it yourselves. Its not going
to happen. But electric cars make sense, gas powered cars make sense,
all possible in Australia.

High liquid fuel prices will drive these things, including coal to
fuel.

The solution to the energy story won't be one magic pill, but a whole
host of alternatives, all playing their role. Some would not have
even yet been discovered, but stay tuned, because it could be tomorrow
that they happen.

Squeers has yet to make a good argument as to why we should not
consume resources, especially those that can be recycled, like
most metals etc.

As to capitalism, that can function at the village level, as it did
100 years ago. Either Govt knows best or people know best. I have
yet to see a Govt who does know best. Govt is free to show us how
clever it is, with the 40% of GDP that we are forced to donate
to it, every year. Their record is hardly a great one of spending
and investing wisely. More likely, it fattens little pigs at the
top of the Canberra trough.

The Global Footprint Network site offers a reality check on whether consumption by the (relatively) rich is the main problem, as Squeers says. Environmental footprint calculations convert consumption to notional hectares of land. The method is rough, but allows comparisons to be made. From their figures, roughly 1.0 billion people live in high income countries with an average per capita footprint of 6.1 hectares (6.8 in Australia and 8.0 in the US). 4.3 billion live in middle income countries with an average footprint of 2.0 hectares (2.2 hectares in China). The rest live in low income countries on an average of 1.2 hectares. The global average footprint is 2.7 hectares, about the standard of living of Turkey or Argentina.

Now lets suppose that all of the top billion people just disappear, and their consumption is divided among the low and middle income countries. When you do the calculation, it only raises the global average to 2.93 hectares, a standard of living about equal to the average in Ukraine. If, instead, we let the top billion live, but cut their consumption to the current global average of 2.7 hectares, the new global average consumption would be 1.94 hectares.

It ought to be obvious that while overconsumption is certainly an issue, the main problem is lots and lots of poor people, even if each only consumes a little. As Paul Ehrlich once remarked, "It doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low, if there are a hell of a lot of caputs."

So far as the main argument is concerned, if we want to survive, our economic system will have to adapt to biophysical reality, just as it had to adapt to the need to win World War II.

A good analysis that must have taken a while, Divergence, and a useful link that I wasn't aware of. I agree completely that population is a major issue, though I'm hesitant to say "the" major issue. I would put overpopulation and conspicuous consumption on par. Though regardless of equations I can't see how the division of resources is ethically sustainable. This is the reason the Enlightenment movement dethroned the aristocracy, and today's disparities between rich and poor are just as outrageous and indefensible--perhaps more so.
To answer Yabby's question: <are you going to ban more then 2 [kids per household]>, in the west there should certainly be disincentives to breed, though this is incongruously assuming a capitalist system that depends on population growth.
It's a global problem, though it was created by "enlightened" industrialised nations, and should be dealt with equitably.
The real issue here though is ethical. We cannot go on hiding behind national borders, as if they are a valid pretext for the gross disparities we maintain between rich and poor in the world.
No matter which way you spin it, first world lifestyles (and consumption of oil) and third world poverty cannot, or should not, be condoned simultaneously.

*The real issue here though is ethical. We cannot go on hiding behind national borders, as if they are a valid pretext for the gross disparities we maintain between rich and poor in the world.*

I just love you Sqeers :)

Perhaps you should travel a bit. Now lets say I lived in Africa.
I would buy a wife, they pay in cows, if she is young and pretty
it will take extra cows. She'll do most of the work in the fields,
as I sit around my hut and smoke my pipe with other blokes. If
I do well, I can buy another wife, even a third one. Between
working, they will be popping out kids regularly. I could land
up with 20-30 kids from the three wives. Now given that we lead
a pretty basic lifestyle in your worldview, you will work hard
in Australia and send me lots of money, to feed all the little
darlings. Sheesh, at this rate, I can afford a few more cows and
get me a fourth wife!

Africa just loves people like you. They dangle a starving baby
in front of Western TV cameras and lo and behold, over the horizon
come boatloads of food. It works like a charm.

Interesting comments, Yabby, from one who reclines ever so ungraciously in the arms of of the fortunate West.

In relation to your disparaging remarks on the African experience - and let's not omit the five hundred years of western exploitation and oppression from the equation - Noam Chomsky made an observation which I believe aptly describes your quaint colonial attitude:
"There has always been racism. But it developed in the context of colonialism. That's understandable. When you have your boot on someone's throat, you have to justify it. The justification has to be their depravity."

Interesting discussion. But what really matters in Australia is how we might address the issue. That is; population growth, per-capita consumption, peak oil and various other factors that currently add up to a grossly unsustainable future.

I recently asked this question in a new general thread….and it just bombed! http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4118

I think that if we had a political force that concentrated on sustainability, it would gain a great deal of support from the general public and would really start to swing the pendulum away from manic continuous growth.

Why on Earth the Greens haven’t taken this up is just beyond me to understand.

It seems that perhaps the overriding problem here is the lack of independence of government. Governments at all levels are just far too close to vested-interest big business and far too willing to give them just what they want.

Anyone willing to posit a solution?

Ludwig,
The problem is lack of awareness of the implications of the
various changes taking place. I had reason to speak to one of the
senior managers in the local council last night along this line.
I asked how far ahead they plan.

"20 years" was the reply. Now you and I and the gatepost know that
planning that far ahead is impossible in our current circumstances.
No one but no one has any firm idea of our energy and financial
parameters beyond the next five years.

This is the mindset that has to be changed. After the meeting, during
which I had made comments to the effect that we are entering zero
growth and that business as usual is ending, I was approached by
several people who agreed with my comments. Now that was encouraging
as in the past no one would have even understood what I said.

So perhaps there is hope for us all.

Poirot, sorry but I don't do the Western guilt trip thinggy.
I've spent enough time in Africa to understand that there is
nothing there that they could not solve themselves.

The "dangling babies in front of Western TV cameras" actually
came from an Eritrean who was pointing out to at Ethiopian,
what a lucrative business food aid had become in that country.

Sending more boatloads of food to Africa will simply result
in even more people waiting for boatloads of food. Until family
planning is addressed in Africa, things can only get worse.

People like yourself and Squeers seem to view the world
through your perspective, which is quite different to the
African perspective of life.

But don't believe me. Catch a plane to Kinshasa one day and
go and find out for yourself.

The crunch in Africa will come when energy costs in the West
go through the roof and the oil starts to run out. Rationing
fuel, as Squeers suggests, is hardly going to change that,
as the size of the problem of ever more people, grows daily.

I remind you by the way, that Jakob Zuma, prez of South
Africa, has 19 children and a bunch of wives. I personally
refuse to send money as Squeers suggests, to finance child
no 20, in the name of equity, or in your case guilt.

Squeers,

From the environmental footprints, neither the poor countries nor the environment would be much better off if we didn't overconsume. While multinational corporations do cooperate with local elites to exploit poor, desperate people, and we have a responsibility to restrain them, the corporations didn't make them poor and desperate in the first place. That happened because people have been repeating a pattern that has been going on since before there were modern humans, as is clear from the archaeological record. See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" or "Constant Battles" by Prof. Steven LeBlanc (Archaeology, Harvard).

People outbreed their resources and overexploit their environment, so living conditions tend to get worse over time. There are occasionally countertrends towards peace and prosperity, when new crops or new technology expand the carrying capacity, or when some disaster has drastically cut back the population, but the good times never last. This is because they just result in more and more mouths to eat up any surplus and restore the accustomed level of misery. The physical anthropologist Lawrence Angel looked at a great many human bones in the Eastern Mediterranean from different periods and found dramatic reductions in average height and life expectancy from the Palaeolithic. There was some improvement during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but after that, it was downhill all the way until the Industrial Revolution.

When people become desperate enough, they try to drive off or kill their neighbours to take what they have. The conflict or persecutions are usually blamed on "ancient tribal hatreds" or religious bigotry. This is understandable: religion and ethnicity make good rallying points when people are joining up sides, although they can easily find other excuses. In Rwanda (where the population tripled between 1960 and 1990), Hutus killed other Hutus in districts where there weren't any Tutsis.

None of this is our fault. Development offers a way out of the Malthusian trap (so long as greedy elites don't stand in the way), but not everyone is willing to make the necessary trade-offs.

Ludwig:
<Why on Earth the Greens haven’t taken this up is just beyond me to understand.>
I've been banging away on this topic too forever on OLO.
Political contenders tailor their policies according to the hegemonic centre: the popular vote. Incumbent Parties cannot introduce tough policies, no matter how vital, without a mandate. As Divergence indicates, during WWII austerity measures had popular support, but that was because the need was indisputable, or popularly manifest. Comparable emergencies, like peak oil and AGW, are instead subject to constant equivocation, especially in the context of our communication age, such that they have not gained popular support. This is why nations have to unite to address global issues like these, become signatories to pacts; necessary actions have to transcend popular politics and ignorant-denialism, so that all domestic political parties are obliged to toe an international line. Of course such notions are immediately slagged as "communist plots"--what else?
As things stand, until issues like AGW and peak oil loom as irrefutable (that is when it's too late), as in the manifest reality of WWII and its aftermath, it's going to be too electorally damaging for any party to act decisively. Hence, the larger the portion of the vote captured by the greens, the greater their influence, the more they will soften their line.

Yabby,
your recent comments are despicable. And please don't presume to know my thoughts on Africa et al. I do not see sending "boatloads of food" as a solution, for instance. You're argument is beginning to look like a drowning man clutching a single straw to keep him afloat.

Divergence,
I'm not looking to apportion blame or distribute guilt. These are global issues (one goldfish bowl) whether we like or or not. Our economic, environmental, geo-political and resource problems are all global pathologies--world systems. We can't fix the problems here without fixing them elsewhere, though there are plenty of protectionists and scoundrel patriots who like to fantasise that national borders are more than abstractions. There are good pragmatic reasons for thinking locally and acting globally. For me this also goes for ethics; the "enlightened" west claims to believe in human rights, yet we turn a blind eye to both obscene wealth and its opposite. Partly, we're hamstrung by political correctness when it comes to foreign aid; we're not allowed to impose conditions on aid. Yet that is what we should be doing attaching international aid, requiring reciprocal commitments to reform and population control. That has to change. But we have to lead by example, in our case not so much cutting population as conspicuous consumption. If our vaunted human rights had any validity, high lifestyles would be cut according to what it takes to lift impoverished nations out of poverty, humiliation and ignorance, which keep them behaving in the primordial, traditional and self-destructive ways attested to by history. Foreign aid to poor countries should most certainly entail environmental responsibility. But we in the west should also be taking some responsibility for our own environmental recklessness.

I'll take the opportunity to thank everyone for the engagement, now, and bow out for a time now, lest I become a bore.
Cheers

popnperish' only post in this thread so far includes the following statement:

"The critical elements [of economic growth
being a zero-sum game] are that we cannot
use more natural resoures than are supplied
by nature nor produce more waste (particularly
carbon dioxide) than can be absorbed by nature."

These 'critical elements', IMO, would benefit the discussion by being amplified. But where to begin?

Why not begin with questioning the so far least questioned element of the two critical limits propounded by popnperish: "[that we cannot] produce more waste (particularly carbon dioxide) than can be absorbed by nature."? Just by way of situating the appreciation appropriately, I don't think it inappropriate to reiterate the rather trite summarization of the present situation constituted by the statement that 'peak oil has killed the climate change star'.

Can we rip the dreadful build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution back out of it?

Yes we can!

If there is one thing that my work in the area of carbon sequestration has done, it is to convince me that the vegetable kingdom, whose rotten, piled up corpses of all the yesteryears have been the direct cause of all this latter-day fossil fuel mayhem, can be enlisted as our ally in the establishment of Australian hegemony over the entire earth. All must be made to see that we know best.

We can use the vegetable subjects of that client kingdom as mindless and all-too-willing cannon fodder in the advancement of our glorious cause! With their going on before us, subject to the manifest destiny that has placed us in command of their photosynthetic forces, we shall put oxygen back into the mouths of a world breathless with anticipation at the prospect that at last there is something that can save them from an oilless future.

So what (and I know Squeers will like this) are we to do? With all the lonely people, that is. They have to be taught the Char Char!

Ain't nuthin' more phun than kickin' props out.

<< Political contenders tailor their policies according to the hegemonic centre: the popular vote. Parties cannot introduce tough policies, no matter how vital, without a mandate. …>>

That’s a very depressing post Squeers. Depressing because it is true!

But surely it is not really that bad. Surely we can escape the continuous growth trap before we are forced to by a crash event.

I find this so enormously frustrating – in theory we could SO EASILY change our absurd practices and embrace the vital sustainability paradigm, but in reality, it seems as though it is going to be very unlikely indeed, until it is too late.

Well, I was going to go to work. But now I’m going back to bed to bury my head under my pillow!
( :>(

It's quite interesting that our system of democracy and the need for a mandate actually works against us being able to take decisive action in this area.
Politicians are in the business for the most part to either achieve or retain power, and that involves a fairly short-sighted agenda with lots of pork barrelling at election time.
I seem to recall reading that centuries ago the Japanese realised that if they kept chopping down the forests they would be doomed. So,in very wise and far-sighted example of environmental stewardship, strict laws were decreed against deforestation.

*People outbreed their resources and overexploit their environment, so living conditions tend to get worse over time.*

Divergence, you summed it up in a nutshell.

*When people become desperate enough, they try to drive off or kill their neighbours to take what they have*

I agree once again. The veneer of society is pretty thin, when
hard times hit, eveyone focuses on no.1 and family.

Squeer's Kumbaya politics are all very idealistic, but thats not
how the real world functions, just look at human history, or
the history of other species, for that matter. We are not above
nature. I started on about this in the 70s, everyone laughed about
overpopulation. Many still do. Fair enough, humanity will learn
the hard way.

This notion of self sacrifice and leading by example is all very
romantic, but I have news for Squeers. The Chinese, the Arabs and
most of the rest of the world in fact, really don't care what
Australia thinks.

SBS showed an interesting genetics programme about wolves and
dogs. They tried to raise wolf puppies as dogs in various
human households. It was a dismal failure. Wolf pups reverted
to their instincts, no matter how much the environment was
changed, or attempts to teach them were tried.

So it is with human history, when it comes down to survival.
Kumbaya politics is not going to change that

Come off it, Yabby,

I've been playing the hard-boiled spoiler! I don't think for one minute the measures I recommend are going to come off. I was countering Ludwig's optimism, remember? Humanity seems bent on learning all its lessons the hard way--ad nauseam.
I'm with Forrest Gumpp, we're all going to have to learn how to dance. The cha cha might be a bit hard on my arthritic hip, though..
..what about a nice Pride of Erin?

* I don't think for one minute the measures I recommend are going to come off.*

Fair enough Squeers. I always did think that you kind of make it
up, as you go along.

Mind you, I love the term "Kumbaya politics". It hit me whilst
responding to your post. OLO is loaded with it and the term might
even catch on one day!

Half-truths continue to rain down, like pennies from Kevin, as to the onset of peak oil and what that will mean for Australians.



The first half of the remainder of popnperish' quote is of course likely to be true if we do what we think we see our politicians doing, to wit either nothing or deliberately to hide the truth from ourselves.

"Squeers is right on peak oil
- it will be highly disruptive as
our economy is so dependent on it."

However, the second part of the quote, to wit:

"So what we will need is a contraction
of population numbers (hopefully slowly)
as the economy contracts and shifts over
to renewables.";

threatens to lead us up the garden path. It is misleading because, but shut down the migration program and stop the boats, we, in Australia, will immediately be in the nirvana of a slowly contracting population. But to focus on the locus of our own population is to lose sight of the main game. There exist six billion potential tributaries to the coffers of our hegemony that we are at risk of viewing as a problem, rather than an opportunity for profit!



Just who's Industrial Revolution was it, anyway?



Winston Churchill would have known. It was that of the English-speaking Peoples'! There are residual intellectual property rights in that Revolution, and who better to claim those outstanding royalties from the six billion occupiers of space worldwide than Australians? Those outstanding dues are not called 'royalties' for nothing. They are so called because, industrially speaking, Australia has a king, an old one, called Coal.

From out of the merry old soul of Old King Coal can be made to flow oil, oil by the billion barrel full, out of its home under the Simpson Desert! Homer Simpson's revenge, the lurker in Pedirka, courtesy of innovation by Fischer und Tropsch: CTL! Just think. Goodbye 'Peak Oil' for the land of Oz, and, under the goad of the rationing of conditional exports of value-added hydrocarbon product, goodbye 'Climate Change' as six billion learn the Char Char.

Old King Coal is a merry old slob

He could provide the oilixir of life

For us Aussies he’d do the job...

And keep us all in terrible strife

.
He should stay in his earthly grave

We don’t need his oily mess

Give us power from sun, wind and wave

And relieve us of this fossil fuel stress

You are cryptic sod, FG, and we (Squeers and I) are a little slow converting your meaning. We had the gist of it before but ungenerously, and ingenuously, attributed the "char char" to poor spelling. Thanks for the extra help.
Howsoever, we did object partially to your entrepreneurial and innovative proposition by observing that this lucrative new venture could be run in tandem with a more ascetic lifestyle. To which we may now add that the technology must, of course, needs be a clean process in terms of emissions.
Those two requirements satisfied--that we flay ourselves into a state of renunciation and modesty, and that we accomplish this industrial-scale alchemy without polluting by-products--it would seem to be exceeding stupidity to be freighting cheap, unrefined coal around the world for it to be converted into its equivalent in noxious gases. Another example of the clever country's impatience for a fast buck!

What do the resident experts say then to Master Gumpp's world saving plan?

Of course for myself, I still object that more ethical strictures might also be imposed upon the world at large, a neo-puritanism, as a condition attached to Australia's saving it.
But then, we still have the problem of pollution concomitant with burning our liquid-fuel derivative, for which I might suggest a solution. Since this product is essentially the same material, once converted into gas, I don't see why it couldn't be reconstituted, decocted if you like, into cultured diamonds which might be collected harmlessly as emission and used as road base?
How now!

Squeers, didn't you promise you had something better to do, about 10 pages ago.

Only an arrogant fool, or someone with a buck to be made from it, could prattle on about AGW today. There is so much to disprove it, & discredit its promoters that no thinking person could believe in it still.

I am of course aware you are right about peak oil, just wrong with your timing. Are you one of those who promised we would be back to horse & cart transport by the mid 80s, or you a johnny come lately on this one? Sooner or later the peak will come. If you live long enough, you may be proved right, but not just yet.

What ever, such ill conceived twaddle becomes tiresome.

*it would seem to be exceeding stupidity to be freighting cheap, unrefined coal around the world for it to be converted into its equivalent in noxious gases. Another example of the clever country's impatience for a fast buck!*

Er Squeers, whoever claimed that we were the clever country?
We ship out coal to pay the bills, so that people like you can
afford to have a brood of children in comfort.

Bio char seems to have a future. It would be great for Australian
agriculture if it works out ok. So let some entrepreneur with
spare cash make it happen. I'll buy it if its cost effective for
agriculture.