*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 !