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