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The Forum > Article Comments > Economies should be shaped to suit man > Comments

Economies should be shaped to suit man : Comments

By Nick Rose, published 15/1/2013

However unlike Friedman, Eisenstein's proposals advocate the redistribution of wealth and a more egalitarian society, rather than continued wealth concentration and inequality.

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No problems Squeers.

I stayed up late last night and watched this very sobering presentation by a US Professor Emeritus of natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ina16XSJQvM - a good chunk of it deals with the latest (as at Nov 2012) science on AGW. It really is disturbing how far past the point of no return we appear to be. And yet the capitalist juggernaut barrels on regardless, seeing 'profit opportunities' at every turn, such as 'emissions trading'.

The presenter, Guy McPherson, concludes that the only hope (and it's by now a fairly small one) of avoiding catastrophic AGW is total global economic collapse. The 'good news', according to McPherson, is that such a collapse seems fairly likely.
Posted by Nick Rose, Monday, 18 February 2013 8:46:23 PM
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Dear Nick,

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Re: "The Twilight of Petroluem":

Antonio Turiel, the author of the article you posted, confirms what I guess just about everybody (including a perfect neophyte like me) has understood for a number of years now.

That's why we've got so many of these ugly wind farms ruining the environment just about everywhere around the world these days. It's why we've got acres and acres of solar panels all over our rooftops and huge photovoltaic power stations. It's also why we've got huge sea and ocean wave power farms, in addition to the hydro-electric power stations we already had, operating out of dams stretched across our rivers.

Paradoxically, what is news to me is that Turiel's very first graph indicates that the overall supply of petroleum is increasing. I thought it was diminishing!

He writes: "Petroleum will continue to be available for many decades but always in lesser quantities ...". That's odd. His graph indicates exactly the contrary.

It shows an overall increase in supply from 78 p/qw (whatever that means) in the year 2000, to 100 p/qw in the year 20035. He does not indicate what happens after that. As the curve continues to increase, my guess is ...

That does not prevent him from concluding, without the slightest inkling of a doubt: "The final fact is that the petroleum era has come to its end."

Something wrong with the logic there!

Is that the conundrum you had in mind?

You also indicate: "We need (amongst other things) a different means to measure societal progress other than GDP, hence the intervention of Eisenstein and growing numbers of others, e.g.

http://postgrowth.org/.

That is what seems to have inspired Bhutan's fourth Dragon King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, just over 40 years ago, in 1972, when he launched the GNH (Gross National Happiness) as a replacement for GDP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness

A little later, the GPI (Gross Progress Indicator) was elaborated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_Progress_Indicator

Your "Post Growth" friends seek "global prosperity that don’t rely on economic growth". My dictionary says "prosperity" means "success, good fortune, especially in financial respects"... Is that not capitalism?

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 18 February 2013 11:32:26 PM
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Dear Poirot,

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I'm afraid I'm not a fan of Andy Warhol and pop art. It tends to repulse me. It corresponds to an aspect of "modern" society I have always disliked. Nor do I like Francis Bacon's paintings which remind me of horror films.

I think you are right: Andy Warhol reproduced such a large number of his Campbell Soup Tins painting, they covered an entire wall of the exhibition hall.

Coming back to your favourites, the Impressionists, I must say that, to my mind, they are the only artists who captured nature in a perfectly recognisable form and embellished it.

Their paintings are always far more beautiful than the reality they depict. They are an improvement on nature. They radiate well-being, harmony, calm and serenity.

In increasing order of natural beauty, in my opinion, photographs take third position, nature second and impressionist paintings, the number one position.

The amazing thing is, the Impressionist painters were, generally speaking, a fairly ugly lot. Most of them lived on a pittance and struggled to survive. They certainly did not radiate health, wealth and happiness. Yet their paintings are beautiful and immensely optimistic - a sort of garden of Eden.

I thought I should point this out so that you would not be too disappointed not to visit Claude Monet's Giverny. Please be assured his paintings are much more beautiful than reality.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 3:16:59 AM
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Daer Squeers,

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Capitalism is a relatively recent term, coined in the mid-19th century, during the industrial revolution, from a much older word, "capital".

There were many "isms" invented at about that time, socialism and communism, for example, Darwinism a little later on. An "ism" was added to a root word in order to designate a related system, theory, or practice.

The term "capital" derives from the Latin "capitalis" (of the head) which later became, in Medieval Latin, "capitale" (wealth), an accumulation of money or property.

Any accumulation of money or property is capital. A person who possesses capital is a capitalist.

Although they were not known as such until the mid-19th century, both "capitalism" and "capitalists" have existed ever since the Neolithic Age, 12 000 years ago, when small, mobile groups of hunter-gatherers joined with others in the Agricultural Revolution which modified their life-styles completely.

They became sedentary village and town dwellers developing specialised food-crop cultivation and irrigation methods which allowed extensive surplus food production.

They had invented capitalism and became the world's first capitalists without knowing it.

This is one example, among many, of what I call "good" capitalism. I submit it to you for consideration. It continues to exist today and I see no reason to wish to discontinue it. To throw it out with the rest of capitalism is to throw out the baby with the bath water.

I hope your idealism does not oblige you to do that, Squeers.

Integrating it into some other system under a different appelation would hardly alter the fact that it is a form of capitalism.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 3:36:54 AM
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Banjo Paterson,

I agree with you about Warhol - I'm not a fan of modern art either.

Although our trip up to the art gallery to view these works was an opportunity to see works than we wouldn't ordinarily have access to. It was odd to be able to stand inches away from paintings by Picasso and Warhol and many others - and as I said there were quite a few by Matisse also.

Yes, I gleaned that the Impressionists managed to "improve" on nature. I once wrote an essay on the swerve from the Apollonian definite lines of the studio painters who preceded the Impressionists, to the hazy Dionysian works of the Impressionists That's why it took so long for them to allowed into the major exhibitions at the time. They had to break through the established "club" to gain acceptance. (try and catch up with Irving Stone's book. It's written as a story, as he did with Michelangelo in the "The Agony and the Ecstasy" and on Van Gogh in "Lust For Life")

There was also a band of Australian Impressionists - and their works are beautiful also.

Thanks for the chat.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 9:03:12 AM
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Dear Banjo

Please read all of the Twilight of Petroleum article. The graphs become progressively less rosy (no pun intended!) as you go down the page, and some of the assumptions on which the first graph is based are held up for critical examination. The last graph paints a very different picture to the first, and supports the conclusion.

Regarding 'prosperity without growth', it depends on what is meant by prosperity. If you define it principally in financial terms, then you might reach the conclusion that it is achieved via capitalism (but really only for a few). If you adopt a more expansive definition of flourishing and thriving (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity), then such a state is possible without the narrow focus on profit and economic (i.e. monetary) gain - indeed many would say it is more likely in the absence of such a focus.
Posted by Nick Rose, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 9:15:55 PM
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