A steady state society can still have growth, but only by working smarter, not by using up more stuff or blowing out the population, which may make the folk at the top richer, but is bad news for everyone else.

You say that prosperous countries with stable populations are depending on growth elsewhere, but if you keep your population within your biocapacity, you don't need a lot of big markets overseas, and you still have a surplus to invest in defence. All this trade with India and China is a very recent phenomenon of globalisation. Before the era of globalisation, the US, for example, did most of its trading with other developed countries, and this trade was far less important than the domestic market. The American people managed to live without foreign trade altogether during World Wars I and II. They were able to defend themselves very nicely as well.

Even if you were correct, your reasoning implies that we are doomed in any case, because unending growth is not sustainable on a finite earth, so we might as well make life better for ourselves in the short run by resisting the population growth and trying to change the current capitalist model. If enough people put the growthists' candidates last on every ballot paper, they would be faced with a choice of moderating their greed or peeling off the veneer of democracy and keeping the lid on with torture and disappearances. As we have discussed before, the elites in developed countries backed off from globalisation after WWI when their people made it sufficiently hot for them, leading to the Great Compression in wealth and incomes.

I've just returned from a meet the candidates forum for the QLD state election and in answer to questions about State debt, the aging population and shrinking tax base, the "desperate" need for improving infrastructure and living standards etc., all three candidates, from LNP, Labor and Catter's Australia Party were committed to baby-booming "strong Immigration policies" and development in general to support economic growth. (interestingly, one of the candidates condemned abortions in Australia, not because of the sanctity of life, but for denying us all those thousands of workers and consumers
No one, but no one, was interested in staying within our "bio-capacity". God, we have to get within our bio-capacity before we can stay there!
And before free market ideology regained ascendency, the US and the West in general derived its wealth from consumerism, a permanent war economy, a golden economic period and tariff walls.
You don't seem to realise that I'm not defending our system, I'm attacking it in absolutely uncompromising terms! As long as you believe capitalism can be redeemed, you're supporting it!
I would love to get behind the Stable Population Party, but it's pie in the sky. Reformism is grease for the wheels of the growth juggernaut. And if the SPP had had a candidate at the forum tonight they'd have been whistling the same tune, or else been boo'd out of the place. Idealism is the quaint stuff of nascent, unrepresentative parties and dreamers. Why do you think the Green's support base is stagnant? And they've masked their idealism with pragmatical rhetoric to a large extent.
Sorry to be the spoiler. And I'd love to be proven wrong!

Squeers is right - things will have to become far more dire before major change becomes unavoidable. (In the meantime everyone will be scrounging as much as they can for a nest egg.)

One possible scenario may be workable in longer term, and could possibly be introduced progressively if and when governments become aware of the inevitability of major reform. That scenario would entail a reduction in the working base (induced by higher living standards enabled through improved efficiencies/productivity via innovation and mechanisation); a reduction in the higher eschalon through natural attrition (death duties) and the application of massive tax increases; and shrinkage of the middle class, partly by tax increases and partly by the elevation of the working base.

To eke out natural resource exploitation there will have to be extensive and highly efficient recycling, substantial extension of nuclear power, and the tapping of all viable sources of renewable energy. (However, improvements in technology and reductions in population will reduce overall energy demand.)

Travel will become extremely expensive, and all but limited to essential commodity shipment; rail will be far more extensive and road transport largely restricted to commodities movement (with private use subject to heavy tarrifs, and limited to solar-powered vehicles - though cycling will become extensive). Holidays will be at home or at an affordable railstop. Food will be rationed (but you can have as many high-tech home appliances as your work credits will permit). Household rainwater use will be mandatory, town water rationed, storm water recycled and household effluent treated to recycle bio-waste and to redeploy grey-water. Home gardens will be mandatory, and dedicated almost exclusively to food production, with rural families being required to be largely self sufficient.

In Aus, meat will be strictly rationed, with most going for export, and household diet will be largely vegetarian. Communes will proliferate, welfare and unemployment eliminated (except for the disabled), with free universal education and healthcare.

Sailing will become more extensive, though expensive, and immigration will be reciprocal or subject to heavy restrictions.

No Eden, just existence and high-tech toys. Century 22? Forget tourism; invest in rollerskates.

Our political elite are overwhelmingly growthists, but there is good evidence that a great many people in the general public disagree with them. Look at how Kevin Rudd's support finally collapsed when he announced that he was in favour of a "Big Australia". The very first thing that Julia Gillard did was to repudiate it. Of course, she was only trying to soothe the punters, but soothing can only go on so long in the absence of substance. See Ross Gittins' account of this (he is the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald):

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/stop-beating-about-the-bush-and-talk-about-big-australia-20100803-115bg.html

Many people are also unhappy about crowding, congestion, deterioration of the natural environment, high housing costs (due to exorbitant costs for urban residential land), shrinking block sizes, permanent water restrictions and skyrocketing utility bills as cities outgrow their natural water supply, and overstretched and underfunded infrastructure and public services, essentially due to the enormous costs of growth infrastructure. (According to Labor MP Kelvin Thomson, each new migrant immediately requires $200,000 to $400,000 in infrastructure, mostly from the public purse.) Why else is opposition to growth so great that the state politicians have to take development approvals away from democratic scrutiny at the local level? It is one thing to accept permanent water restrictions to protect the environment, as Saltpetre suggests, but quite another thing to accept them if their purpose is to enable the cramming in of more people.

In the case of the Greens, the party was essentially infiltrated by the Far Left, which has a very different agenda from the environmentalists. The Stable Population Party is not at all the same.

http://www.populationparty.org.au/

Oh Squeers............it is realistic to be depressed, but not very helpful.

You wrote: "As long as you believe capitalism can be redeemed, you're supporting it! I would love to get behind the Stable Population Party, but it's pie in the sky."

It is a self defeating prophesy not to get behind a rational, caring, stable population political party.

in that sense, you are part of the problem. It reminds me of a friend who was offered a real estate bargain. He dithered and was upset he missed out.

You have nothing to lose in real terms and you joining SPP is a positive step in implementing equality for the poor and a design for appropriate modified capitalism , which brings us in line with living within our bio-capacity.

All the best,

Ralph

Ralph Bennett,
Thanks for your sympathy but I've never been depressed in my life to any morbid degree. I'm too busy and have no time for wallowing.

<It is a self defeating prophesy not to get behind a rational, caring, stable population political party>

The rationality of your position is precisely what's been in question and I seem to have signally failed to alert you to the incongruity of dreams of a stable capitalist population. You can't attain to stable population via a virtually unregulated system, insatiably dedicated to profit and fundamentally dependent on expansion to extract it. Nor is there any real support for living within our bio-capacity; many well-meaning people support the Greens and movements like yours for the kudos, or to expiate guilt, but they would take to their heels if it came to living within their bio-capacity. Nor "should" anyone adopt such frugality while plutocrats and the rump generally continues profligate and indifferent. I'm also wary because stable population movements are often fronts for xenophobia, nationalism and protectionism--fascism, in a word, or the socialism of fools.

<in that sense, you are part of the problem...>

I could say the same to you, since your idealism leads you to neglect the real problem and cavort about in a manner of innocent diversion.

<You have nothing to lose in real terms ...>

On the contrary; by prevaricating with this wishful thinking, while the villain continues unmolested, you're shepherding us all towards the cliff (I do like a good mixed metaphor occasionally).

<a design for appropriate modified capitalism>

You can't modify capitalism, you can only dress it up (in sheep's clothing); it is fundamentally greedy, rapacious, unfair and indifferent, and stable population can never keep it fed.

I appreciate the good intentions and I'll check out your SPP, but from what I've heard so far I'm afraid it's misguided and pollyannaish.