I've done some research on globalisation lately and there are a spate of books offering the reassurance that there's no such thing; that the wealth and the jobs remain firmly entrenched in wealthy nations.
The divide between rich and poor is just as entrenched internationally as it is nationally. The implication of these "good news" books on globalisation is that there is no other perspective from which to view the issue--as if globalisation was "only" about the movement of capital and "only" concerned those in wealthy countries.
As you suggest, globalisation is also about resources, ecology and life and death. Action on climate change, and by extension on third world poverty, should first be grounded in conservation, in cutting consumption. The current policy on tackling climate change--so far all talk--is taxing consumption rather than cutting it, in the hope that entrepreneurs will get the message and innovate--all without upsetting the economic dynamic, conspicuous consumerism.
When Schumpeter called capitalism creative destruction I doubt he realised it would extend unto the very life supports of the planet.
If it was the third world that was somehow by its actions threatening our survival, we would take decisive action--blow them up and feel justified doing it. Yet we can show complete indifference for them and go on lazily consuming the lion's share of the food and resources while degrading the "whole" environment in the process.
The only way to tackle global warming is by cutting consumption, and not only energy. All consumables and their production have a direct correlation in terms of oil and environmental degradation.
The West's addiction and selfishness is despicable.
And yet there are many people who are prepared and even eager to make the necessary sacrifices.
The insatiable demand for economic growth is the problem. Much of our latter-day consumption is redundant in terms of quality of life. It is about making capital! and not improving the quality of life.
We are not going to address AGW, and its direct effects on vulnerable humanity and other species, until we find a way to turn off economic growth and cut consumption.

'The current policy on tackling climate change--so far all talk--is taxing consumption rather than cutting it, in the hope that entrepreneurs will get the message and innovate--all without upsetting the economic dynamic, conspicuous consumerism. '

Oh! Oh! God one squeersy, what's the Chinese factory worker going to do when we all refuse to buy TVs anymore? Starve to death!

Just stop the rich countries from protecting their primary Industries with tariffs and wipe all third world debt. Then we'll have real globalisation, and the farmers will all commit suicide. I hate farmers, they're not the 'salt of the earth' and they're not doing me a favour. All they do is put their hand out when their business goes bust because they try to grow crops in the desert.

Houellebecq,

I'm well aware of the implications of what I'm recommending, but I'm just trying to face facts. We have to start shrinking economies, living standards and populations and reducing our impact on the planet. It won't only affect Chinese workers, but everyone including capitalists. It's a closed system and sooner or later we're going to have to bite the bullet---or not.
The other option, which I believe is western policy, is to prepare for the inevitable collapse by making provisions for those who will be protected--the elite and a collection of essential servants.

Alternatively, we could survive the end of capitalism if we ended it before it ends us; we could easily turn our sprawling suburbs into pastures, orchards and vegetable gardens to begin with.
One way or another, we're going to have to face the end of consumer heaven, actually a depressive nightmare. We ought to do so for the ethical reasons alone that Rodney Crisp outlines.

'The other option, which I believe is western policy, is to prepare for the inevitable collapse by making provisions for those who will be protected--the elite and a collection of essential servants.
'

Sounds like a plan.

A much better plan than pre-empting what may never happen, and crippling the world so it has no chance of producing an inventive response for such a catastrophe if it does happen.

The dams going to burst! Only the people living up on the hills will survive. Let's chop down the hills! Who will save us now? Don't worry, that poor peasant with no money will come up with a brilliant device to turn all the water into wine. Just wait until he's finished gathering firewood and searching for berries.

You cant build an ark when you reduce the elite to the lowest common denominator.

I'm not in favour of building a western ark! I just don't believe there are not heavily financed think-tanks in place, as we speak, devoted to just that, to "managing" the crisis when it hits and saving the quality.
I also don't believe capitalism is the only social/economic system capable of producing inventive responses.
Capitalism is the direct "cause" of the mess we're in! Do you think more of the same is going to fix it?
I give you credit for more intelligence than your old side kick, Col rouge (if you're in touch send him my love), yet you immediately interpret what I say as some crude notion of collectivism.
Certainly I'm in favour of reducing capitalists' spending power to a semblance of modesty--the drive for capital is the furnace of growth--but there are other and more meaningful forms of competition, achievement and personal transcendence apart from gloating over personal wealth and petty empires.

But relax, I don't think there's a hope in hell it will happen, and I'm sure the capitalists, our demi-gods, will be God's chosen people to emerge from the devastation--certainly it won't be the poor bastards the author of the article is concerned about.

Oh I'm not worried. The force and momentum of uber capitalism is supreme. You wont stop it. Watch even in the next 5 years after that pesky GFC is finished.

'Certainly I'm in favour of reducing capitalists' spending power to a semblance of modesty'

But how modest are you when compared with the average guy in Malawi?

I miss Col.

Socialism by Stealth!

'I also don't believe capitalism is the only social/economic system capable of producing inventive responses. '

Yes, but if our position is so dire, why would you jeopardise the strengths in it waiting for the new system to gain traction? Huh? Answer me that!

'I'm not in favour of building a western ark!'
You would be if you REALLY believed in global warming. Oh sorry climate change.

Which provides a good analogy. I would rather the rich engineers build some bigger stilts to save the glorious place. But you want to cripple the engineers, thinking if we all pull together and have our own bucket, we'll be able to keep the waters at bay.

One bucket each, it's only fair!

It's only from the position of vast personal wealth that grand gestures of Bill Gates scale are possible. On a smaller scale, you can only afford to give to UNICEF because your country exploits the third world. How much great anti climate change work will you be doing when you spend half your day looking for food out the back of Maccas?

I thought you'd be on your homeward commute by now, Houellebecq? Or perhaps you're stuck in traffic and tapping on your laptop?

I've just been catching up on the SRI thread and I must say you're in good form today. I'm indebted to you for a good laugh!

I reckon married life's just made you cynical.

Houellie,

"It's only from the position of vast personal wealth that grand gestures of Bill Gates' scale are possible."

What are you trying to defend with a statement like that...and don't be so naive. Have a read of this link, and keep reading down past the bit that highlights "Monsanto in Gates' clothing".

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-03-25/news/29188722_1_paul-kagame-rwanda-agra

.

Dear Squeers, Houellebecq, Poirot et al

.

Perhaps you may be interested in reading the article titled "In Queensland, no great barrier to flood recovery" published Thursday on The World Bank blog site. Here is the link:

http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/in-queensland-no-great-barrier-to-flood-recovery

“ Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom nor understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos – a land half made,
Where endless space is and no life stirreth;
And the soul of a man will recoil afraid
From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth.
But old Dama Nature, though scornful, craves
Her dole of death and her share of slaughter;
Many indeed are the nameless graves
Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.”

Banjo Paterson, “By the Grey Gulf-Water”

.

[Deleted for abuse.]

"The least we can do is to turn off the light."
What facile piety. So now we can become virtuous to the starving masses in the third world by turning off the light? It would be more to the point to stop destroying their economies with trade restrictions, and lamb-brained anti-economic "aid" interventions destroying local markets.

Squeers
Why don't you cut your own consumption, starting with your internet usage? How can you possibly justify your spending on such an unimportant preference given your views?

And then you can cut your consumption of anything produced using fossil fuels including food, electricity, clothing, transport, communication and entertainment, can't you?

You don't need to wait for governments to do anything. You can just choose any poor person in the third world or anywhere, and send the bulk of your income to them, until your incomes are equal, and encourage them to do likewise.

Do you do so? If not why not?

I hope you're not living in a standard Australian home are you, with lights and heating and TV and video and computer and radio and microwave and hot water and washing machine? How can you possibly justify the inconsistency between what you preach and what you do?

You have never dared to venture a suggestion of what the alternative to private ownership of the means of production is to be. Don't tell me, lemme guess - central planning of all production? That certainly would solve the problem of excess population wouldn't it?

Peter Hume,

So are you saying that people can't communicate opinions concerning the betterment of societal organisation without first attempting to live as if they had already taken place?

...puhlease....

Peter Hume,
Prefatory to answering it I’ll just say, I’m motivated to agitate in the way that I do not from some acetic penchant, but from the glaring reality that confronts us all—that we are living beyond our physical means, that we cannot sustain the Western lifestyle, that those less well off are necessarily precluded from attaining it, indeed that their very existence is threatened by it. Do you deny the truth of this?
You would probably like to counter with something such as that capitalism is lifting the impoverished ‘out’ of destitution. This is only a side effect of the expansion of markets, but do you agree that this ‘limited’ effect can never be consummated in western lifestyles for all these people? They will be raised up only to perish en masse. Do you refute this?
You surely don’t argue that the ‘pure’ capitalism you favour would be exempt from the same constraints imposed by our closed system?

I don’t want to give up my luxurious lifestyle, modest though it is. Yet I see all of the above as the brute facts we need to address. I say ‘we’ because I also recognise that altruistic individuals, even in large numbers, cannot have a positive impact while the rest take up the slack. Moreover such individuals would be demeaned and suffer great loss of self-esteem in a prevailing system where capital of one kind is the hallmarks of a successful life. In any event it would be surpassing altruism indeed to self-impose futile privations while the wealthy continue to enjoy the good life. No, the problem can, and should, only be addressed by the whole society.
As to your last mammoth question, of course I don’t have an answer off the top of my head, except to say that a planned deflationary process could only be successful if undertaken by a coalition of powerful nations. The working out of sustainable human societies should be a science in its own right, but based on principles of maximum fulfilment, husbandry and ethics.
Addressing the facts outlined above, what is ‘your’ alternative?

*So are you saying that people can't communicate opinions concerning the betterment of societal organisation without first attempting to live as if they had already taken place?*

Oh they certainly can Poirot, but of course actions speak louder
then words and some of us point out the hypocracy involved.

So we take it as little but a whole lot of pointless bleating.

So in other words - no, you’re not willing to do voluntarily what you urge everyone else be coerced into doing.

1. Alleged original problem.
Do you deny the truth of this [alleged unsustainability and injustice of current western lifestyles]?”

I wouldn’t deny it if you would first prove the truth of it. But you haven’t done so yet.

For example, how do you know that the population couldn’t increase by, say, 10 or 100 times, in a process that both provided a western-standard lifestyle for most or all, and gradually reduced over time?

You seem to think that there’s no need for you to prove it; that just assuming the Malthusian belief system is good enough. It’s not because, although apparently crushingly self-evident, it’s wrong for a number of reasons.

2. Supposed solution
But even if it were true, how do you know that collective coercive solutions would not be more disastrous and unjust and than the original problem?

I believe a more just collective coercive solution is not possible because the problem as originally conceived is basically to reduce waste, in other words, to allocate scarce resources to the most urgent and important wants. Agreed?

I believe it’s not possible because of the knowledge problem, and the economic calculation.

The knowledge problem is that central planners can only have the tiniest fraction of the knowledge available to society as a whole, and which they would need to have so as to produce a better result.

All governmental solutions necessarily displace calculation in terms of profit and loss (that’s what they’re intended to do). This would leave us with all the same original problems of scarcity, only it would take away the admittedly imperfect ability to calculate what is the more or less economical way of doing things in terms of money prices.

It would *exacerbate* the problems of
a) using scarce resources wastefully, ie for less rather than more important and urgent human wants, and
b) environmental destruction,
c) social injustice.

I have shown reason in this short article which no-one answered: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3839

Perhaps you or Poirot will?

Sustainability is also a problematic term because, just because a particular resource is exhaustible, doesn’t mean living standards are unsustainable. The pre-1788 use of Australian caves as shelter was not sustainable for 22 million people. The 19th century use of whale oil to light our homes was not sustainable. Does that mean those limits prevent us sustaining our housing or lighting today? No.

Viewing the problem from the collective level – from a Gods-eye view as it were – imports serious errors of thinking, because a) you aren’t God, and b) the relevant decisions have never been, are not now, and can never be made at that level without making all the original problems worse.

China has vast mountains made of loess - soil that an Australian farmer would give his eye teeth for. Huge tracts of agricultural land could be made by spreading it out. But they don’t do so. Why not?

Because it’s a mistake to think of it at the collective level. People, in taking action, do so to satisfy particular wants with the least waste and failure of effort. Therefore they use – and deplete - resources in order of which is most economical first – the most marginal is left til last.

If we couldn’t deplete a resource because doing so would deprive future generations, then *any* use of it would similarly deprive them, therefore *no-one* could *ever* use it. The owner of a depletable resource, say a mine, decides whether to sell now or to capitalize the expected value of future use. He can’t be damned if he sells for profit now, and damned if he withholds in expectation of higher future profit. Once we understand that the problem is not the alleged sinfulness of consumption, but the problem of knowing the relative valuation placed on consuming now or later, there is no rational alternative than accepting the valuations of these relativities as best we can – by the calculating owner with a direct interest either way. It cannot be done more economically in the aggregate and abstract by disinterested bureaucrats.

Peter Hume,

apologies for not responding to your fallow thread; I honestly missed it as am often busy.

I can't help but say that on the face of it your responses look like pure sophistry; jargonesque denialism. Hopefully someone else shall relieve me of the burden, but if not I shall interrogate them more closely by and by.

.

Dear Peter,

.

Before commenting on your article "Ecological sustainability and economic calculation", I would like to make a remark on what you have written here about turning off the light.

Electricity production is the greatest source of carbon emissions in Australia:

http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/cli_cou_036.pdf

I can turn off the light whenever I choose but I could not lift trade restrictions nor prevent "aid" interventions even if I tried.

However, I am more than willing to join forces with you to canvass for your suggestions to be implemented if you wish to take that further.

In the meantime, the least we can both do is turn off the light.

Turning now to your interesting article on "Ecological sustainability and economic calculation", a somewhat foreboding phrase from the bible comes to my mind:

"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath" (Matthew 13:12, King James translation).

That was written nearly two thousand years ago and seems to annonce democratic government and capitalism as we know it today. As you rightly point out: " ... if you are hungry, you can figure out whether you’d prefer $4 or a sandwich. But you can’t value the niceness of your mother in money terms, or the beauty of a sunset, because these are end values in themselves".

I guess a hungry person would jump on the $4 or the sandwich. He would trade a smile from his mother or a sunset to get either, even though he may get short-changed.

Not all capital is productive. It may be purely speculaive. That does not prevent it from generating profit.

Also, according to the physicists, matter and energy can be transformed but not created nor destroyed. What we mean by "ecological sustainability" is avoiding them being transformed in such a way that they no longer sustain human developpement. This is different from capital which can be both created and destroyed.

.

Peter Hume:
"how do you know that the population couldn’t increase by, say, 10 or 100 times, in a process that both provided a western-standard lifestyle for most or all, and gradually reduced over time?"
Pigs might fly!
"I" don't have to "prove it". Surely even you acknowledge the expertise of the scientific community? They tell us the Earth can't sustain the numbers we have now, and less than half of those enjoy a western lifestyle; indeed western lifestyle amounts to drudgery and want for many westerners.
If my position is "wrong for a number of reasons", can you point a few out to me?

"But even if it were true, how do you know that collective coercive solutions would not be more disastrous and unjust and than the original problem?"

Whether you like it or not we're social animals, a collective. Neoliberal wealth and faux-individualism are derived from this collective.
We're already forced to live according to a demeaning economic rubric. There's no alternative on offer.
I don't know that a new economy wouldn't end up worse--though things could hardly be worse than they are now. I also don't know that “this” lop-sided affair will ever be just--though I'm pretty certain it won't! In any event, the evidence suggests our survival and the health of the planet demand fundamental change.
If you're on a sinking liner do you do nothing because it might not sink? Or because people have the right to die and shouldn't be "coerced" to act in their best interests? Presuming people do want to save themselves, shouldn't they optimally be encouraged to do so in an orderly manner?--I don't refer to those in steerage of course, we can just pretend they don't exist, as we do in the real world.
Your "knowledge problem" is panlossian casuistry based on the neoliberal conceit that we're all individuals rather than societies whose members have common requirements. And I've said above that a new economy should be based on "husbandry" (cutting the suit according to the cloth), as opposed to abandoning life to "any" economic calculi.

"19th century use of whale oil to light our homes was not sustainable. Does that mean those limits prevent us sustaining our housing or lighting today? No".
Granted, but important developments presently come in a wasteful wash of ephemerata that renders efficiency redundant!

"People, in taking action, do so to satisfy particular wants with the least waste and failure of effort. Therefore they use – and deplete - resources in order of which is most economical first – the most marginal is left til last".
Ideally 'tis true, of "people", and is what I'm arguing for! But you surely don't impute this wise ethic to capitalism do you? The profit motive takes no such consideration and would love to flog China's reserves of loess! Presumably what prevents that is government sanction.

I just love your last paragraph!

A wise society, concerned with its health and longevity, husbands its resources, and breaks its dependency on finite resources before they're exhausted, especially if the resource (or by-product) is somehow an important factor in the chain of (all) life. To leave vital resources to private interests, whose motive is profit, is the height of stupidity, as your own Chinese example implies.
“Once we understand that the problem is not the alleged sinfulness of consumption, but the problem of knowing the relative valuation placed on consuming now or later, there is no rational alternative than accepting the valuations of these relativities as best we can – by the calculating owner with a direct interest either way”.
The “alleged sinfulness of consumption” is not my concern (though over-consumption, for its own sake, is pathological mentally and physically; and this is how we are encouraged to live), only the problem of how we should live fulfilling, ethical and sustainable lives.
I don’t accept there is “no rational alternative” to your relativities, which are profoundly irrational. The challenge is to use our collective will and intelligence to adapt to the manifest constraints we perceive (when our eyes are open) are imposed upon our condition. A tall order, so the sooner we start thinking about it the better.

Thankyou Squeers, a breath of fresh air. Enjoy your Mother's day.

Squeers

Our argument so far looks something like this:

You: “Our current lifestyle is grossly and urgently unsustainable. We need government to make it better.”
I: “How do you know it is? And how do you know they can, considering the problem of decentralized knowledge about values and resources, and the problem of economic calculation?”
You: “Denialist! I’ll get back to you with my more considered response.”
I: (waits for considered response)
You (later): “Our current lifestyle is grossly and urgently unsustainable. Denialist! Wilfully blind! Callous! Neoliberal! Faux-individualist! Panglossian casuist! Conceited! Careless of other human beings! “wasteful wash of ephemerata that renders efficiency redundant!” (That was a beauty Squeers – you excelled yourself.) Unwise! Stupid! Greedy! Profoundly irrational! Prove me wrong?”

(bonmot chimes in: “I concur!”)

Banjo
By all means turn off the light which is good husbandry and which I do all the time – however not because I believe it’s going to save the planet from imminent destruction, which I think is groundless catastrophism and pious ritual.

The Biblical quote does not describe democracy or capitalism for different reasons. The oldest economic fallacy in the world is that one person’s riches must be caused by someone else’s poverty. It’s incorrect. Voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial, otherwise they wouldn’t take place.

It also doesn’t describe democracy, which is highly redistributionist.

‘I guess a hungry person would jump on the $4 or the sandwich. He would trade a smile from his mother or a sunset to get either, even though he may get short-changed.”

Not sure what you’re getting at there; but any economic system will be faced with all the same problems of scarcity and need to make decisions.

“Not all capital is productive.”

No. There’s a risk in using it. Being *unproductive* prevents it making a profit.

“It may be purely speculaive.”

It is *always* speculative, because the future is uncertain.

Peter Hume,
I think your synopsis of my posts is exaggerated and unfair; I responded to your posts thoughtfully, if critically.
I'm not comfortable with an utterly governed existence either, but I don't see your opposite minimal administration via free markets as an alternative. Can you elaborate your alternative? Since presumably you don't hold with a standing army, the police force, hospitals, roads and public transport, schools, universities, welfare, prisons, insane asylums etc etc. How would this anarchy provide for anybody's security or quality of life?
You've asked me questions and I've tried to answer them. How about some answers from you?

Its like watching huge fat vultures throwing bread-crumbs to the pigeon people:) mmmm..$4 or a sandwich....hard choice.

lea

Peter Hume,

We have been here before - but just for old time's sake, could you tell me what you think would have become of the British workforce over the period of the 19th century if the government of the time hadn't enforced the Factory Acts to prevent the barbaric treatment in the mills, factories and mines?

I mean, until the Factory and Education Acts were instituted, it was pretty well a laissez faire "free"-for-all enjoyed by the entrepreneurs of the day...and the men, women and children were treated abominably.

Human's usually learn by referring back to past experience - and sometimes they have enough sense not to go down the same road again.

Squeers
> I think your synopsis of my posts is exaggerated and unfair

It quotes you, and you made no other substantive answer to my questions for me to quote, so perhaps it was you who were exaggerated and unfair?

> I responded to your posts thoughtfully, if critically.

That’s your idea of critical thought? A stream of name-calling and wild misrepresentation?

I would have thought that answering my questions would have been more to the point.

>I'm not comfortable with an utterly governed existence either

It’s just that your posts call for total government control of everything in the world while simultaneously being aggressively ignorant of the definitive demonstrations that this is worse than futile?

> but I don't see your opposite minimal administration via free markets as an alternative.

Well coming from a Marxist perspective, why would you?

I also have tried in good faith to elaborate, but please understand my frustration in running always into a wall of circular reasoning, personal disparagement, imputations of bad faith, and wild misrepresentation. For example I have shown in an earlier thread that “neoliberal” does not describe me, but without refuting that, here you are again throwing the term in my face.

If you don’t really want to understand a theoretical approach that proves you wrong, then don’t ask.

But if you do, then you need to understand that there is a body of theory which explodes and refutes the very premises of your entire intellectual method and belief system: that’s why you keep losing the argument. Your circular argument and infantile rage might convince you, but it only exhibits what intellectual standard you consider acceptable.

If you really want to move beyond that, you need to a) understand, b) be able to accurately represent, theory opposed to yours.

So your real answer to my questions is…?

Poirot
How do you know that the Factories Acts didn’t exacerbate the hardship faced by the unemployed?

Spare me an emotive diatribe larded with angry presumptuous slogans. *How do you know* that they didn’t force more people into unemployment and greater hardship?

Peter Hume,

"Spare me the emotive diatribe."

You're not a character from Dickens, are you?

""How do you know" that they didn't force more people into unemployment and hardship?"

If you'd ever take the time to read transcripts of the original human documents pertaining to the time in question, you'd soon be aware that is was barely possible to exacerbate the misery commonly inflicted on the labouring population, especially of the northern shires of Britain.
Read some of the documents, Mr Hume, and then tell me that the practice of laissez faire which was unleashed at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution didn't grossly debase the social and moral fabric and the physical health of the population at large.

"A stream of name calling...."

"....infantile rage...."

That's pretty rich coming from you

.

Dear Peter,

.

Just a few comments on your point: "... democracy, which is highly redistributionist ...".

It is interesting to compare the evolution of the GINI coefficients of economic inequality over the period 2000 to 2007 in respect of the USA, India and China - the USA as the hallmark of modern democracy, India as the largest democracy in the world and China as the largest non-democratic country in the world.

Inequality in India retrograded from 32.5 to 36.8
Inequality in the USA remained stable at 40.8
Inequality in China improved from 44.7 to 41.5

Note: The Gini index lies between 0 and 100. A value of 0 represents absolute equality and 100 absolute inequality.

Another country worth looking at is Russia. There appears to be no general consensus as to how to classify Russia's political regime. On paper, I would say it is democratic. In reality, I would say it is non-democratic.

Russia's GINI coefficient for the same ten year period improved from 45.6 to 37.5

I leave you to meditate these indications which, I think you will agree, reveal contrasting evolutions of greater complexity and lesser certainty that one may imagine.

.

.

Oops !

The Gini coefficients indicated for Russia are for the same period from 2000 to 2007 as for the other countries indicated.

Also, the Gini coefficients indicated are those of The World Bank and not those of the CIA which are slightly different.

.

Poirot
You haven't answered the question, and you are adopting the same intellectual method as Squeers, namely, not entertaining the possibility that you may be wrong, and simply meeting every challenge by re-assuming what is in issue.

Over the period of the Industrial Revolution, the population of Great Britain doubled. This demographic fact was not known to Marx at the time of his writing. He wrongly assumed that the poverty of the working classes was caused by capitalism. However before modern capitalism came along, such population increase didn't take place. In other words, those people would have died, usually in infancy, as they still do in countries where modern capitalism have not raised the living standards of the working class to the highest in the history of the world.

So you have not entertained the possibility that the effect of the industrial revolution was not to reduce the living standard of the relevant increased population to penury, but to elevate it from death.

This issue cannot be proved or disproved by the method you have chosen - checking historical documents to see how poor were the conditions of the working class - because it doesn't prove whether that poverty was *because of* or *despite* the operations of industrial capitalism. So, like Squeers, you're circularly assuming what is to be proved, and then when challenged, just re-assuming it all over again.

(Besides, you're against "consumerism", remember? So are you blaming capitalism for raising the living standards of the masses too much, or not enough? Make up your mind!)

Your argument is, in deep structure, this:
You: "It is so."
I: "How do you know?"
You: "It is because it is."

So how about you answer my questions instead of just chasing your tail?

Banjo
I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

Peter Hume,

The reason things improved regarding the health of the population was a direct consequence of controls instituted by the government. If the status quo had prevailed, there would have been dire consequences in the longer term for the psychological and physical well-being of the workforce.

The effect of the industrial revolution was initially to debase conditions amenable to human well-being. It was the experience of witnessing a rapid decline in these areas that spurred those in authority to act in an attempt to assuage the damage - it was "only" then that the industrial juggernaut was able resume its course.

Btw - I know you like posing questions, however, there is no requirement for me to comply with your particular method of engagement.

"...there would have been dire consequences in the longer term for the psychological and physical well-being of the workforce."

As proved by you assuming it in the first place.

"The effect of the industrial revolution was initially to debase conditions amenable to human well-being."

The unprecedented rise in population was just a strange coincidence I suppose?

"It was the experience of witnessing a rapid decline in these areas that spurred those in authority to act in an attempt to assuage the damage - it was "only" then that the industrial juggernaut was able resume its course."

If the authorities could make wealth out of nothing just by passing laws, why didn't they do it before capitalism came along?

"Btw - I know you like posing questions, however, there is no requirement for me to comply with your particular method of engagement."

No, circularity being all the proof you require apparently.

Peter, Hume,

I haven't "assumed" anything - it's you who assumes without studying the detail of the times.

Here's some more "emotive" information

From William Cobbett (1824):

"What, then must be the situation of the poor creatures who are doomed to toil day after day, for three hundred and thirteen days in the year, fourteen hours in each day, in an average of eighty-two degrees?
...Not only is there not a breath of sweet air in these truly infernal scenes, but for a large part of the time, there is the abominable and pernicious stink of the gas to assist in the murderous effects of the heat. In addition to the noxious effluvia of the gas, mixed with the steam, there are the dust, and what is called cotton-flyings, or fuz, which the unfortunate creatures have to inhale; and the fact is, the notorious fact is, that well constitutioned men are rendered old and past labour at forty years of age and that children are rendered decrepit and deformed, and thousands upon thousands of them slaughtered by consumptions, before they arrive at the age of sixteen."

This, from Edwin Chadwick's report on sanitation in the towns (1842)
(in comparing arrangements to regimental camps and quarters)

"The towns whose populations never change their encampment, have no such care, and whilst the houses, streets, courts, lanes, and streams are polluted and rendered pestilential, the civic officers have generally contented themselves with the most barbarous expedients, or sit still amid the pollution..."

On housing from the Lord's Sessional Papers (1842):

""The chief rents differ materially according to the situation, but are in all cases high; and thus arises the inducement to pack houses so close. They are built back to back, without ventilation or drainage; and like a honeycomb, every particle of space is occupied. double rows of these houses form courts,with perhaps, a pump at one end and a privy at the other, common to the occupants of about twenty houses."

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Dear Peter,

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I have no particular point to make. I simply thought you might be interested in viewing the film of inequality over a period of time rather than just looking at the latest snapshots.

This was in relation to your comment that democracy was "highly redistributionist", a fair measure of redistribution of wealth being the degree of inequality as indicated by the Gini index.

The latest snapshot pictures of inequality, apart from a few notable exceptions (e.g., South Africa), confirm that democracy is, indeed, more redistributionist than other political regimes.

The advantage of viewing the film of inequality over a period of time is that it allows us to see the evolution leading up to the latest snapshot and gauge the future tendancy. The film indicates that in India, the world's largest democracy, inequality is increasing (i.e., redistribution is less effective) whereas in the USA inequality following redistribution remains stable.

Over the same period, inequality in China, which is the world's largest non-democratic country, is improving and looks like it could soon become a more egalitarian country than the USA. In other words, the non-democratic political regime of China could perhaps prove more highly redistributionist than American democracy.

The same evolution towards lower inequality (following redistribution) can be observed in Russia, which, for all intents and purposes, perhaps you will agree, may be considered as having a non-democratic political regime;

I should add that it is also interesting to note that the Gini cefficient for Australia has remained stable at 35.2 over the same period (from 2000 to 2007), like that of the USA.

While we like to think of ourselves as enjoying a particularly egalitarian society in Australia, in reality, we only arrive in 40th position in the hit parade according to the Gini index, the most egalitarian country being Denmark with a coefficient of inequality of 24.7

I hope I have clarified that for you, Peter.

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John Fielden was a factory owner and the M.P. for Oldham in Lancashire. He was a leading advocate for factory reform and is known for his widely read pamphlet "The Curse of the Factory System", written in 1836.
Here is an excerpt titled "Dismal Solitudes of Torture":

"It may not be amiss to inquire how it came to pass originally, that, in England, always boasting of her humanity, laws were necessary in order to protect little children from the cruelties of the master-manufacturers, and even from their parents.
....The custom was for the master to clothe his apprentices, and to feed and lodge them in an "apprentice house" near the factory; overseers were appointed to see to the works, whose interest it was to work the children to the utmost, because their pay was in proportion to the quantity of work that they could exact. Cruelty was, of course, the consequence; and there is abundant evidence on record, and preserved in the recollections of some who still live, to show, that, in many of the manufacturing districts, but particularly, I am afraid, in the guilty county to which I belong, cruelties the most heart-rending were practised upon the unoffending and friendless creatures who were thus consigned to the charge of master-manufacturers; that they were harassed to the brink of death by excess labour, that they were flogged, fettered, and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty; that they were, in many cases, starved to the bone while flogged in their work, and that even in some instances, they were driven to commit suicide to evade the cruelties of the world...."

John Fielden was a parliamentary sponsor of the 1847 Factory Act which was also known as the Ten Hours Act which restricted the working hours of women and children to ten hours a day. It had been introduced as a bill in Parliament a year before in 1846, but was defeated by a coalition of Conservatives and free traders....

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Dear Peter,

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Perhaps I should also comment on your idea that: "Voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial, otherwise they wouldn’t take place".

The rationale behind that idea is that if a transaction does not make those involved better off, they can always choose not to engage in it in the first place.

Implicit to the idea is the value judgment that individuals are the best judges of their own welfare. It also assumes that both parties have the same judgment as to the value of the object of the transaction and that a more advantageous value could not be obtained by either party through an alternative transaction with a different party. It further assumes that both parties are perfectly free to trade or not and that there is no compelling reason for either of them to enter into the proposed transaction without examing possible alternatives.

To illustrate these caveats let me offer the following examples:

Are the individuals the best judges of their own welfare?

Example: somebody who bought the retirement house of his dreams that was subsequently destroyed during the Queensland floods and resulted in his death by drowning.

Same judgment by both parties of the value of the object of the transaction:

Example: somebody who sells a painting inherited from a deceased relative for a few dollars to an art dealer who later reveals it is a masterpiece worth millions.

A compelling reason to enter into the transaction without examining possible alternatives:

Example: Somebody who sells his deceased mother's jewellery, of inestmable sentimental value, in order to pay the three months rent he owes the landlord.

I offer these few examples as instances where so-called "mutually beneficial transactions" may prove to be illusory either partially or totally to either one or perhaps even both of the contracting parties.

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Effect of 2 quakes on New Zealand economy ...

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just published its report on the effects on the New Zealand economy of the earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011.

The IMF findings confirm the negative resilience of the New Zealand economy compared to the resilience of the economy of Japan to major catastrophic events.

Here is the link to the IMF report:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2011/cr11102.pdf

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Banjo
If you buy a carton of milk for a dollar, it means you value the milk more than the dollar, and the shopkeeper values the dollar more than the milk. That’s it.

It does not require the assumption that the parties value the objects equally or the same. On the contrary, it means they *both* value them *unequally*. If they both valued them equally or the same as what they already had, then they would not obtain any advantage from swapping them, and the exchange would not take place. The very fact of a voluntary exchange self-evidently proves that they both value them unequally.

The value of an object is not *in* the object itself, it’s not *in* gold or milk or computers. It comes from the subjective human act of evaluation, of placing a value on things. People value things because they expect they can be used to satisfy a particular subjective want. These *subjective* wants cannot be inter-subjectively compared as between people, or even intra-subjectively compared. We cannot meaningfully compare your desire for a drink of milk, with your desire for a swim in the sea, with someone else’s desire for a ruby ring. Nor can we necessarily compare one person’s desire for a drink of water with another’s desire for the same, because their thirst levels, or situations, or other values, are always different.

Thus it is not necessary, not true, not helpful, nor even particularly meaningful to say that voluntary exchanges must involve equal or similar valuations of the objects being exchanged.

Also, we can talk of values in the abstract, but it’s deeds not words that really count. The values don’t have an existence independent of the human action that manifests them: a particular human prefers one particular thing (milk) to another particular thing (a dollar) at a particular time and space, that is all.

We are only capable of knowing what someone’s values are by their actions, and their actions *always* consist of preferring one thing to another.

(Thus values are *ordinal* (1st, 2nd, 3rd), not cardinal (1, 2, 3). They cannot be weighed, measured, quantified, or aggregated, and all pretensions to do so are false. We can’t get a kilogram of values. They can only be objectified through preference.)

It is true that our actions, after the event, don’t always produce the satisfactions we thought they would produce beforehand. I might think a swim will be wonderfully fantastic; and yet it turns out to be only okay.

But that doesn’t mean there is any unfairness operating whether or not I exchange one condition for another by acting alone, or by exchanging with another consenting party for example an art dealer. (Fraud is already illegal and no-one is contending otherwise.)

It’s true that disappointed expectations are an inevitable fact of reality. But that certainly does not justify concluding that a violent interventionist would be a better judge of one’s welfare than oneself. He also faces exactly the same problem of judging ex post utility for himself, a further problem of knowledge in deciding for someone else, and a further conflict of interest in applying his judgment to his coerced subject. His judgment can only be more problematic, not less.

(And if people are incompetent to decide for themselves, it is impossible to see how the same people could be competent to choose, through the ballot box, what other people should decide for them; nor why the *competent* people in the population should be subjected to the rule of the incompetent.)

Therefore in remarking that voluntary transactions must be mutually beneficial otherwise they wouldn’t take place, there is no need to assume that
- both parties value the object of the transaction the same
- either party could not obtain a more advantageous value elsewhere
- the parties are perfectly free to trade or not *(what’s “perfectly free” mean?)
- a more advantageous value could not be obtained by either party through an alternative transaction with a different party
- there is no compelling reason for either of them to enter into the proposed transaction without examining possible alternatives.

It is important to understand that without the unequal valuations that people place on the same thing, human society would not exist, because no-one could obtain a benefit from associating with other people.

Poirot
I haven't "assumed" anything…”

You must be assuming that historical sources are capable of self-evidently proving your point, otherwise why are you citing them without any reason?

But they don’t prove it for the reasons I have shown. You haven’t explained how you know that the Factory Acts did not cause *more* death and hardship than they relieved? And the rise on population was a strange coincidence? Yes?

You don’t seem to understand the issues or arguments you are facing.

Capitalism means the *private* ownership of the means of production. The pollution of so-called public goods such as streets, courts, lanes, and streams evidences *government failure* not market failure.

Similarly, flogging, fettering and torturing are against the law. They infringe the principal of self-ownership, and therefore of the private ownership of the means of production. They are no more an indictment of capitalism than is the existence of robbery or fraud which are also illegal, and rightly so. They definitely do justify forceful intervention by government, or anyone else for that matter, to prevent them. But it is the *central justification* of government to be necessary to prevent such abuses. They show a *government failure*, not a market failure.

Thus anything you don’t like, you just reflexively lay to the blame of capitalism, regardless whether it’s caused by government, or violates private property rights, or caused by something other than capitalism. A completely prejudiced and circular approach, actively ignoring and evading disproof.

Please answer me this: If, following your line of reasoning, in order to improve the conditions of the working class, the legislature in 1842 had passed a law mandating the minimum wage be 50 pounds per day in contemporary money, do you think the resulting condition of the working class would have been better, or worse?