Anyone of those million dud economists who believes in a technological “energy revolution” to save the global economy either don't understand the SECOND LAW OF THEMODYNAMICS or understand it but simply refuse to believe it on the grounds that it is BAD for the economy.

The only way forward is GEOTHERMAL POWER.

And until coal and oil monopolies are forced to comply with a movement into a sustainable Geothermal human future and not a looming WWIII pogrom of the twittering poor, facebooked useless & 'used up' then GEOTHERMAL will NEVER be invested in except as a token along with wind, solar and ocean energy scams.

At the end of time, its the talentless 'purchase everything with printed monopoly money' rich who will prevail over those people and things of merit. And Australia is complicit with the Global market's best joke, Treasurer-of-the-decade Swan, Swanning around in Monopoly money up to his armpits.

How else could a perfectly robust human presence ever become extinct?

I have not read all the comments here because the whole discussion is
redundant.
Globalisation is coming to an end. We are now seeing the "End of Growth".
It is geology that is making the new rules and it does not negotiate.
Soon the cost of the manufacture and world wide transport of those
manufactured goods will become unmanageable.
Everything but everything will become local and we will not be making
all the products we now buy. The Ikeas of the world will disappear.

How soon ? Well why do you think there is such a problem with debt ?
Debt is paid for with growth and your GDP has been eaten by the cost of coal and oil.

It is already happening. It is just that the financial people and
economists are still asleep.
You do live in interesting times !

No-one in this entire thread has made any valid argument against free trade.

Steve Keen's opening comment contends that "the Neoclassical model that dominates economics today is riven with logical and empirical fallacies."

I'm sure it is; but he doesn't identify any, and he makes no argument against free trade. All his argument boils down to is this: "how do you convert [a] wine press into a spinning jenny?".

But that doesn't refute Ricardo's theory at all. Keen is saying that, when trade is "liberalised" ie when restrictions are removed, capital is lost, and society accordingly impoverished, precisely to the extent it was misallocated because of the original protectionist measures. That's not an argument against free trade, it's an argument against protectionism.

But if such an argument is valid as against free trade, why not restrict all trade? All the protectionists keep foundering on this point, which none has made any attempt to answer.

At best Steve's argument amounts to mere conservatism, advocating measures that actively make society poorer, because of the disruption caused to unfair vested interests by getting rid of them.

Squeers repeats the old fallacy, that "[because trade restrictions exist] "We thus enjoy none of the putative benefits of genuine free trade."

Wrong. The benefits of free trade do not depend on an imaginary state in which the whole world abandons protectionism in all its forms. If it did, we would all be at our primitive ancestors' standard of wealth.

Imperfect free trade is still more beneficial to all participants than any protectionism. All it means, at worst, is that one country is taxing its citizens to provide a free handout to the citizens of another country. Daft, but no reason why we should do likewise.

"There's no way the planet can sustain everyone in Western style"

Squeers, Poirot and Bazz presume to know all the production possibilities in the whole world now and in future, and on that basis to tell other people they can't be free to engage in peaceful, consensual and mutually beneficial exchanges now. They live in relative luxury decreeing others should starve.

Peter says, <Squeers repeats the old fallacy, that "[because trade restrictions exist] "We thus enjoy none of the putative benefits of genuine free trade."

But my comment was based on this from Mises:

"With perfect mobility of labor, capital, and commodities all over the earth's surface there would be a tendency for an equalization both in the rate of profit and in wages for labor of the same kind".

I was saying that in the absence of such conditions no such "putative" tendency (of course it's nonsense) to equilibrium is occurring, quite the opposite! But Mises' position is ludicrously idealistic anyway and would tend to anarchy rather than free-market equilibrium.

Then to my comment, "There's no way the planet can sustain everyone in Western style", Peter says: "Squeers, Poirot and Bazz presume to know all the production possibilities in the whole world now and in future, and on that basis to tell other people they can't be free to engage in peaceful, consensual and mutually beneficial exchanges now. They live in relative luxury decreeing others should starve".

This is the rational optimist line, in denial of the physical and biological limits of a resolutely closed and fragile system. Who knows what miracles of innovation the free market might develop in the face of said constraints, eh? So it's damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!
I didn't know you were a man of faith, Peter? So you do believe in miracles? Free market miracles, and your willing to risk everything on the efficacy of your magic? And you condemn us because we're not. And never mind the species and habitat destruction wrought by an unimpeded free market, your willing to consign other life to oblivion on the way to your earthly paradise?
But sorry, I know such sentimentality is offensive to the rational optimist.

But yet you say the free market is also "peaceful, consensual and mutually beneficial". So you're a Romantic after all, Peter!

You ought to write a novel, the genre being Fantasy. I'm sure such a world is possible as fiction, and people need something to believe in.

“I was saying that in the absence of such conditions no such "putative" tendency (of course it's nonsense) to equilibrium is occurring, quite the opposite!”

The absence of free trade is not the fault of the advocates of free trade, but of their opponents.

Why do you say it’s ‘nonsense’ of Mises to say:
"With perfect mobility of labor, capital, and commodities all over the earth's surface there would be a tendency for an equalization both in the rate of profit and in wages for labor of the same kind"?

He shows his reasoning. You don't.

On the one hand you think capitalism is exploitative and unsustainable, and that free trade makes societies poorer, so that rules out private ownership of the means of production and free trade.

On the other hand, the alternative is…? What? You’ve never said.

If it’s true that free trade make societies poorer, why not ban it altogether? Oh that’s right, you don’t answer questions that disprove you.

“But Mises' position is ludicrously idealistic anyway…”

Mises’s statement is not normative; he’s only stating what the logical consequences would be. He doesn’t, like you, pretend to know what everyone else in the world should be forced to do.

“and would tend to anarchy rather than free-market equilibrium.”

So every decision that’s not dictated by government “is anarchy”, is it? So we have anarchy in the supply of socks and pizzas do we, and personal relationships “anarchy” do we?

The category you are perpetually missing is “freedom”.

“[Freedom] is the rational optimist line”

As opposed to your irrational line?

“in denial of the physical and biological limits of a resolutely closed and fragile system.”

This assumes you have knowledge of all production possibilities and ecological parameters in the world. You don’t. You’re not God.

“So it's damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!”

How do you prove that government attempts to manage the economy and ecology will not result in worse economic, ethical and ecological consequences, even in your own terms?

Specify your alternative.

Someone asked why we should plan for local manufacture.
First there are a lot of people who just want to go to work in a
factory and go home to the wife & kids.
Second, we have no choice. As energy becomes expensive global trade
will wither. We have left it too late to make a smooth transition to
whatever would have been a replacement energy system.

We may no longer have the resourses to develope the infrastructure
to support an energy system to keep us in the style to which we have beome accustomed.

That is why I said this discussion is redundant.
What resourses we do have left should be spent on getting geothermal
systems working. Ultimately it is the only method that we can afford
that will give us energy for hundreds and indeed thousands of years
at a price we can afford.

Everything will become local whether the "Free Traders" or "protectioners" agree or not, geology will make the rules so live with it.