Based on current growth trends, we will reach a population of 23 million at 9:57pm (AEST) on Tuesday 23 April 2013.

What does it mean for Australia?

http://blog.mccrindle.com.au/_blog/The_McCrindle_Blog/post/23_million_on_23_April_2013/

http://www.news.com.au/tablet/massive-thumbs-down-for-big-australia/story-fnehlez2-1226560309280

Ludwig>> Based on current growth trends, we will reach a population of 23 million at 9:57pm (AEST) on Tuesday 23 April 2013.

What does it mean for Australia?<<

Congratulations to someone on Christmas Island Luddy?

Ludwig not a lot, we have had our current growth rate for sometime.
The world will not end.
As we are in financial trouble we will need more tax and too more tax payers to just stay as we are.
Both sides of politics will continue to want increased population, one for mum another for dad and one for Australia.
As we near 30 million, just maybe we and the world will be ready to consider endless growth.

Why don't you just move out to the country? There's plenty of room.

It is interesting that we have reached yet another population ‘milestone’ on (or almost on) Earthday (22nd April), the internationally celebrated day of concern about environmental protection and sustainability.

What a contrast! But then, Earthday is pretty much a non-event in Australia. And indeed, the ‘achievement of another million to our population, so soon after the 22 million level, is almost a non-event as well.

Oh well, we will continue to blunder forth, towards a big (huge and grossly oversized) Australia. We’ll continue to blame our politicians of either persuasion for not fixing and improving all our resource, service, infrastructure and environmental woes, while not decrying their absurd facilitation of rapid population growth, which I’m sure every man and his dog can see is the primary cause of most of our big problems.

Huugh!

Superficially, Australia looks very big and sparsely populated, but it is actually a small to medium sized country wrapped around a big desert. According to the ABS, 85% of Australians live within 50 kilometers of the coast. If everything were hunky dory, as Belly and Jardine suggest, then our small population wouldn't be having much impact on the environment. In fact, our water resources are overcommitted in much of the country, even with the existing population, and we rank at the bottom of the developed world for environmental management.

http://epi.yale.edu/dataexplorer/tableofmainresults

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/environment.aspx

Population growth is not the sole cause of environmental problems, but it acts as a multiplier for most of them. The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth in Australia as a Key Threatening Process under the Environmental Protection Act

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf

In 1994 the Australian Academy of Sciences recommended a maximum population of 23 million.

"If our population reaches the high end of the feasible range (37 million), the quality of life of all Australians will be lowered by the degradation of water, soil, energy and biological resources. Cities such as Sydney and Melbourne will double or triple in size, multiplying their current infrastructure problems and their impact on the surrounding regions of the continent."

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

As for the question of taxpayers, the Productivity Commission in its 2006 report on immigration and its 2010/2011 annual report made it clear that it could find no good evidence for a significant per capita economic benefit. Population growth does benefit some groups in the community, but it is at the expense of everyone else.

Water? Infrastructure? Environmental management? All run by the government.

When governments ran the food supply, we got food shortages; now they run the water supply, we get water shortages. That's not because there's too many people; it's because the state is incapable of rationalising scarce resources to their most valued ends, and the beliefs of the statists, that the state is some kind of benevolent superbeing, are simply wrong. They have never thought through the issues; and only meet ever new disproofs by continued recitation of their brainwashed beliefs in the wondrous government even as they themselves complain at its dysfunctionality

Hells bells Jardine, what ARE you saying??

<< When governments ran the food supply, we got food shortages; now they run the water supply, we get water shortages. That's not because there's too many people >>

Erm… yes it is!!

In years gone by when there weren’t too many people, all was fine!

You are right about scarce resources. But why are they scarce? Because the demand is huge and rapidly increasing.

So how is the government supposed to deal with this? Completely divulge all responsibility to private enterprise? I’m sure that would work!

<< it's because the state is incapable of rationalising scarce resources to their most valued ends >>

Oh, so those who are not at the most valued end lose out, and either have to pay a whole lot more or just not get anywhere near the access to the particular resource in question, or both. And who decides which sector is at the most valued end? Think: water. Residential areas versus industry, for example. Which is closer to the most valued end?

It is a silly argument, Jardine. What the government needs to be doing is matching the demand with the supply capability, so that the supply can be maintained, with a big safety margin.

The supply of our basic resources is not increasing, or at least not increasing enough to match the rapidly increasing demand in sustainable manner. So guess what has to happen – the demand needs to be stabilised, stopped from growing ever-bigger, if not reduced overall.

<< They have never thought through the issues >>

Well that’s a huge understatement if ever there was one!

If they had even started to think about it, they’d see that to forever increase the demand for all our resources, goods, infrastructure and services, when they are all battling to meet the current demand, is not nigh on madness, it IS TOTAL madness!! !

Ludwig, scarcity of resources is caused by nature. It can't be made to just go away. Your idea that government should balance supply with demand presupposes that government is a kind of thing that can do this in the first place. It can't. It has no way of doing it because it has no way of knowing what are the subjective values of all the millions of people affected by its decisions.

So again, you're thinking what government should be, before turning your mind to what it actually is.

Would you think that Milperra Soccer Club can "balance supply and demand"? The Country Women's Association? The Comancheros? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? No. Because you understand it would be an irrational belief to expect that of these entities. But substitute government, and you don't recognise it's an irrational belief, while having no more reason to believe it. You've never thought through your assumption. Where did you get the idea that government is some kind of magical superbeing? Look at it. Look at Julia Gillard, and Tony Abbott. Do they look like superbeings to you? Do you think they are morally superior to ordinary people? Possessed of superior knowledge, and finer wisdom? You're kidding yourself. How is government going to know the higher versus the lower valued uses of tens of millions of people? How?

<< Ludwig, scarcity of resources is caused by nature >>

Jardine, within the context of our discussion, I disagree strongly.

For example, water is abundant in nature, and yet it is a stressed resource in many Australian cities, towns and agricultural areas. This has everything to do with the scale of the demand compared to our ability to effectively harness and utilise this resource.

<< Your idea that government should balance supply with demand presupposes that government is a kind of thing that can do this in the first place. >>

Absolutely! Governments can do this. It is one of the most fundamental roles of government to do so.

They are arguably not too bad at doing it on a small scale. Indeed it is a fundamental part of the approval process of all manner of projects to assess the viability and impacts, in the long term. Now, if they did this on the national level, we’d see something entirely different to what we are seeing now, in terms of matching supply and demand, assessing impacts and properly planning for our future.

<< You've never thought through your assumption >>

Oh yes I have, enormously, over many years.

It would seem to me that you are making assumptions which haven’t been thought through, and which are really quite alien to me. I mean, I’ve never heard the notion before that it is not the role of government to plan for our future, to carefully assess all the factors, to strive to not overburden already stressed sectors or supply lines, etc, etc.

Jardine,

What we are really protesting is an abuse of government power, intended to benefit the politicians' business supporters at the expense of everyone else. The Australian fertility rate is 1.9, slightly below replacement level, as it has been since 1979 - not a problem. The only reason that we are growing at 1.7%, a rate far more characteristic of a very poor Third World country than of an advanced developed country, is because of government immigration policy. This policy is maintained against scientific advice on our long-term prospects, despite the government's inability to supply adequate infrastructure, despite the lack of evidence of any significant per capita economic benefit, even in the short term, and against public opinion

Reaction to Kevin Rudd's Big Australia

http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-australia-vision-goes-down-like-a-lead-balloon-20100803-115g7.html

Recent public opinion poll

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/poll-shows-aussies-want-immigration-capped/story-e6frea83-1225822902965

Needless to say, the Government will not allow a referendum on this question. It is amusing to see a Libertarian like you defending "government interference" against "statists" like me and Ludwig.

I meant to say 1976, not 1979.

"Superficially, Australia looks very big and sparsely populated, but it is actually a small to medium sized country wrapped around a big desert."

Beautifully put, Divergence. I like it.

Divergence
The control of people moving in to a country is one of the core claims of state prerogative.

In saying that if you don't like the overcrowding, you can move to the country, I'm not defending the government interference that is immigration policy. I'm simply pointing out that in the country, you don't get a feeling of overcrowding and infrastructure isn't as crowded.

The libertarian solution to the problem first of all recognises that the socialisation of any resource inevitably leads to a 'tragedy of the commons' situation which is essentially what Ludwig is complaining about. Yet he himself is foremost in defending that prerogative of state. When it yields exactly the undesirable results that libertarian theory correctly predicts will result from government handling it, Ludwig doesn't get it, and thinks the problem is too many people. He has clearly never thought through the alternatives.

The problems that concern Ludwig with high immigration are called externalities in economics, that is, the beneficiaries are able to internalise the benefits to themselves - enjoyment of life in Australia including so-called public goods - while externalising the costs onto society at large - strains on infrastructure etc.

The libertarian solution is to internalise the externalities by making the beneficiaries or their sponsors bear the costs of the benefits they receive by immigration. But that can't be done by giving government more control, and what is policy but control? More government control can and will only exacerbate the original problem. Not even Ludwig agrees with government policy on immigration. He is always telling me how necessary and desirable it is; is caught in a self-contradiction; and doesn't re-think his views even when this is pointed out.

The political appeal to "science" is completely vapid. Science doesn't supply value judgments, while policy requires them.

To give you some idea of the libertarian argument as it applies to water, please see these two short critiques of water policy:

"Water Down Government" by Benjamin Marks
http://mises.org/daily/1586/Water-Down-Government

"Government's Water Shortage" by Justin Jefferson
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2007/02/26/governments-water-shortage/

Jardine, could you possibly elucidate the last point in my previous post:

< It would seem to me that you are making assumptions which haven’t been thought through, and which are really quite alien to me. I mean, I’ve never heard the notion before that it is not the role of government to plan for our future… >

You’ve got me phlummoxed. What I would consider to be all-important core duties of government, you are saying they should butt out of!

The same sort of thinking appears in your first link. From this article:

< The solution to our water supply problems is to eliminate government interference >

Then…

< The best solution, in my opinion, is for those with suitable air quality (everyone in Sydney) and roofing to install water tanks and capture rainwater off their roofs. It is easy and beneficial to secede from government’s water grid >

Well, if that was the case (and it isn’t), then it would surely be a duty of government to encourage it! You would surely be calling for government subsidies and incentives. And you would surely be critical of a government that didn’t do this.

Again, the notion that government should butt out seems just completely bizarre to me.

The second article concludes that:

< Governmental ownership and control of water should be abolished >

That is a terrible conclusion. Yes, there are big problems with the management of water. So we should be seeking to improve them. But to strive to eliminate the very body that is SUPPOSED to be in charge of the management of essential resources and infrastructure, and implement a regime of no management or management by economic market forces would be enormously the WRONG way to go!

In fact, it is the continuously increasing demand on our water resources, which comes as a direct result of big business pressure, ie: market forces, and the weakness of government, that is the biggest problem of all in the management water.

Jardine,

I am just as skeptical about government as you are. The only difference is that I am also very skeptical of business. You seem to be very sensitive to political coercion, but blind to economic coercion. There has been an abundance of bad behavior from both government and business. In some cases, the private sector can indeed do a much better job than government. In Tim Flannery's recent Quarterly Essay, he praises the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (which I support) for doing a much better job of protecting endangered species and ecosystems than government. (They buy up private land and turn it into nature reserves, which they manage properly.)

It is very doubtful if either government or business would be pushing population growth if they had to pay for the externalities, as there is no good evidence of a significant per capita benefit, as stated in the 2010/2011 Productivity Commission Annual Report (p. 6).

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

Science, of course, can say nothing about values, but it can often say a great deal about likely consequences of a course of action. This can feed back into values because not only do different people have different values, but the same individual can have a number of different values, which can compete with each other. Thomas Austin, who is credited with introducing rabbits into Australia, said at the time: "The introduction of a few rabbits could do little harm and might provide a touch of home, in addition to a spot of hunting." If he knew about the damage that those rabbits would do, do you think that he would have wanted to go ahead and bring them in anyway?

You forget the essentially symbiotic relationship involved, Ludwig.

>>In fact, it is the continuously increasing demand on our water resources, which comes as a direct result of big business pressure, ie: market forces, and the weakness of government, that is the biggest problem of all in the management water.<<

The market forces that you allude to must, by definition, require that water supplies are efficiently and effectively managed. If they are allowed to deplete, those very businesses that are dependent upon them will die.

"Big business" did not get that way by ignoring these simple truths. Pick up and read any annual report, and you will see their plans for the sustainability and longevity of their business - these companies are required by their shareholders to describe such plans specifically, and in great detail.

Your starry-eyed view of government's ability to understand basic organizational issues such as this, is a result of your blindness to the fact that politicians are very rarely indeed blessed with the level of basic managerial nous equivalent to that possessed by lower-middle management of a real company.

Show me a government project that has even half-way met its original plan, while consuming less than twice its original budget, and I'll show you my pet unicorn.

Ludwig

To elucidate, suppose someone wanted to use an industrial hammer-drill to make a bed quilt, or wanted a cat to bark as a watchdog, or appointed the Hell’s Angels as the moral guardians for teenage girls.

In those cases, we could see straight away that the means chosen are not suitable for the ends sought.

But when it comes to government, it seems people just project onto it whatever they want it to be and do, without first reflecting whether it is indeed intrinsically unsuitable for attaining those ends.

For example, you consider
a) the management of population and migration to be a core duty of government, and
b) the results of government ‘management’ of population and migration to be chronically highly unsatisfactory.

Can you see the paradox there? You’re actually getting the unsatisfactory results that flow from the means you consider to be self-evidently appropriate.

My theory of government – that it’s a legal monopoly of the use of force and fraud without any intrinsic ability to rationalise scarce social resources to their most socially valued ends – correctly predicts the results that you find unsatisfactory. Your theory – that government represents society – incorrectly predicts that it should produce much better results which in fact fail to materialize. Which theory has better explaining power?

You say you’ve thought through the issues, but you haven’t because you’ve never considered how the ends you are trying to achieve through government policy, might be better achieved otherwise.

To really think critically about the issues, we need to ask, what is it about the nature of that particular group in society – the State – that makes it suitable to achieve the ends of population or environmental management?

Okay so let’s put aside what you think government *should be* for a sec, and let me ask you this. What is it about government that means it’s not intrinsically unsuitable to to use as an instrument to manage population or the environment?

Divergence
I can’t download that document: try again perhaps?

“Australian Wildlife Conservancy (which I support) for doing a much better job of protecting endangered species and ecosystems than government….”

I think that’s great, and I support nature conservation in a similar way too. I think that’s the way of the future.

“This can feed back into values because not only do different people have different values, but the same individual can have a number of different values, which can compete with each other.”

Indeedy. That’s my whole point. There is simply no basis whatsoever for government’s pretensions to know what those values are, because they are
a) subjective
b) not inter-subjectively comparable
c) not objectively measurable
d) dispersed among billions of people (it’s not only Australians how have an interest in Australia’s environment and resources)
e) constantly changing.

“It is very doubtful if either government or business would be pushing population growth if they had to pay for the externalities…”

That presupposes that the issue is a political one, that the Australian polity is the relevant decision-making entity, that the relevant values can be sensibly aggregated, and that the relevant time-preference is common ground. All these assumptions are problematic.

“..as there is no good evidence of a significant per capita benefit, as stated in the 2010/2011 Productivity Commission Annual Report (p. 6).”

The PC’s methodology is false as its error in aggregating. We aren’t just property belonging to the State.

Take a couple who want to have a family, and are ready, willing and able to pay the costs. Who are the PC to deny any significant per capita benefit? Especially to those who would not otherwise have lived!

So there are much deeper questions about value, epistemology, depletable resources, time preference, and the State, in issue here.

If Austin had had to pay the externalized costs of thim thair rairbits, I don’t think he woulda placed such a high value on “providing a touch of home”. But so what? That’s no argument for government management of the environment; just for better internalizing externalities through private property rights.

Jardine,

I have tested the link and it works. Maybe there was a problem with the server.

When I said "per capita benefit", I really meant "per capita economic benefit". The growthists like to claim that more people will make us richer on average and will solve the problems of an aging population. The Productivity Commission disputes this. So far as people having children is concerned, we can afford to leave that as a decision for the individual couple in Australia. A relatively few people want large families, but they are balanced by all the people who don't have children or only have one. Whether the rest of us should be forced to subsidise large families, other than on the basis of means tested welfare, is another question. In China, where arable land per capita was becoming dangerously small, it could be a question of your right to breed conflicting with your neighbours' right to eat.

I don't see that a human right exists to trash your own country and then move into someone else's, creating externalities. If government doesn't manage immigration or invasion, then who does? If you can't pay for the infrastructure and public services that you will use up front, for example, then the existing residents will have to pay. It doesn't matter if the electricity is supplied by government or a private company. The network, power plants, etc. will still have to be expanded and paid for by taxes or charges on all of us. See

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/1/MPRA_paper_6869.pdf

Divergence

Okay got those docs.

“The growthists like to claim that more people will make us richer on average and will solve the problems of an aging population.”

I think the growthists face the same problem as the anti-growthists in arguing for their respective preferred policies on that aggregative basis. The question is not whether growth will make “us” richer on average, since entirely within that parameter many, perhaps most, can still be unjustly mulcted to pay for others’ benefits.

There seems to be no issue in either of those papers, in Ludwig’s view, in yours, or in mine, where private benefits are privately paid for. For example Ludwig has no issue with immigration so far as it concerns people enjoying each other’s company in their own homes. The issue is where a migrant’s benefit can only be obtained at a national’s expense, or at the general expense including the environment.

“If government doesn't manage immigration or invasion, then who does?”

Both the PC and MPRA reports assume from the outset that government can and should, so they provide no support for the statist argument because they never consider what is in issue in this thread.

To join issue requires at least an understanding of what the voluntarists like me are actually arguing.

For a concrete example, take asylum-seekers. Some people, like the Greens, say that “we” need to provide them, not just with protection, but free medical, free legal, free English classes and so on. (What they really mean is that others should be forced to pay for the Greens' opinions.) Others say that “we” need to sink the boats etc.

The tragedy of the commons is precisely that, once matters pass into common ownership, there is no way that these kinds of intractable conflicts can be avoided, and indeed no way to avoid A getting an unjust benefit at the expense of B.

My suggested solution is for those who want asylum-seekers, to sponsor them and indemnify any person including any government against all the costs, including processing, settlement and any criminal compensation.

(cont.)

Those who don’t want ‘em, aren’t forced to pay. What could be fairer and more sustainable than that?

Whether or not you agree with it, the point is that this would be an example in principle of internalizing the externalities in immigration, and managing the issue through voluntary relations based on private property, rather than on coerced relations – policy - and the tragedy of the commons.

(But, one might say, what about their tax etc? However this only proves my starting point that the social problems, and the evaluational chaos, are coming from the commonalty in the equation – i.e. the State’s involvement. My answer is: make more social relations free and voluntary! Reduce the State!)

The MPRA and PC documents are nothing but multifarious attempts to come to terms with these problems of unjust externalities. But they can’t be resolved at the aggregate level, that’s the whole point! It’s the State that’s causing them!

For example, the real question is not whether immigrants *as a whole* pay more, or less, in tax, than they receive in benefits. It’s whether particular immigrants do.

I reject the methodology of both those government reports because
a) they assume government can and should manage immigration, whereas that’s what’s in issue here, so they are no help.
b) they are riddled with the aggregative errors, logical fallacies, and moral confusion that are the expression of the tragedy of the commons.
c) All their calculations are based on the unspoken and unjustified assumption that all the people and their property belong to the State to dispose as it thinks best.
d) All the comments that they make on the different aspects of this topic really provide no advance on that fundamental problem.

I think as much as possible policy responses should be avoided, in favour of individual freedom and private property. Only where that would involve A aggressing against the person or property of B, is a policy response justified. And there the only legitimate response is to internalise the externality NOT to engage in forced redistributions which intrinsically describes all state interventions.

Those who don’t want ‘em, aren’t forced to pay. What could be fairer and more sustainable than that?

Whether or not you agree with it, the point is that this would be an example in principle of internalizing the externalities in immigration, and managing the issue through voluntary relations based on private property, rather than on coerced relations – policy - and the tragedy of the commons.

(But, one might say, what about their tax etc? However this only proves my starting point that the social problems, and the evaluational chaos, are coming from the commonalty in the equation – i.e. the State’s involvement. My answer is: make more social relations free and voluntary! Reduce the State!)

The MPRA and PC documents are nothing but multifarious attempts to come to terms with these problems of unjust externalities. But they can’t be resolved at the aggregate level, that’s the whole point! It’s the State that’s causing them!

For example, the real question is not whether immigrants *as a whole* pay more, or less, in tax, than they receive in benefits. It’s whether particular immigrants do.

I reject the methodology of both those government reports because
a) they assume government can and should manage immigration, whereas that’s what’s in issue here, so they are no help.
b) they are riddled with the aggregative errors, moral confusion, and logical fallacies that are the expression of the tragedy of the commons.
c) All their calculations are based on the unspoken assumption that all the people and their property belong to the State to dispose as it thinks best.
d) All the comments that they make on the different aspects of this topic really provide no advance on that fundamental problem.

I think as much as possible policy responses should be avoided, in favour of individual freedom and private property. Only where that would involve A aggressing against the person or property of B, is a policy response justified. And there the only legitimate response is to internalise the externality NOT to engage in forced redistributions, which intrinsically describes all state interventions.

Freedom.

Wow Jardine, you are really going at it. Good stuff. I do like a passionate debater.

I am unable to commit the time at the moment to fully keep up with you. I’m also torn between the urge to do so and the feeling that it is not worthwhile, given that your whole premise seems to have such a bizarre foundation.

You wrote:

<< My theory of government – that it’s a legal monopoly of the use of force and fraud without any intrinsic ability to rationalise scarce social resources to their most socially valued ends >>

( :>|

I’m with Divergence:

<< I am just as skeptical about government as you are. The only difference is that I am also very skeptical of business >>

I couldn’t agree more that government often doesn’t do things very well. But I think that in practically every instance, a lack of any regulatory effort from government would result in a worse outcome.

In some cases the private sector could definitely do a better job, if they got their act together. AWC is a shining example, which as a professional botanist and ecologist is an organisation I have had a fair bit to do with.

But overall, the private sector needs a strong regulatory regime to keep it from running amok. Societies around the world haven’t imposed restrictions on their citizens for no reason. Laws have been implemented to keep us all more or less on the straight and narrow.

In the absence of government and hence of the organisations that administer all these laws, there would be mayhem.

So your fundamental point is surely wrong. We shouldn’t be working towards eliminating government or taking it out of the population/sustainability arena, we should be striving to improve its functionality.

<< The market forces that you allude to must, by definition, require that water supplies are efficiently and effectively managed. If they are allowed to deplete, those very businesses that are dependent upon them will die. >>

Huh!?!?

Pericles, that’s a load of old cods!

Water resources HAVE become more precarious, compared to demand, in many of our cities and towns. I haven’t heard any chamber of commerce or any individual business ever call for a cessation to the increasing demand for water in places where this resource is stressed! When has any business sector ever genuinely pushed for sustainable secure water supplies?? In reality, they do exactly the opposite!

Crikey, if business DID follow your starry-eyed principle, we (us sensible people) wouldn’t be worrying about continuous rapid unending population growth and the antisustainable momentum that results from it.

If business was as you purport it to be, it would be sustainable, and so would the whole of our society!!

So um, what happened to our last conversation?

I picked you up on a fundamental error to which you offered no response. Most unusual for you. Strongly gives the impression that you realise that you are wrong and could give no reply other than to admit this: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5719#159980

Just saying so, Ludwig, don't make it so.

>>Pericles, that’s a load of old cods!<<

My point was simply this: businesses that rely upon the supply of a particular input, will always record in their annual reports the sustainable nature of those inputs. Without those statements, the business will be seen to have no plan for its own future, and will therefore die.

Which part of that is "cods"?

>>Water resources HAVE become more precarious, compared to demand, in many of our cities and towns.<<

Quite possibly. But due entirely to the combination of ongoing blindness, complacency and lack of courage of consecutive governments over the past half-century. We have the same problem with our airports here in NSW - no government has had the intestinal fortitude to make a decision, and stick with it. This enables people like yourself to put the cart fairly before the horse: the problems are not caused by the increase in population per se, but the lack of will on the part of governments to plan for that increase.

You see the answer to be a reduction in economic power. Which is fine for someone on an indexed government pension living in the backwoods. But such people are in a considerable minority; most Australians live in our fine cities, quite happily supporting the woop-woop folks' carefree beach lifestyle, right up until the point where they want to lecture us all on what we should and shouldn't do.

>>So um, what happened to our last conversation? I picked you up on a fundamental error to which you offered no response. Most unusual for you.<<

Fundamental error? Didn't notice that you found one. You must have hidden it amongst your usual schoolmarm finger-wagging. You did mention that you disagreed with my view that the population will decline with a zero-immigration policy, only to reverse that view in the following sentence. Forgive me for ignoring it.

<< My point was simply this: businesses that rely upon the supply of a particular input, will always record in their annual reports the sustainable nature of those inputs. Without those statements, the business will be seen to have no plan for its own future, and will therefore die. >>

A simple point indeed, Pericles. Too simple, in the highly competitive business world.

Aggression wins! A business that lays back on its purchase of a particular good because of concerns about a sustainable supply will simply be usurped by a more aggressive business which will purchase more, in an unsustainable manner. It’s classic tragedy of the commons stuff. This is one of the great problems with the business sector and market forces, and one of the great reasons why governments need to be strong in their regulatory role.

Businesses that allow their competitors to get the better of them die!

Now, if businesses could be both highly competitive AND sustainability-minded…. or if they could put sustainability ahead of competition, and hence ahead of their short-term profits, then your simple point would have some credence. But alas, it doesn’t.

Oh how I wish it did!

continued

<< Which part of that is "cods"? >>

The bit about businesses being fundamentally concerned about sustainable resources.

<< the problems are not caused by the increase in population per se, but the lack of will on the part of governments to plan for that increase. >>

I wrote:

>> Water resources HAVE become more precarious, compared to demand, in many of our cities and towns.<<

Pericles, you replied:

<< Quite possibly. But due entirely to the combination of ongoing blindness, complacency and lack of courage of consecutive governments... >>

No. It is due in no small part to pressure from the business lobby to maintain high population growth and hence ever-increasing stress on water supplies… and yes, the lack of courage of government to stand up to it!

<< Which is fine for someone on an indexed government pension living in the backwoods. >>

Oh please!! You’ve mentioned this a few times now. It is just another assertion that you’ve pulled out of your ar… ……mpit!

I am not on any form of pension. I’m nowhere near retirement age! And I happen to live in the largest city in the northern half of Australia – Townsville. (Yeah ok, this WOULD be backwoods to an inner-city Sydneysider like you!)

<< Fundamental error? Didn't notice that you found one >>

Hahahaa. No of course not.

<< Forgive me for ignoring it. >>

You’re forgiven. Afterall, your only choice was to admit it or ignore it. And the former was definitely never gunna happen!

Ludwig, firstly, suppose an ecologist said
“We hypothesise that the distribution of species X is dependent on factor Y. We observe no such relation. But we consider that result unthinkable, so therefore we conclude that the distribution of species X is dependent on factor Y.”

You would immediately recognise this line of reasoning as illogical, and would not accept that conclusion, or any further deductions from it.

But substitute the magical factor of government, and all of a sudden you permit yourself to enter into this logic-free zone.

For example, just because you consider government should manage sustainability, doesn’t mean it can, even in your own terms. There’s a prior threshold question you haven’t addressed. Neither you nor Divergence has yet given any reason to think that government can in fact do what you think it should. Rather, both of you have in effect replied that, since you find the alternative unthinkable, *therefore* government should do it. But of itself this no more justifies the conclusion that government can do it, than that the Country Women’s Association can.

Being a simple logical fallacy I don’t accept that conclusion or any further deductions from it; and neither should you!

Secondly, to demonstrate government can, you would need to define the values that are to be achieved.

(As we have seen, this can’t be done at the aggregate level. For example, take ecology. In the final analysis the distribution and abundance of species is the distribution and abundance of members of those species.)

Then you would need to demonstrate that government has the ability to know those values, and *calculate them in some lowest common denominator*, else it will be faced with the impossible task of how to integrate manifold diverse mere physical quantities.

Government can’t do it obviously, and the fact that you don’t like that conclusion doesn’t supply what your argument lacks.

Thirdly, your answer to my epistemological challenge is the simple blandishment that societies impose laws. So what? That doesn’t mean *therefore* all acts of government are good; else you have no right to complain at population policy.

(cont.)

You have not answered my argument that State decision-making, and common ownership, necessarily entail the evaluational incoherence you are complaining about and want the State to remedy.

Fourthly, you and Divergence don’t appear to understand the issue. Put it this way. Suppose you were the sovereign power, empowered to enforce any decision on population or water. Your job is to achieve sustainability. But in doing so you are to have reference not to your mere private opinion, but to the values that all the people now and in the future, are trying to achieve in the just and sustainable use of the environment.

Okay, so how are you going to know that?

By what rational principle are you going to know:
1. what the distribution and abundance of species should be?
2. what should be produced?
3. what proportion of depletable resources should be consumed now versus conserved for the future?
4. what discount of value people apply to events further and further into the future?
5. how people value different people differently, e.g. family versus strangers in the indefinite future?
6. who should get any unequal benefit of policy?

Fifthly, if a sustainable Australian population can only be achieved at the cost of less sustainable resource use elsewhere
a) how would you know?
b) is that okay? Why?

Sixthly, remember, that’s putting aside any questions of unrepresentative government, the special pleading of vested interests, maladministration, or corruption.

Seventhly, in concluding in favour of the State, you have not even distinguished problems which the State is implicated in causing. You’ve got the tragedy of the commons completely back-the-front – it’s a reason to decrease, not increase common ownership! Increasing government control of the environment will only exacerbate the tragedy of the commons – that’s what the tragedy was!

Government is intrinsically incapable of the task of managing sustainability even in your own terms; to assert otherwise involves a false pretence of knowledge and competence; and both of you have not given any reason to think otherwise.

Jardine, I find it quite fascinating that you are going to considerable lengths to assert that government could not manage a regime of sustainability.

Sorry, but the logical flaw rests totally on your side of the argument here. Of course government could do this.

Governments in the Nordic countries are arguably pretty close to it, as they are in some small island nations where all the factors concerned with sustainability are much simpler and more obvious.

Indeed, it WILL happen in Australia sooner or later.

Please allow me to step past your copious questions and try to explore why you are so intent on government not being able to direct us towards a sustainable society.

Firstly, do you or do you not think that we should be doing this, as opposed to blundering forth and forever increasing the discrepancy between demand and supply capability for many of our basic resources and services?

I’ll assume that you do support sustainability in principle, as support for the alternative would just be completely nonsensical.

So then, how would we achieve it? If government was taken out of the picture, and business operated entirely on market forces with no legal regulation, where would we end up?

Crikey, government is not really a separate entity from the rest of society, it is society’s organisational tool. To somehow take it out of the picture would be to return us to an anarchic existence where the strong, unscrupulous and short-term-focussed elements would come to dominate…. even more than they do now under our weak government.

What we need is strong governance, which can separate itself from the enormously powerful vested-interest fraternity, listen to the scientists and other experts and act accordingly in the true interests of a healthy future.

That is their job. And it is the job of concerned citizens to be pushing them to do this.

Once again, taking government out of the picture, or insisting that they cannot do what they are fundamentally supposed to be doing, is surely entirely the wrong approach.

A familiar tactic of yours, Ludwig...

>>Please allow me to step past your copious questions...<<

That, and the revisionism you bring into play every time you are caught out saying something silly...

I asked, "Which part of that is 'cods'? to which you replied...

>>The bit about businesses being fundamentally concerned about sustainable resources.<<

Which is of course the most free interpretation possible of what I actually said, which was...

"... businesses that rely upon the supply of a particular input, will always record in their annual reports the sustainable nature of those inputs".

Businesses are very much, even "fundamentally", concerned about the sustainability of the raw materials that drive their business, whether it is water, oil, iron ore, or even people. Especially people - skilled, competent, reliable people, in sufficient quantity to keep the business operating at a level that is itself sustainable.

Your knowledge of business and how it operates is almost as chillingly small as that of our government. It allows you to make statements such as this one...

>>Aggression wins! A business that lays back on its purchase of a particular good because of concerns about a sustainable supply will simply be usurped by a more aggressive business which will purchase more, in an unsustainable manner.<<

...which is, at every level, completely nonsensical. Who mentioned "laying back" on anything? The sensible objective is not to "lay back", but to actively work to ensure supply is sustainable. Which is what the vast majority of companies do. And I'm not just talking about water. If supply of a material upon which you rely for your business' future is threatened, you take steps to correct the problem.

Your thought processes are typical of someone who has never worked for a commercial concern, I can understand that. But this saddens me greatly.

>>I am not on any form of pension. I’m nowhere near retirement age!<<

The people I know personally who think like you are invariably in their dotage, and carry on like two-bob watches about how the country is being overrun by immigrants.

Pericles,

You remind me of an anecdote of Paul Ehrlich in a talk on Radio National some years ago. Ehrlich was talking to a Japanese journalist about Japanese whaling, which was then on a much larger scale. Ehrlich said that some whale species were clearly being driven to extinction. Surely, it would make sense for the Japanese whalers to cut back. Then they could go on killing whales for dog food or whatever indefinitely. The journalist replied, "Your problem is that you think like a biologist." He then showed Ehrlich that the going return on investment was greater than the reproduction rate of whales. It was economically rational for investors to wipe out the whales, and then take their profits and put them into something else. This sort of thing is especially likely now with globalisation, where elites see themselves as citizens of the world and above patriotism.

So far as more people are concerned, you yourself have admitted that population growth is not a necessary or sufficient condition for good economic performance or human well-being. The Productivity Commission has found (see link in my previous post) that there is no good evidence for a significant per capita economic benefit from mass migration, even if you happen to benefit. For example, mass migration might help to give you more customers, a cheaper and more docile work force that you don't have to train, and higher rents from your investment property. The extra people and maybe your expanded business activities increase the demand for water. Sydney has outgrown its natural water supply, so a desalination plant has to be built, producing water that will now cost 4 to 6 times as much as dam water. The profits from the mass migration go to you, but the costs of the extra water are shared with the whole community. "Privatising the profits, but socialising the costs." The diseconomies of scale and additional costs for infrastructure and public services are just too great to be fixed with "better planning". Where is the money to fix the $770 billion infrastructure backlog (according to Infrastructure Australia)?

You have provided an interesting example of what I call "no-context" example, Divergence.

>>It was economically rational for investors to wipe out the whales, and then take their profits and put them into something else.<<

Acording to Ehrlich's records, the "justification" provided by the journalist went as follows

"You are thinking of the whaling industry as an organization that is interested in maintaining whales: actually it is better viewed as a huge quantity of [financial] capital attempting to earn the highest possible return. If it can exterminate whales in ten years and make a 15% profit, but it could only make 10% with a sustainable harvest, then it will exterminate them in 10 years. After that the money will be moved to exterminating some other resource"

Two observations.

One, that the reported speech is equally open to be interpreted as an attack on the whaling industry - if you deliver the above paragraph with a sneer, or in a sarcastic tone of voice, its meaning is completely reversed. The give-away is the appearance in the last sentence of the phrase "exterminating some other resource", as if that is the complete raison d'être of commerce.

Two, the interviewee is a journalist, not a businessman. The mathematical "logic" he employs would never be heard in any boardroom. The first question would be "Ok, so under your plan, whales become increasingly hard to find. How do you propose to maintain our 15% profit margin as the yield decreases?"

Colour me unconvinced. It's just a story, told to frighten the kiddies.

>>This sort of thing is especially likely now with globalisation, where elites see themselves as citizens of the world and above patriotism<<

Pure paranoid fantasy, I'm afraid. Whales are far, far more likely to be protected in a globalized economy, one in which the actions of one party are quickly felt by another.

In fact, our more globally-linked economy is probably the reason why there is far less whale-catching happening today - as you yourself point out...

>>...Japanese whaling, which was then on a much larger scale<<

Divergence
Notice how the example you give depends on a resource owned in common? That means you're proving my case, not yours.

A very similar thing happened in 19th century America. Bison, which were publicly owned, were hunted almost to extinction; while cattle, which are virtually the same species, were privately owned and rose in numbers to huge unprecedented levels. Sometimes the hunters would kill a bison for the tongue. Can you imagine a farmer doing that to one of his stock?

For another example, the near extinction of rhinos in Africa *in common ownership*. Governments makes it illegal to own rhinos, whereas the obvious thing to do if people are hunting them to extinction for their valuable products, is to farm them and sell the products, just as we do with other animals. Want to save the rhino? Easy. Simply pay farmers to raise as many as you want! But first, stop states criminalising private property in them – the root cause of their extinction!

Like Ludwig, your understanding of the tragedy of the commons is back-the-front. The tragedy is that holding resources in common makes it rational to degrade them; in economic terms, to consume the capital. The moral of the story is the opposite of what you have misapprehended: we need less common ownership, and more private property rights in scarce resources.

We have not even begun to discuss the reasons why private ownership is more sustainable, because there is only blank and circular ignorance on the statists’ map where that discussion should be.

The statists would rather worship and enlarge the state, even at the cost of extinguishing species, than learn to understand the *reasons* why they are wrong.

Ludwig
You have not answered any of my questions because you can't, which means that government is not capable of doing what you want it to do; and everything else you say merely begs the question.

"Firstly, do you or do you not think that we should be doing this...?"

1. What's "this"?
2. Who's "we"?

"government is ... society's organisational tool"

Prove it.

<< A familiar tactic of yours, Ludwig...>>Please allow me to step past your copious questions...<< >>

Pericles, you old hypocrite! You are OLO’s consummate question-avoider. Tis me who has had to chase you up on numerous occasions to get you to answer my questions!

This has indeed been an oft-employed tactic of yours, which has lessened with time, as you have come to realise that I will chase you up, repeatedly, if you avoid addressing important questions.

And another old familiar Pericles tactic raises its head yet again: When one is caught out, one just avoids that particular point (as expressed at the end of my last post to you) and moves quickly on to something else, anything else, just to get away from the embarrassing faux pas!

And what about this assertion that I am on a government pension? Wow, methinks you have cooked your goose with this one. This is a total invention of yours, pulled out of thin air and then asserted as fact. Really, that is about low as you can go on the debating spectrum.

<< Businesses are very much, even "fundamentally", concerned about the sustainability of the raw materials that drive their business… >>

Peri, open ye eyes and look at the real world! For goodness sake, you are asserting something which is patently and obviously not the case (which you are wont to do, often).

As I said; if this was true, then all would be hunky-dory – we’d be entrenched in a paradigm of sustainability, instead of being a million miles from it.

Um…. what’s this about dotage?? Interesting comment coming from one who has always been a might irrational… and seems to be rapidly losing his last vestiges of rationality!

Jardine, why are you so hell-bent on completely denouncing government?

What is the alternative to government?

At this stage I completely don’t get your rationale. I am struggling to establish the very foundation of your argument.

Once that has been achieved, we can delve into the next level and I will answer any pertinent questions you put to me, if I can see that there is a point in continuing with our discussion…. and for as long as you answer my questions in return.

I wrote: << Please allow me to step past your copious questions and try to explore why you are so intent on government not being able to direct us towards a sustainable society. >>

Doesn’t mean I won’t answer them. Please just give me a reason why I should go to the trouble. Thankyou.

What's this, Ludwig? Paranoia...?

>>And what about this assertion that I am on a government pension? Wow, methinks you have cooked your goose with this one. This is a total invention of yours, pulled out of thin air and then asserted as fact.<<

Tell me, where did I refer to you...?

"You see the answer to be a reduction in economic power. Which is fine for someone on an indexed government pension living in the backwoods. But such people are in a considerable minority; most Australians live in our fine cities, quite happily supporting the woop-woop folks' carefree beach lifestyle, right up until the point where they want to lecture us all on what we should and shouldn't do."

Obviously, there was something in what I said that struck a chord with you, otherwise you would not have identified yourself so readily with it.

This one was aimed at your thought processes.

>>Um…. what’s this about dotage??<<

It was an observation based on my personal experience, in which I expressed my sadness at the way you come across...

"The people I know personally who think like you are invariably in their dotage, and carry on like two-bob watches about how the country is being overrun by immigrants."

>>Tis me who has had to chase you up on numerous occasions to get you to answer my questions!<<

What questions? Your last reference was typical...

>>I picked you up on a fundamental error to which you offered no response. Most unusual for you. Strongly gives the impression that you realise that you are wrong and could give no reply other than to admit this: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5719#159980<<

There was no actual question there. Just an assertion, that you quickly modified into meaninglessness. What's to answer?

And while we are sniping, Ludwig, what about this little gem?

>>Peri, open ye eyes and look at the real world! For goodness sake, you are asserting something which is patently and obviously not the case (which you are wont to do, often)<<

Let me try to make it a little clearer for you, since it is a concept that is "patently and obviously" entirely foreign to you - i.e., how to run a profitable long-term business.

This was my observation that you had problems with:

"Businesses are very much, even 'fundamentally', concerned about the sustainability of the raw materials that drive their business"

These raw materials come in a number of forms, depending upon the business. If the company is, say, Atlassian, one of the most successful software companies in Australian history, their basic raw material is brilliant software developers. In order to survive and grow, they need access to a constant stream of such talent, which, in the numbers they require, is unavailable in Australia.

http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1020943/software-firm-atlassian-goes-european-bus-tour-recruit-developers-days

There is no point in pretending that the resources you need to run your company can simply be plucked out of the air. You have to plan.

It's the same with water. If your company is dependent upon the supply of water at a particular volume, you need to make sure that supply is not just available today, but into the future as well. Anything else is simply commercial suicide.

Please re-read the whaling saga. There is no evidence whatsoever that the game-plan of the Japanese whaling fleet is to empty the ocean of whales. Anyone who understands marginal profitability can tell you that at when the cost of acquiring the next whale outstrips its profit content, whaling will stop. If they were to do otherwise, they would be - yes - committing commercial suicide.

Once again: it is a fundamental concept of business that you take care that the raw material that is essential to your business doesn't run out. You will faithfully articulate, every year in your annual report to your shareholders, your concrete plans to do precisely this.

<< And while we are sniping, Ludwig… >>

Yes, aren’t we ever!

So Pericles, my old OLO mate of quite few years’ standing, as with our last discussion, I will attempt to bypass the snipery and refocus.

As I see it, the great flaw in your business ethos is that businesses have to compete with each other, and if one lays back on the procurement of a particular item, resource or type of employee, because they want to secure the source of these things into the long-term, its competitors will just simply take the bit that was laid back on!

Some businesses may wish to be sustainable in the long term (well, you can’t be sustainable in the short term, as sustainability is inherently a long-term principle), but their competitive environment may well not let them.

This may not apply to all businesses, but it is certainly a very important point to consider, especially when there is strong competition over a resource that is in limited or declining supply.

You seem to be completely missing this all-important point.

This is why government regulation is vital. (Gee I think I’ve said all this before somewhere!)

continued

Secondly, as I’ve said before; the real world does not support your assertion that businesses think and act sustainably. Far from it. In fact, so far from it that was really quite amazed at what I was reading when you first asserted this point!

Pericles, your assertion has some truth to it, but it is far from the whole picture. When competition for resources is strong, it could well be a matter of a company striving to secure what it can in the short term in order to survive in the short term, and simply not having the option of preserving resources in the interests of its longer term survival.

Indeed, when there are many companies drawing on the same resource, it is just not possible for each company, with its own individual plan done in complete isolation from all the other companies, to secure the sustainability of that resource.

All the companies involved need to work together towards the same plan. But this would sit in conflict with the competitive ethos (and there could be legal problems about collusion as well). So it just doesn’t happen.

This is where government comes in and needs to implement regulations that make sure that the resource in question remains sustainable. Water is a prime example of this sort of thing.

Ludwig
Suppose you say that the baby bonus should be abolished. And suppose someone answers: "What? What is the alternative to government deciding what babies to fund? Why are you hell-bent on abolishing government?"

Well that's a misrepresentation of the issues, and a personalization of the argument, isn't it? Recognising that government should not be paying the baby bonus does not require arguing that government should be abolished, does it? The question is not what is the alternative to government in general, it is what is the alternative to government specifically paying the baby bonus, and the alternative is: *not* paying the baby bonus. It's a perfectly valid, and better, policy option.

"I am struggling to establish the very foundation of your argument."

The very foundation of my argument is that government is incapable of managing sustainability, EVEN IN ITS OWN TERMS. Why do I say this? Because as I have shown, and you cannot refute, government is not capable of knowing the values it would need to achieve, to achieve sustainability.

But the discussion will be pointless if you are not interested in learning how your beliefs are wrong. If you're not interested, please say so, and we'll just leave the discussion at my having categorically disproved your entire argument, and you being completely unable to answer my argument, except by persisting in illogical beliefs.

*My* interest in learning whether I'm wrong is proved by the fact that I am giving you the questions which will prove me wrong, and you're not answering them. Can you?

<< The very foundation of my argument is that government is incapable of managing sustainability >>

Ok Jardine, got that firmly implanted in my brain, thankyou.

But….the next step is still completely mysterious, I’m afraid!

<< Because… government is not capable of knowing the values it would need to achieve, to achieve sustainability. >>

Government is capable of soliciting the best minds in the country, noting overseas research, and asking for views from across all sectors of our society, in order to get the best possible idea of what sustainability actually is and how it could be achieved, is it not?

In fact, this is exactly what our federal government did back in 1994.

So your assertion that government is somehow incapable of managing a sustainability paradigm just completely doesn’t gel with me.

All I can see at the moment is an extremeIy illogical assertion, and a whole lot of guff about me being illogical coming from one who seems to be the most illogical poster I have yet encountered on OLO!

No offence, as I really do want to have a meaningful discussion with you. But at the moment it is looking rather ominous!

JKJ,

"But the discussion will be pointless if you are not interested in learning how your beliefs are wrong. If you're not interested, please say so, and we'll just leave the conversation at my having categorically disproved your entire argument, and you being completely unable to answer my argument, except by persisting in illogical beliefs."

I always think it's a shame that Graham doesn't provide a prize or even a sticker for people around here who are fond of declaring themselves the "winner".

JKJ would have a whole closet full of fake silver (real plastic) trophies and a revered collection of sticker books to pass on to his descendents if that was the case.

Ludwig
"Government is capable of soliciting the best minds in the country, noting overseas research, and asking for views from across all sectors of our society, in order to get the best possible idea of what sustainability actually is and how it could be achieved..."

Does this mean you don't know what sustainability actually is?

Can you define it? If so, I'll show why I think government can't achieve it, and you can show why you think it can.

Poirot
Your opinion about my personality is irrelevant to the question whether the govenrment is capable of managing environmentally sustainable development. But you can always be relied on to come down on the side of unlimited arbitrary power for no defensible reason, can't you?

JKJ,

Why don't you show it then?

I don't know that I'm on the side of unlimited arbitrary power...my homeschooling would contradict that stance. I found it necessary to psychologically start from scratch regarding what does and does not constitute "learning" or "education" when I first started. I'm often quite confused about where I stand on such issues in general - and perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two extremes.

You always seem to chuck out a few confected questions and if people don't address them to your satisfaction, you jump straight up onto the soap box to declare yourself the victor...as if the substance of the debate is secondary to the competition between those involved

Sorry, if I take an interest in the psychology at work around here...but I find it fascinating (apparently I'm "haughty" according to one other poster here...I find it fascinating that that's how I behave or am perceived).

"...or am perceived"

Sorry, that's probably my fault for making the Elizabeth McGovern link elsewhere. But that had as much to do with her little moustache, Poirot, as with her role as Cora.

Not at all, WmTrevor.

I'm sure if I was more like Cora, I'd be much nicer and more refined (and I wouldn't occasionally resort to words like "bollocks":)

"Why don't you show it then?"

What proof will you accept?

Don't try and pull that one, JKJ.

"....I'll show why I think government can't achieve it..."

Go on then.

I'm genuinely interested.

Let's not get into a "I'll show you mine if your show me yours first" situation.

You've obviously got something to say on the issue - so say it.

Here's an interesting comparison.

Canada's population has just passed the 35 million mark - the fastest growing in the G8.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/canada-population-reaches-35-million-fastest-growing-g8-174256519.html

Having said that, Canada's government seems to be following a rabid neoliberal agenda these days, so lots of folks are probably what they're after.

As I have mentioned before on numerous occasions, Ludwig, your view of business is fundamentally warped. Commercial enterprises of any substance do not run on the cavalier, self-destructive lines that you imagine.

At base, you simply mis-read the underlying point.

>>...if one lays back on the procurement of a particular item, resource or type of employee, because they want to secure the source of these things into the long-term, its competitors will just simply take the bit that was laid back on!<<

You mentioned before this curious act of "laying back" - which, incidentally, is a concept that cannot apply to "items" or "people". These are either available or unavailable. "Laying back" does nothing to ensure their long-term future. In fact, you could be cutting your own throat by not acquiring them when you need them - they simply might not be there in the future, as you have no direct control over their production.

With resources, on the other hand, you are far more concerned to understand how and under what conditions they will be available in the future. Since this involves long-term planning - maybe the weather is a factor, maybe time-to-recover is a factor (particularly applicable in agriculture, I would have thought), maybe geographic, geological, geopolitical considerations come into play. Whatever the case, unless you have a long-term plan to cope with the situation, you have signed your company's death-warrant.

Why is it, do you suppose, that in times of oil price hikes, R&D into alternative energy sources suddenly ramps up? Because the company economists have gone to the Board and said, guys, we need to ensure the energy-future requirements of our business more quickly than we envisaged a year ago.

>>You seem to be completely missing this all-important point.<<

As you can see, I did not miss it at all. Maybe I was not providing enough detail on how businesses reach decisions like this, so perhaps you could provide an illustration of how "strong competition over a resource that is in limited or declining supply" leads to the company behaviours that obviously concern you so much.

<< Does this mean you don't know what sustainability actually is? Can you define it? >>

Oh dear Jardine, is that really necessary? I trust that you know what it means and I would have thought the converse would be true as well.

Well alright then…

Wikipedia defines sustainability adequately: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

From this definition: < The second approach is management of human consumption of resources… >

This is the bit that concerns me the most in Australia, with our rapidly growing population and hence consumption of everything.

As to the nitty-gritty of what a paradigm of sustainability would mean, that is up to government, with the assistance of scientists, other experts and all sections of the public to nut out.

To that extent, no I don’t know EXACTLY what sustainablility is. But because we can’t define it right down to the nth degree doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be noting the broad principles and moving strongly in that direction.

So then, why on earth couldn’t our government do this?

And I think we may be making just a modicum of progress, Ludwig. I am noticing some stray qualifications wandering into your views. Altogether a very healthy trait.

>>...the real world does not support your assertion that businesses think and act sustainably.<<

Ok, maybe not that one. On that, we have different view of what the "real world" consists of. But this looks promising:

I noticed the "it could well be" qualification in this assertion of yours:

>>...it could well be a matter of a company striving to secure what it can in the short term in order to survive in the short term, and simply not having the option of preserving resources in the interests of its longer term survival.<<

As I said, this would be a very self-destructive approach, if it ever happened. Do you have any examples you can call on to support your view?

>>All the companies involved need to work together towards the same plan. But this would sit in conflict with the competitive ethos<<

There you go again. Companies do band together into "Industry Associations", where common problems are aired and discussed without crossing any collusion boundaries. They do indeed work together on these problems, most particularly where issues of resource sustainability are on the table. As well as the future of stuff-we-dig-up type resources, these groups also address issues of work-force education, health-and-safety, trade imbalances and a whole raft of other stuff that affects their collective survival.

I suspect that much of this is invisible when viewed through the lens of "governments know best". But you can always read the other side of the story, if you care to open your mind to it.

<< "Laying back" does nothing to ensure their long-term future. In fact, you could be cutting your own throat by not acquiring them when you need them >>

YES!!

Crikey, what’s happened here Pericles? Have you suddenly seen the light and come to my side of the debate??

<< Whatever the case, unless you have a long-term plan to cope with the situation, you have signed your company's death-warrant. >>

Yes yes YES!

Long-term plans are what it’s all about! Not just for each individual company, but for whole sectors and indeed for the whole of our society!

.

.

Oh uh, hold on a minute....

Isn’t it big companies and various business sectors (eg: housing) that push our government to uphold rapid population growth?

Um….yes, it is indeed.

So…. it would appear that there are long-term plans and there are long-term plans. There is a plan for continuous growth in demand, which is what businesses are after, and a plan for a genuinely sustainable society, which neither businesses not government seem to be interested in.

It would seem that there are fundamentally different motives here to the type of long-term plan that is typical of the average business and the type that we need in order to maintain a high quality of life and environment, and be able to significantly improve infrastructure and services.

Hmmm, so maybe business plans are generally not as long-term as they should be. If they are helping to take us towards a greater discrepancy between demand and supply of many of our basic essential resources and hindering us from significantly improving services and infrastructure and hence compromising our future economic and social wellbeing, then perhaps they are taking us towards a future in which THEY will be struggling, along with everyone else.

And I put it to you that this is EXACTLY what the business lobby is doing.

When big businesses stop giving big donations to political parties, which let’s face it are bare-faced favour-buying bribes, and start pushing for a balance between supply and demand, ie: a stable population, rather than continuous rapid growth, then I will be able to agree with you Pericles; that businesses do indeed plan properly for a healthy future!

Poirot
You're not genuinely interested and stop lying and evading.

You've got the onus of proof back-the-front. I'm not the one asserting that government can manage sustainability, Ludwig is. It's for him to prove before I disprove.

You are not the slightest bit interested in discussing sustainability and if you were, you would have something to say on topic, instead of only mere bitter snivelling ad hom.

Ludwig
Can you see, or do you not understand, that it's illogical to argue "I think government should do X, therefore government can do X"?

Can you see it's illogical to argue "Government must be able to know because government must be able to know"? or “It must be so, because it must be so"?

Can you see it's illogical to argue "I don't know what values sustainability would need to achieve, but it must be achievable?"

Because that's all your argument is. When challenged, all you do is assume that *someone else* must be able to defend what you can’t.

OTOH, there's nothing intrinsically illogical about doubting that government can do it.

You have completely failed to understand the significance of my questions. It’s not that they’re “copious”. It’s that they provide a total logical refutation of your entire belief system.

Why? Because how could “sustainability” (your definition) be achieved without answering those questions? How? Don’t assume someone else knows or can.

You said you’ve thought through the issues. You haven’t. All you’ve done, is go round and around and around, endlessly chasing your tail, without once thinking what sustainability actually entails, and how anyone could or would achieve it, let alone the government.

Have a look at the questions I asked you. You will see that not only you, but the government, is not capable of answering them. If you could have answered them, you would have by now. You haven’t because you can’t. That means you’re talking nonsense.

Furthermore, if what you’re assuming were true, full socialism would be both possible and desirable. All you have is a garbled self-contradictory confusion.

JKJ,

You said to Ludwig on the subject of sustainability,

"....I'll show why I think government can't achieve it..."

You're good at howling down other posters in their ability to show things...I merely asked you to show us what you claim to be able to do

Go on then?

In reply, you inform that I'm not really interested in the subject, accuse me of lying (erm, what's that about?) and dismiss my request as a form of ad hom.

My theory is that you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in debates "sorting out" the mechanism or "rules" of the discussion. It's rare for you to actually get around to discussing the substance at hand. You're too busy denigrating your opponent on this issue or that, bating your opponents with false bravado and braggadocio, or preemptively congratulating yourself for your triumph.

If, as you say, you can show that government can't achieve sustainability, why don't you just write it down and let us judge for ourselves.

Poirot you beat me to it. I was going to say much of the same sort of thing.

Jardine, please just tell us why you think government can’t direct us towards a sustainable future and then govern us accordingly. That is surely the next step in this discussion.

It seems as though you can’t.

<< Can you see, or do you not understand, that it's illogical to argue "I think government should do X, therefore government can do X"? >>

Oh dear! Who’s having a lapse in logic here? Surely if you feel that someone should do something then you feel that they are inherently capable of it. It would be illogical to suggest they should do something that you feel they are not able to do!

<< Can you see it's illogical to argue "I don't know what values sustainability would need to achieve, but it must be achievable?" >>

We DO know the values! It is perfectly sensible to desire that our government aspire to them, and for it to sort out the minor details as part of an overall approach. It is completely illogical that sustainability be defined to the nth degree before we even consider whether it should be achievable or pursuable.

Growth, economy, government, science, progress, environment…. and on into a very long list… are things that we understand the broad concepts of but which are all fuzzy and ill-defined around the edges. But you wouldn’t suggest that stop pursuing growth or progress or that government should stop funding science or looking after the environment until these things are all minutely defined and pigeonholed…. would you??

continued

<< OTOH, there's nothing intrinsically illogical about doubting that government can do it. >>

Doubting whether government can do it and insisting that they can’t are two quite different things.

It is such a defeatist position to hold! In fact, it is entirely the wrong discussion! What we should be discussing is how to get our government to move towards the sustainability path, not arguing over whether they can or not.

Your whole tenet is so negative. You are basing it on logical argument. But sorry, your logic doesn’t stack up, and actually comes across as highly illogical.

<< Furthermore, if what you’re assuming were true, full socialism would be both possible and desirable. >>

What??

<< Have a look at the questions I asked you. You will see that not only you, but the government, is not capable of answering them. If you could have answered them, you would have by now. You haven’t because you can’t. That means you’re talking nonsense. >>

Could you restate the questions that are most important to you. No more than three please. And we’ll take it from there.

Poirot
There’s no point discussing it if you can’t understand that logical fallacies invalidate your argument. And that’s all you’ve got, for example, assuming it’s true in the first place. What you’re saying would only make sense if there was no such thing as truth, which is essentially what you’re arguing.

Ludwig
“Surely if you feel that someone should do something then you feel that they are inherently capable of it.”

If you *feel* someone should do something, yes, you *feel* they can do it. But that doesn’t mean they can do it, does it? And it doesn’t mean it’s logical to proceed from the feeling that they should, to the factual conclusion that they can. You’re confusing feelings with reality.It’s your lapse in logic, not mine.

You’ve also got the onus of proof back-the-front. You’re the author of the OP. You’re the one saying there’s something wrong with government policy on population, and that it should be sustainable.

But when I ask you to define sustainability, you refer me off to an article whose only definition is it means “the capacity to endure”, and then explains how there’s no accepted definition.

And then you ask me to prove how government can’t do it, before you’ve defined it or explained how government can do it!

You’re both using the same methodology:
1. Assume it’s true in the first place
2. Ignore or disregard any disproofs, and
3. When stumped, repeat the procedure.

You’d never use that methodology in ecology, and if you did, you’d be laughed out of town by your colleagues.

Try turning it around. Try
1. Starting with a falsifiable proposition (yours isn’t, because when challenged you just say “surely” it must be true)
2. Seeking to disprove it.

You’ll then find a theory with a lot more explaining power!

Okay, the basic idea of sustainability is that we are currently using too much resources, and leaving not enough for future generations and other species. Fair enough?

If so
1. How do you distinguish between human needs and wants?
2. How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future?
3. How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be?

1. wants and needs
For example, if human needs were to be identified with market demand, then there’d be nothing for policy to do. Sustainability policy pre-supposes that some human wants, and some market demands, are to be provided for, because they are important enough to use depletable resources to satisfy now; and some aren’t, because they unfairly sacrifice the interests of future generations.

How are you going to distinguish them?

For example, is your internet usage a mere want, or a need? Obviously people have lived for thousands of years without it, so it can’t be called a need. So that means you, and everyone who agrees with you, has to stop using the internet now, doesn’t it? Which means you won’t be able to participate in this discussion?

But if your internet usage is a need, then obviously there can be no policy which would compromise the use by people even poorer than you, of resources to satisfy their human wants which are more important or urgent than your internet usage. If policy restricts the use of, say, Australian agriculture or forests or mining, how do you know the end result will not be to deprive some other poorer person of resources for their well-being which they are entitled to, according to whatever-definition-of-sustainability-you-use?

2. balancing present versus future consumption
The basic idea of sustainability, correct me if I’m wrong, is that current consumption is too great; there is a need to balance present versus future consumption. Okay say you are the owner of a mine, and you want to comply with Ludwig’s definition of sustainability, which Ludwig hasn’t stated yet. How do you know whether to mine now to satisfy present interests in consumption; or to leave it in the ground to provide for possible future consumption or for preservation?

Nearly there, Ludwig. On this one sub-topic, at least.

>>When big businesses stop giving big donations to political parties... then I will be able to agree with you Pericles; that businesses do indeed plan properly for a healthy future!<<

Don't forget, what I said was that the companies plan properly (i.e. sustainably) for their *own* healthy future. In other words, if they rely upon supply [actually, I may have said this once or twice before] of a particular resource in order to stay in business, then they will ensure the sustainability of that supply.

The mini-diversion started, when I pointed out that:

>>The market forces that you allude to must, by definition, require that water supplies are efficiently and effectively managed. If they are allowed to deplete, those very businesses that are dependent upon them will die.<<

So it now looks suspiciously like you have finally come around to accept this.

Which is rather nice, I think.

JKJ,

"Poirot
There's no point in discussing it if you can't understand that logical fallacies invalidate your argument. and that's all you've got, for example, assuming it's true in the first place. What you're saying would only make sense if there was no such thing as truth, which is essentially what you're arguing."

What?

I wasn't arguing anything.

I was merely urging you to flow forth and copiously with your argument that government can't achieve sustainability.

So I don't quite know what you're getting at with your latest spiel to me....kind of like you just put yourself into automatic JKJ spiel and let fly.

It is nice that you perceive a closing of the gap between us, Pericles. But alas, it appears to be false perception.

<< Don't forget, what I said was that the companies plan properly (i.e. sustainably) for their *own* healthy future. In other words, if they rely upon supply… of a particular resource in order to stay in business, then they will ensure the sustainability of that supply. >>

Doesn’t add up. Water is the prime example. The business community in general pushes for rapid population growth, as a fundamental driver of economic growth and increasing markets/demand. But this very directly means more people living in cities that already have seriously stressed water supplies. This does not auger well for the long-term security (sustainability) of that all-important resource.

It seems that many companies plan for the medium-term future, and don’t take into account the longer term future at all. The essential difference here is that growth in population and demand is good for the medium term for many businesses, but it could be very bad in the longer term.

you can show that government can't achieve sustainability, why don't you just write it down and let us judge for ourselves.”

The “sustainability” question with any use of resources is whether the current use is justified. Government can’t achieve sustainability because they have no rational means to decide how to balance present as against future use. If they permit use now, how do they know they aren’t unfairly robbing future generations? And if they restrict use now, how do they know they aren’t unfairly depriving the present?

The market handles this problem by evaluating both the present and the future value of the resource in units of a lowest common denominator. Profit shows the value of present use. Capital, or asset, value shows the value of use for the future. These prices arise, and are knowable, from the values of all the billions of people on the planet who buy or abstain from buying the resource in question, thus *demonstrating their preferences* both as to present and future use. The market process is therefore far more representative of the people’s real and demonstrated preferences than anything Ludwig has to offer in theory, let alone in practice. And it would be much moreso, but for socialized resources.

It’s true that the market process is imperfect but all the same imperfections inhere in the government’s dispensation too. For example, the judgment call is made by the present generation, but that also applies when government decides.

For another example, evaluation in money terms is imperfect because money does not and cannot take account of anything that is not exchanged against money. But exactly the same problem, of how to calculate the value of things not exchanged against money, applies to government too.

Government labours under all the same disabilities as the market; and its actions, via the tragedy of the commons, spread evaluational chaos throughout the subject area.

In sum, one has no way of knowing whether any given governmental action is furthering, or retarding, sustainability in Ludwig’s own terms.

Furthermore, it requires an open-ended power for government to control anything and everything.

That is precisely where we disagree, Ludwig.

>>The essential difference here is that growth in population and demand is good for the medium term for many businesses, but it could be very bad in the longer term.<<

This abstract concept of yours - "growth in population" - is in fact extremely real to those businesses. They are called customers. If a company policy on water usage endangers the very existence of the market they rely on, then that policy will quickly change. It cannot be any other way.

You have this image of business as some sort of faceless, mindless juggernaut, that has one fixed idea - making a dollar today - that excludes all other thought processes. It may surprise you to hear that these decision-makers are actually people too - some even have [gasp] wives, husbands, families etc. for whom they need to provide a future. They are as aware of the impact of their decisions as anyone, perhaps more so because they rely upon continued success at their work for their livelihood. Mistakes in business are punished by being sacked (look it up in the dictionary if the concept is foreign to you), or going bankrupt.

>>It seems that many companies plan for the medium-term future, and don’t take into account the longer term future at all.<<

Is that just a breezy generalization that lacks substance, or can you point some out to us? The shareholders in those companies have a right to know.

Pericles and JKJ,

I'm willing to read your information, and I won't pretend that I'm particularly knowledgeable on this issue. Mine appears to be a basic reasoning that sustainability in the first instance is dependent and constrained by environmental limits.

JKJ,

There's been a little project taking place in India for a while called the Green Revolution. Much profit has been made, population has increased, environmental degradation is rife. It appears to be environmentally unsustainable. Even disregarding soil degradation, ground water depletion is a very real threat to the continuation of present practices.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html

Agricultural collapse is a real possibility if water continues to be used at the present rate. The present rate and style of agricultural practice is unsustainable if it leads to collapse, no matter what profit or capital and asset gains are currently being amassed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nested_sustainability-v2.svg

People's preferences may decide what works in the market place, but human preferences, whether guided by the free market or government, can't regulate a healthy and bountiful environment, one that is capable of delivering resources with continuity, if some wisdom isn't introduced to override basic human excess.

The problems in India and China arise from over-population, and sustainability problems are enhanced by the link in modern times to globalised business arrangements whereby corporate profits are derived from Indians and Chinese over-burdening their environments.

Yes, the Chinese and Indian people are striving to make their lives better to indulge their preferences, but if the whole show is "unsustainable" at an environmental and ecological level, then their economies will eventually have to pay the piper.

Poirot

There's no doubt it’s a complex issue, and it may be that current usages are unsustainable.

But that’s not the issue here, which is, whether government can presumptively do better at sustainably managing resources when we take into account *both* present and future utility, or whatever we call the ultimate welfare criterion.

“ground water depletion is a very real threat to the continuation of present practices… Agricultural collapse is a real possibility if water continues to be used at the present rate.”

Notice that ground- and agricultural water are public goods? That removes or greatly reduces the ability of people to calculate how to economize their use. The effect is, that the profit or assets accrue privately, while the losses or liabilities accrue in the commons.

That doesn’t mean that private ownership could solve the ultimate problem. But it does mean that public ownership is actively worse *both* in terms of present and future utility.

“human preferences … can't regulate a healthy and bountiful environment… if some wisdom isn't introduced to override basic human excess.”

True, and if that wisdom doesn’t exist, or is outweighed by unwise motivations, then that disposes of the matter, government or no.

The point is, government does not presumptively represent greater wisdom or selflessness. It has all the same disabilities as the market *and* nullifies or restricts the people’s ability to rationalise scarce resources based on a) relative scarcity, b) everyone’s subjective preferences, and c) a lowest common denominator. Government is actively worse at handling the problem.

“The problems in India and China arise from over-population…”

Do remember that that “problem” means other people’s lives, their families, their everything, who otherwise would not exist, or would live and die in poverty and disease.

“if the whole show is "unsustainable" … their economies will eventually have to pay the piper.”

That’s true and it may be we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart. My point is only that it is vain and flatly incorrect to think that government can presumptively solve the problem. It has less, not more of a handle on it.

JKJ,

Firstly, thanks for your positive engagement.

I haven't got time right now, but will try and raise the issue of the privatisation of water when I get time...there's a concerted push around the world to do just that.

Yes, I'm mindful that referring to other people's lives as "the problem" is simplifying the issue more than is comfortable - but I think you understand what I'm trying to say.

<< You’ve also got the onus of proof back-the-front >>

Firstly, Jardine, why do you need proof?? You broadly know what sustainability is, surely. You broadly know what the role of government is, I presume. You broadly know that our government is taking us very much in an unsustainable direction, and I’m sure you can envisage the consequences of that.

Secondly, it is you who needs to very strongly support your really quite amazing claim that government can’t manage a paradigm of sustainability. I don’t expect proof but I would like some strong corroborating evidence or argument… which I am just not getting.

<< …when I ask you to define sustainability, you refer me off to an article whose only definition is it means “the capacity to endure”, and then explains how there’s no accepted definition. >>

Upon your request, I defined sustainability. I directed you to a very thorough definition of sustainability with copious explanation of everything involved. Wow, it is awfully rich to criticise me for that!

If you want to reject it, go right ahead, but it works strongly against your whole argument as far as I’m concerned. To maintain the argument that government is incapable of dealing with sustainability because it can’t know what it is or what it means is just silly!

<< And then you ask me to prove how government can’t do it, before you’ve defined it or explained how government can do it! >>

At this point I feel strongly inclined to leave this obviously pointless discussion.

continued

<< Okay, the basic idea of sustainability is that we are currently using too much resources, and leaving not enough for future generations and other species. Fair enough? >>

No! That is but one small part of it. The much more immediate concern in Australia is that of balancing supply and demand of resources, and of money!

Our economy is totally unsustainable! We are forever trying to grow the economy. We want ever-greater GDP. We want an ever-greater rate of mining, etc, etc. But at the same time, we have ever-growing demands for the expenditure of that national income, which is caused primarily by way of very rapid population growth, which creates enormous demand for all manner of infrastructure and services!

For all our amazing income due largely to the incredible mining boom of the last two or three decades, we haven’t been able to keep up with population growth!! We are getting further and further behind with the quality of most infrastructure and services!

Jardine, you are insisting that government can’t deal with sustainability when you apparently only have a very vague idea of what it is!

That is really quite amazing!

If our government would just see fit to reduce immigration to net zero, we’d be half way there, just in that one move!

<< …and you want to comply with Ludwig’s definition of sustainability, which Ludwig hasn’t stated yet… >>

This is getting really weird. You’ve been directed to a comprehensive definition and explanation of sustainability and yet you are insisting that I haven’t stated the definition yet! Your whole tenet is apparently based on logical argument, but you then come out with most glaring hooter of an example of completely illogicality!

Hey, our government is doing a really good job of managing a paradigm of antisustainability. But, wait a minute, that is just as hard to totally define as sustainability. So by your 'logical' reckoning, our government should therefore be incapable of managing antisustainability! And yet they are doing a damn good job it!!

Pericles, I say again that your argument doesn’t stack up! Simply look at the real world.

It can hardly be more obvious that to push more and more people into places with serious water-supply problems is just crackers! Likewise in cities with bad traffic congestion.

There is a rapid rate of entry of children into the education system, while we are struggling to maintain, let alone improve the whole stressed system.

And there are so many other examples of population growth negatively affecting us on a personal to societal level.

But I don’t hear business groups crying out for a reduction in population growth. I haven’t heard one single business do this!

So… how does this sit with your argument?

<< If a company policy on water usage endangers the very existence of the market they rely on, then that policy will quickly change. It cannot be any other way. >>

Oh right. So if it looks like getting critically bad to the point where the company in question might be seriously stuffed around, then their policy will reflect this. But if it is just part of a general decline in the quality of water-provision for the whole community, it won’t figure in their policy, and indeed their policy will continue to encourage ever-more demand and hence decline of that particular resource/service.

This seems to be the case. So again I say that there seems to be a propensity for businesses to plan for the medium future, and certainly not the long-term future…….. and most definitely not in keeping with a holistic outlook about what is good for the whole of society!

Ludwig
So after all this, all you can come up with is to insist as a precondition of the discussion that obviously government can manage sustainability!

Pathetic.

“Upon your request, I defined sustainability.”

And upon your request, I asked questions which would falsify your definition.

And you couldn’t, and didn’t answer them! All you’ve done is circle back to your point of departure, without ever joining issue, or recognizing any of the problems of value government would have to solve, or saying how.

“Could you restate the questions that are most important to you. No more than three please. And we’ll take it from there.”

Remember that?

So…
1. How do you distinguish between human needs and wants?
2. How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future?
3. How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be?

The problem isn’t that these questions can’t be answered in the "nth degree". The problem is that government cannot answer them in ANY degree because government lacks any rational method way of *knowing* or *integrating* the billions of different, subjective, constantly changing, AND FUTURE human values.

“You broadly know what the role of government is, I presume.”
The whole debate is about the role of government. It's not for me to agree with your opinion as a precondition to entering into the argument.

“Our economy is totally unsustainable!”
So is everything in the world. What’s an example of any aspect of life at any time anywhere in any place that is not “totally unsustainable”, given that your definition *doesn’t state a time-frame?*

If government could manage sustainability, you would have no problem answering my questions.

But if it can’t, then we would see what we are in fact seeing: definition with no time-frame, open-ended credulity in government, no way of knowing the values in issue; no way of calculating them; ignoring that fact; endless assumption of unlimited governmental goodness and capacity, dodging any falsification, responding by mere indignant circularity: in fact everything you're doing!

So, still no examples, Ludwig?

>>It can hardly be more obvious that to push more and more people into places with serious water-supply problems is just crackers! Likewise in cities with bad traffic congestion.<<

While an abstract concept - motherhood good, murder bad - is irrefutable, it is still only an abstract concept until you provide concrete examples. So exactly who is crackers, in your mind?

No-one is "pushing" people anywhere, let alone "more and more" of them. They go entirely of their own free will. You would be right to complain about pushing if, for example, government suddenly decided that all new migrants should only be allowed to live in, for example, Townsville. Where there is no serious water-supply problem, and no bad traffic congestion. But right now, freedom of movement is the norm.

>>But I don’t hear business groups crying out for a reduction in population growth. I haven’t heard one single business do this! So… how does this sit with your argument?<<

Why would any business want to reduce demand for their product or service by reducing their their customer base? Doesn't make sense. But surely we were discussing the supply side? So long as the supply side is adequately planned to meet the projected demand, there will be no problem.

In fact, it would be a good leading indicator of upcoming problems, if a business started to flag issues such as potential shortages, scarcity or supply cost overruns in their annual report to shareholders. Which, I have to say, operate under far stricter levels of disclosure requirements than any government department.

>>But if it is just part of a general decline in the quality of water-provision for the whole community, it won’t figure in their policy...<<

Pure conjecture...

>>... and indeed their policy will continue to encourage ever-more demand and hence decline of that particular resource/service.<<

Not at all. Precisely the opposite will happen, for the exact reasons I have described before.

Pericles,

Your rosy picture of uniformly far-sighted and socially responsible business leaders is far from the reality, although not all businesses are unethical. As a corrective, I recommend a book by Erik Conway and Naomi Oreskes entitled "Merchants of Doubt" (available as a Kindle e-book). It details the business funded think tanks established in the US to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on all sorts of issues, not just climate change: the health effects of tobacco and the dangers of secondhand smoke, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer due to CFCs, environmentally damaging effects of certain pesticides, etc. Very often the same people were involved in a number of these campaigns. The doubt mongering extended to casting doubt on science itself, and we see the consequences in such things as low vaccination rates. The tobacco industry in the US was actually convicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what_we_do/industry_watch/doj_lawsuit/

In all these cases, business was happy to take the money in the short term and delay action on the long-term consequences.

You also ignore the fact that there are different class interests. No doubt the movers and shakers are just as annoyed by congestion as the rest of us, but this is countered by all the lovely money that they are making from the population growth. Apart from a relatively few hangers on, the rest of the existing population just get the downside. The people who call the shots also have the wealth to insulate themselves from many of the negatives of the policies they promote. Their children don't have to grow up in high rise ghettos near pesticide plants.

<< Pathetic >>

Hmmm, nice to see that you are striving to uphold a high-quality tactful discussion here Jardine!

<< 1. How do you distinguish between human needs and wants?
2. How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future?
3. How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be? >>

Ahh so those are your key questions are they?

Excuse me, but that wasn’t obvious, in amongst the eleven questions you asked in the double post to which I was responding, especially given that they certainly don’t seem like particularly important questions. In fact they seem quite tangential to our discussion!

<< How do you distinguish between human needs and wants? >>

There is a spectrum from absolute needs to absolute wants. Water and food are absolute needs at the most basic level, but when we consume water or food, it is rarely absolutely vital that we do so right then and there. So to that extent they are not absolute needs a lot of the time. They could indeed not be needs at all a good deal of the time. So even with the most essential of resources, it is extremely difficult indeed to separate needs and wants.

But we certainly can say that food and water are essential for our survival, our health and our decent quality of life.

Different levels of consumption are essential for these different parameters. So when you talk about needs, you really need to make it clear what you need a particular resource (or service or piece of infrastructure) for.

continued

So obviously it just makes eminent sense to protect the supply of these basic resources and make sure that they can be maintained long into the future, and comfortably see us through hard times such as prolonged drought. That is; that the supply capability be able to meet the demand, with a big safety margin.

It is an eminently sensible aspiration for our government to strive to do this. And it is an eminently sensible aspiration of concerned citizens (which should be all of us), to implore our government to do this.

Part of this plan could be to encourage more frugal consumption, so as to move the balance somewhat away from wants and towards the needs end of the spectrum.

We don’t need to distinguish between wants and needs in order to pursue this ideal.

So um…. what’s the point of your question? Why is it so important to you that wants and needs be separated out? I don’t get the significance.

<< How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future? >>

We DON’T know! All we can do is make judgements on how much of a non-renewable resource we need now and how much we should leave alone for the future.

Two things to consider would be the extent to which we need this national income and the jobs that the particular non-renewable resource industry provides, in order to improve our national quality of life, and secondly how we would transition from an economy based largely on non-renewable resources to one based on renewables and value-added resources.

This will be all the harder if we just go full-bore ahead with a very rapid rate of mineral extraction until it is all gone. So the level of consumption should be kept under check and the transition to other sources of income should be very carefully planned and executed.

continued

It is eminently sensible to strive to make all depletable but potentially renewable resources fully renewable, is it not? Fisheries and forestry spring to mind. So of course the level of exploitation of these resources should be very carefully managed to make sure that they remain renewable, and are allowed to build back up where they have been overharvested.

This happens, to a certain extent. Our government has implemented various laws in this regard, which is exactly what it should be doing. So at least to this extent the government has got some idea about sustainability. Now they just need to broaden it right out into a total paradigm.

<< How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be? >>

We don’t know. But we can see when the distribution and abundance of a species goes into decline, due to land-clearing, feral animals, changed fire regimes or various other factors. We can get a pretty fair idea of when species, or ecosystems, are under threat and need particular attention. Again this is something which the government does to a certain extent.

So our federal government, and the state governments, do undertake various regulatory activities that would sit well within a sustainability paradigm. And they do it without knowing the exact details of every little thing, which you seem to see as some prerequisite to developing and implementing policies.

<< Have a look at the questions I asked you. You will see that not only you, but the government, is not capable of answering them. If you could have answered them, you would have by now. You haven’t because you can’t. That means you’re talking nonsense. >>

Ok Jardine, it is time for you to sit down and eat your words.

Munch munch, crunch crunch.

I hope they taste awful! ( :>)

Ludwig
Thank you for conceding everything that is in issue.

1.
You can’t distinguish wants from needs “a lot of the time”, and “even with the most essential of resources, it is extremely difficult indeed to separate needs and wants.”

Yet your whole argument depends on separating wants and needs. How can you say we should “encourage frugality” and restrict the unnecessary use of resources, while denying the need to distinguish wants and needs?

And you can’t do it. “Food” as a general category of needs is laughably inadequate. Truffles? Pate foie gras?

2.
<< How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future? >>

“We DON’T know!”

Thank you. You don’t know.

“All we can do is make judgements on how much of a non-renewable resource we need now and how much we should leave alone for the future.”

But that’s what people in general are already doing! So you have completely failed to establish that you, or government, know any better. Therefore you have completely failed to justify any government intervention, and are only going round and round in circles.

3.
<< How do you know what the distribution and abundance of species should be? >>

“We don’t know.”

Thank you. You don’t know.

Thank you for admitting that you don’t know what you would need to know in order to justify your assumption that government can manage sustainability.

To proceed from there to a conclusion that government intervention is justified, only shows laughable circularity and confusion on your part.

Divergence
A pity that the government doesn’t apply its own definitions of racketeering and deceptive behaviour to its own conduct, isn’t it?

Poirot
And thanks for your positive engagement.

I never declare that someone has lost the argument because they can’t answer my questions to to *my* satisfaction; only that they can’t answer them *consistent with their own argument*.

Reasonable people can differ in their opinion of the same thing. But that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as reality, logic, or truth. Not every opinion is equally true. Some are positively wrong, and liable to cause untold human suffering, *especially* those backed by aggressive force. This describes all political decisions by definition, because unlike all other social actors, the State claims a legal monopoly of the use of aggressive force.

Political economy involves huge data sets, long chains of reasoning, and enormous contingencies, variables and unknowns. If people are not willing or able to observe the minimal requirements of logical thought, they have no right to tell other people what to do, far less to back it up with the force of law no matter how strong their feelings - indeed *especially* if they have strong feelings about it.

Jardine, I said that I’d answer your questions if you answer mine. You haven’t done that. Come on, you’ve been insistent that I answer your questions, and then you ignore my questions. That’s highly duplicitous!

My questions are absolutely core to our discussion:

>> So um…. what’s the point of your question? Why is it so important to you that wants and needs be separated out? <<

As I’ve said before; your whole basic tenet that our government can’t steer us towards sustainability and then maintain a sustainability paradigm if they don’t know every little detail, seems completely illogical.

In all my discussions on this subject, going back to the late 80s, I have never heard this sort of weird argument before. I wonder why!

Look at the real world. Look at government policies on all manner of things. Does the government EVER know the full detail about the areas that they regulate? No, of course they don’t. So why on earth should it be different with sustainability?

I note you made no comment on this:

>> Hey, our government is doing a really good job of managing a paradigm of antisustainability. But, wait a minute, that is just as hard to totally define as sustainability. So by your 'logical' reckoning, our government should therefore be incapable of managing antisustainability! And yet they are doing a damn good job it!! <<

I wrote:

>> It can hardly be more obvious that to push more and more people into places with serious water-supply problems is just crackers! Likewise in cities with bad traffic congestion. <<

Pericles, you replied:

<< While an abstract concept… >>

Deear o dear!!

You’re moving into quite loopy territory. Can you really say that our highly unillustrious government is not facilitating the movement of more people into cities that have stressed water supplies and major traffic congestion problems?

No of course you can’t.

All you can do is play with words and try and make out that my statements have different meanings to what they obviously have. It’s not a smart strategy! It is clearly one employed by someone who is battling to come back with a logical and meaningful response.

The simple truth of the matter is that businesses, both alone and through chambers of commerce and the like, push for continuous population growth with great fervour. And it is exactly this that sits at the core of our sustainability concerns.

continued

<< Why would any business want to reduce demand for their product or service by reducing their their customer base? >>

They wouldn’t be getting reduced demand. If population growth was less or the population was stable, they’d be getting a smaller growth in demand or a stable demand, all else being equal.

But yes, you can see why businesses push for continuous population growth. The desire for increasing markets and their own growth is perfectly understandable. While many business people may have concerns about the negative factors associated with rapid population growth, they will still push for this growth because increases in markets and hence opportunities for them to grow, and diversify if that’s what they want to do, are greater (but then so are the chances of new businesses open opening up competition to them and cutting their market share).

It is a matter of priorities. And every business puts themselves at a higher priority than the long-term wellbeing of the country…. and leaves the hard judgement calls up to government. Which is all fair enough.

What is not fair is the power that big businesses wield over governments and the weakness of governments to constantly kowtow to them.

Businesses do NOT plan for the healthy future of our country. Their individual plans DO largely conflict with the right sort of national plan. And this is exactly why we need a strong government to oversee a sustainability agenda.

Try not to misinterpret me, Divergence.

>>Pericles, Your rosy picture of uniformly far-sighted and socially responsible business leaders is far from the reality<<

I am not claiming that all businesses are uniformly far-sighted. Merely pointing out that to take these factors into consideration is a sound business practice, that is adhered to by the vast majority of companies. While there may be some who operate on the fringes, I have yet to hear of any that have created problems of the kind you and Ludwig seem to fear. Do you have any examples?

Talking of Ludwig...

>>You’re moving into quite loopy territory. Can you really say that our highly unillustrious government is not facilitating the movement of more people into cities that have stressed water supplies and major traffic congestion problems? No of course you can’t.<<

I most certainly can. Through the complete absence of any form of coercion, or "push", to use your own words. As far as I can tell, people choose where they live. Any evidence to the contrary? Once again, I expect either a) you to answer a different question entirely, b) ignore the question completely or c) wave your arms around emphatically.

>>All you can do is play with words and try and make out that my statements have different meanings to what they obviously have.<<

That won't work either. I have taken your words at face value. Show me where I have not, and I will apologize immediately.

>>They wouldn’t be getting reduced demand. If population growth was less or the population was stable, they’d be getting a smaller growth in demand or a stable demand, all else being equal.<<

Highly, highly unlikely. Take a look at what has happened in Japan over the past twenty years or so, and explain how you would avoid those problems. Your approach will start a deflationary spiral that will eventually our standard of living settle at a much lower level.

Economic and population growth will eventually plateau under its own steam. Your want to throttle it at birth, in case it might become unhealthy later.

But wait, there's more.

On the subject of

>>All you can do is play with words and try and make out that my statements have different meanings<<

Here's an example of exactly that.

>>But yes, you can see why businesses push for continuous population growth<<

Nowhere did I suggest this. What I actually said was that you won't see a business actively supporting a reduction in their demand base. There is a difference, you know.

We still disagree on this basic point:

>>And every business puts themselves at a higher priority than the long-term wellbeing of the country…. and leaves the hard judgement calls up to government.<<

On the contrary, every business states in its annual report what steps it is taking to preserve its access to its raw material inputs. Which, in at least 99 times out of 100, will coincide with the well-being of the nation.

And if they left the "hard calls" to the government, whether Federal, State or Local, no business whatsoever would ever be transacted in this wide brown land of ours.

Ludwig

If the government has a Department of Unicorn Policy, does that mean unicorns exist?

Nobody can be as dumb as you're pretending to be. If you can't recognise the blatant illogic of what you're saying, you have no right to tell other people what to do and back it up with force.

"I said that I’d answer your questions if you answer mine. You haven’t done that. "Why is it so important to you that wants and needs be separated out?"

I've answered it several times. The problem is that, even after having read it, you not only don't understand what I'm talking about; you still don't even understand what you're talking about.

(Hint: your belief system has been totally disproved both in theory and practice over and over again at a cost of tens of millions of human deaths. The fact that you circularly persist in not understanding this, doesn't make your beliefs true!)

Get a clue:
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
Only after you have read, understood and refuted Mises arguments will you be in any position to try re-erecting the edifice that he has demolished.

I wrote:

>> Can you really say that our highly unillustrious government is not facilitating the movement of more people into cities that have stressed water supplies and major traffic congestion problems? No of course you can’t. <<

Pericles, you wrote:

<< I most certainly can >> …followed a by whole lot of meaningless babble.

I don’t know where we go from here, if you are going to insist on upholding this blatantly false assertion!

An example...

OBVIOUSLY, both federal and Qld state governments are facilitating rapid population growth in southeast Queensland.

A couple of years ago, before the big rains (and floods) this whole region was in a critical water-supply situation. The long-term water-supply outlook is precarious. And yet people keep pouring in and constantly increasing the demand.

And this is happening with the apparent full support of the business community.

What more can I say?

.

.

Oh look, I found something else to say….

You wrote:

<< And if they left the "hard calls" to the government, whether Federal, State or Local, no business whatsoever would ever be transacted in this wide brown land of ours. >>

Wow, isn’t that a tad over the top, Pericles? An absurdly polarised statement if ever I heard one!

Dear Is Mise…er…. I mean, Jardine, that’s a great post. Thankyou. It does…um… precisely NOTHING to further this discussion.

My old namesake; Luddie von Mousetrap never did win much popular support. I’ve tried a few times to get the gist of his writings, but alas, it just leaves me bewildered! I guess this has been the case for most people who have tried to understand him.

I find it quite amazing that you so strongly hold him up as the great guru, and yet I have not noticed one other single person even refer to him at all, as far as I can recall.

Why are you so different?

What is it that you find so appealing about von Mises?

And um…. you still haven’t commented on this:

>> Hey, our government is doing a really good job of managing a paradigm of antisustainability. But, wait a minute, that is just as hard to totally define as sustainability. So by your 'logical' reckoning, our government should therefore be incapable of managing antisustainability! And yet they are doing a damn good job it!! <<

If you find it so illogical and hence impossible for a government to manage sustainability, then you can only possibly, logically, think that they do manage antisustainability (or unsustainability). If you think they can’t manage anything, then they are in effect managing antisustainability, yes?

How does this sit with your assertion that they need to know every little detail before they can manage it?

It completely trounces this weird notion of yours, doesn’t it. Come on, admit it.

Notice how at no stage have you actually turned your mind to whether your beliefs are true or not?

You assume from the outset that the state is society's organizational tool. But your original complaint is precisely that the state is spreading disorganization through society by its failure to manage population and sustainability as you would like. This should set off your alarms to re-examine whether your starting assumption is correct.

You assume that the state has the competence and good sense to manage sustainability. But again, your ongoing thesis is that the state is not displaying competence or good sense in its management of sustainability and population. This again should alert you to the possible need to re-think your starting assumptions.

You assume the problem is not enough government policy, but ignore the fact that all the problems you identify concern public goods. Again you ignore the obvious.

Then when challenged on your assumptions, your argument is that "surely" they must be true.

When challenged to answer questions proving government doesn't have the necessary knowledge, you admit they don't, but without understanding the logical consequence of what you've just done, you just return to your well-worn technique of assuming it can. Your evidence: the mere fact that government *says* it can manage sustainability policies! Unbelievable.

When challenged further, you simply repeat: "surely" the government must be able to do it; it's "weird" to question it.

At no stage do you ever come to grips with the fact that you and govenrment have no way of knowing whether a given action impermissibly deprives present humans, or robs future ones *even according to your own standards*!

To answer your question, sustainability means a *more organized* end; since it requires the balancing of current with future consumption, and the orderly reconciling of conflicting values.

Whereas anti-sustainability is a *less organized* end. No management competence is needed to cause or exacerbate a tendency towards greater disorder.

Honestly Ludwig, is that the best you can do?

Is it my imagination, Ludwig, or are you starting to feel a little... shall we say, trapped, inside your own argument?

>>Pericles, you wrote: << I most certainly can >> …followed a by whole lot of meaningless babble.<<

Wow. Meaningless babble, eh. There's an admission. I simply pointed out that there is no evidence whatsoever of governments, at any level, "pushing" people to live in places they don't want to go. Remember your statement?

>>It can hardly be more obvious that to push more and more people into places with serious water-supply problems is just crackers!<<

There's no "push", Ludwig. And as if to prove my point, the best you can come up with is:

>>OBVIOUSLY, both federal and Qld state governments are facilitating rapid population growth in southeast Queensland.<<

Ok, so you're now calling it "facilitating". But you haven't told us either, how this "facilitation" manifests itself. Apparently, it is supposed to be "OBVIOUS". But of course, it is no such thing. As you go on to tell us:

>>A couple of years ago, before the big rains (and floods) this whole region was in a critical water-supply situation. The long-term water-supply outlook is precarious. And yet people keep pouring in and constantly increasing the demand.<<

Still no evidence of government coercion, push or even facilitation. Simply people choosing where, in this beautiful land of ours, to drop anchor.

The fact that governments are, according to you, delinquent in providing the necessary infrastructure for these folk, is surely evidence that they are absolutely not coercing, pushing, facilitating or even encouraging the influx. The opposite would be more logical: by not providing (according to you) the infrastructure, they would appear to be actively discouraging new arrivals.

Where's the governmental "push" for people to move to a drought-affected area?

You are being disingenuous, Pericles. The government doesn't have to push anyone. They just allow development to be concentrated in only a few cities - where the people have to go if they want to continue eating, since that is where the jobs are. If people are unemployed, Centrelink will cut off their benefits if they move to an area where unemployment is higher, even if they can't get a job in the city either.

I totally agree, Divergence.

>>You are being disingenuous, Pericles. The government doesn't have to push anyone. They just allow development to be concentrated in only a few cities - where the people have to go if they want to continue eating, since that is where the jobs are.<<

Not about the disingenuous bit, of course, just the development part.

The people will gravitate to where there is development. They will not gravitate to places where there is insufficient infrastructure. As I understand Ludwig's argument, he is insisting that people are being "pushed" to areas with insufficient services.

>>If people are unemployed, Centrelink will cut off their benefits if they move to an area where unemployment is higher, even if they can't get a job in the city either.<<

I had in mind the employed, rather than the unemployed. I rather think Ludwig has the same idea...

>>And this is happening with the apparent full support of the business community.<<

The iniquities of business do rather seem to be front-and-centre in his thoughts on population, do they not. And if I were setting up a company that needed employees, I'd make sure there was sufficient infrastructure for them to live, work and play. I certainly wouldn't simply plonk one down in the middle of nowhere, and expect the government to deliver the goods. Quickest way to corporate penury is to rely on government for absolutely anything at all.

Hehehee, I notice a very interesting phenomenon happening here: my two arch-rivals in this debate, bless their little hearts, are completely ignoring each other!

You’d think they’d band together to pummel this horrible Ludwig character into the ground, coz they ain’t doing much of a job separately!

But no, they apparently see each other as too loopy to even acknowledge their existence!

Fascinating…… and most entertaining! ( :>)

<< To answer your question, sustainability means a *more organized* end; since it requires the balancing of current with future consumption, and the orderly reconciling of conflicting values. Whereas anti-sustainability is a *less organized* end. No management competence is needed to cause or exacerbate a tendency towards greater disorder. >>

Ok Jardine, thanks for answering that one. But dear oh dear, within the current highly unsustainable paradigm, our society is highly organised! A great deal of management competence is needed to oversee this. The fact that we aren’t heading towards sustainability doesn’t mean that we are less organised, or heading towards a less organised future, at least not in the short term. Our government is indeed managing antisustainability in a highly organised manner.

In fact, as the balance between supply and demand becomes more discrepant and stresses of all sorts increase, so will laws and regulations of all sorts. As we become more obviously antisustainable, our governance will increase the organisation of our whole society.

Under a regime or genuine sustainability, organisation could be relaxed. All manner of laws could be wound right back. The whole job of government would become much easier.

Sorry, but your explanation doesn’t crack it at all!

The other very salient point that I made on 7 May that you passed right over is this:

<< Look at government policies on all manner of things. Does the government EVER know the full detail about the areas that they regulate? No, of course they don’t. So why on earth should it be different with sustainability? >>

With all government policies and programs, there are always variables and unknowns. The regulatory regime is never as good as it should be and the aspirations are never fully realised. But governments still implement policies which for the most part are reasonably successful, and certainly a whole lot better than doing nothing.

So how does this sit with your *more organized*, * less organized* explanation?

And um…. you haven’t addressed my question regarding Ludwig von Mises.

Ludwig
The issue, as between us, is whether government has the competence that you say it has. Everything you have said has assumed it has. This means that everything you've said assumes what's in issue, which is the logical fallacy of begging the question, which is illogical, which is irrational.

That demolishes your entire argument.

On the other hand, you have said my argument is illogical. But the only reason you've given is because it doesn't agree with your opinion. That is not, of itself, a logical error since there is always the possibility that your opinion is wrong.

As for MIses, putting aside your personal question, the question is whether a theory or argument is true, not whether it's popular. Something can be true without being popular, and vice versa. For example your theory is popular but not true. The reason we know this is because
a) you have admitted that government does not have the knowledge it would need in order to achieve sustainability, and
b) all your argument depends on you assuming government can do, what you have admitted it doesn't have the knowledge to do.

You admit not-understanding Mises. If you knew his theory completely disproves your whole belief system, would you make an effort to understand it?

Your idea that regulation would go *down* in a sustainable society corresponds exactly with the idea of the communists, that the state would "wither away" on the arrival of communism. It's just that society would have to go through an intervening period of total government control of anything and everything to achieve it!

How could that be any different under a government devoted to achieving sustainability?

What would be an example of something that government would not have a right and duty to control, given it has to control anything that might not "endure"?

How would govt know whether it's robbing present or future humans in any given action?

Why is it not a blank warrant for unlimited power?

And spare us the ad hominem replies. Please just answer the questions? - *without* assuming what's in issue!

<< Is it my imagination, Ludwig, or are you starting to feel a little... shall we say, trapped, inside your own argument? >>

Hahaha. This is not the first time you’ve made your vivid and quite weird imagination apparent! ( :>)

<< Ok, so you're now calling it "facilitating"…. >>

Pericles, you are a great one for playing around with words, which I see simply as an obfuscation of the discussion, from someone who up against the wall with their argument!

You know perfectly well what I mean. Like um, we’ve only been over this stuff about fifty times before on OLO!

For goodness sake, governments do indeed, and very strongly so, facilitate/push/encourage/drive/cause/make people move into areas with stressed resources, services and infrastructures.

The fundamental driver is very high immigration. There is also the god-awful baby-buying bribe that has increased.

People are free to move where they want. But only up to a point. They go where the jobs are, where affordable housing is, where others of their nationality or religion are, or for sea-change or tree-change reasons, etc, etc.

The places that meet these criteria are our large cities, southeast Queensland and various coastal or near-coastal centres respectively. Our cities and SEQ all have major resource-supply, service and infrastructure woes. And smaller centres with rapidly growing populations have a mix of positive and negative influences as a result of it, and have to be very careful that they don’t suffer overall significant net negative consequences.

(I can see your eyes glazing over at this point. You just speed-read those last three paras didn’t you!)

And again, the business community is very happy about all this growth, by and large… which just flies straight in the face of your argument about their goody-two-shoes planning and the notion that these plans are mostly in line with the right sort of plan for a healthy future for these centres and for the whole country.

We’ve got total disagreement on this, Pericles. And it seems as though we’ve reached the stage where there is little point to further discourse.

Ludwig
What would be an example of something that government would *not* have a right and duty to control, given it has to control anything that might affect
a. "the capacity to endure"
(Wikipedia's general definition), or
b. "the needs of the present [or] the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland definition)

1. Can you give us three concrete examples of what human actions would *not* fall within those definitions, and which government would therefore not have a right to control?

2. How would government know, in any given action, whether it's impermissibly robbing present or future humans in any given action by its own definition. Don't tell me there is no need to know every detail. I'm asking why not? How is government going to know whether any given action complies with its own definition or not?

3. If there was any disagreement whether a given resource came within the definition or not, who would get to decide - the owner, or the government?

4. Why is your ideology not a blank warrant for unlimited power?

<< The issue, as between us, is whether government has the competence that you say it has. >>

Yes Jardine. You think that government is terrible at everything and only makes things worse: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5753#160527

You are saying that government cannot logically manage sustainability, and your prime reason seems to be that they would need to know the fullest extent of everything about it in order to be able to do that.

<< Everything you have said has assumed it has. >>

Yes, I assume that government CAN manage sustainability. The notion that they simply can’t do this is a step too far for my meagre brain to deal with! I can’t see a reason in the world why I shouldn’t assume that government IS inherently very capable of this.

In fact, the notion that they simply can’t do it seems so alien and weird that I very nearly didn’t take you up on your initial comments. And I don’t know why I am still discussing this with you, when you write stuff like this:

<< This means that everything you've said assumes what's in issue, which is the logical fallacy of begging the question, which is illogical, which is irrational. That demolishes your entire argument >>

So, according to your amazing logic; because I make the assumption that government can do what it is supposed to do, I lose the entire argument and you win, which means that you can feel free to automatically assume that government can’t do this without justifying your position, ….. or something like that!

To me, your arguments about logic are based on the most illogical premise, and therefore just leave me wide-eyed and slowly shaking my head when I read a lot of your comments!

Surely the onus of proof or very strong corroboration is on your side of the debate, given that you are introducing the unfamiliar concept.

OK, that’s enough for now.

Please don’t post any more comments for a while. There’s plenty of meat in your last two posts to keep me going for another half a dozen responses!

So you say, Ludwig.

>>For goodness sake, governments do indeed, and very strongly so, facilitate/push/encourage/drive/cause/make people move into areas with stressed resources, services and infrastructures.<<

What is still missing, after all these posts of yours that say exactly the same thing, is any semblance of evidence. Apparently, it is supposed to be obvious.

>>The fundamental driver is very high immigration. There is also the god-awful baby-buying bribe that has increased.<<

Certainly, those two factors have the effect of increasing the population, given that not many people are leaving our shores. But I thought we were talking about the impact of those numbers, not the numbers themselves.

What you have failed to show is any actual evidence that we are suffering as a nation from this increase. Plenty of opinion, a lot of conjecture, and a willful blindness to the fact that we are better off now than at any time in our history.

>>They go where the jobs are, where affordable housing is, where others of their nationality or religion are, or for sea-change or tree-change reasons... Our cities and SEQ all have major resource-supply, service and infrastructure woes.<<

Which ones? Be specific. And this still lackes the imprint of a government "push".

You argue solely in generalizations, which is one of the reasons you remain entirely unconvincing.

The best that you seem capable of is to twist the arguments of others, to the point where they are unrecognizable:

>>And again, the business community is very happy about all this growth, by and large… which just flies straight in the face of your argument about their goody-two-shoes planning...<<

It is not "goody-two-shoes planning" to ensure the future stability of your company, through policies that ensure the future stability of your supply chain. More often than not, these policies will mesh neatly with those of the community. So far, you have been unable to point me towards an example that contradicts this.

But then again, after all this time, that is hardly likely to change, is it.

<< You admit not-understanding Mises. If you knew his theory completely disproves your whole belief system, would you make an effort to understand it? >>

I AM making an effort to understand him. What do you think I am still discussing this stuff here with you for?

Jardine, you’ve got to admit that von Mises is a just tad difficult to grasp. But what you are saying on this thread is just the same as what he has espoused, is it not? So I don’t need to go and labour over his great tome, to which you referred me, I simply have to try and grapple with what you are writing here.

<< Your idea that regulation would go *down* in a sustainable society corresponds exactly with the idea of the communists… >>

Whoop-de-do!

<< It's just that society would have to go through an intervening period of total government control of anything and everything to achieve it! >>

Putting aside the totally meaningless allusion to communism, yes from this point forward for us to achieve sustainability, we would indeed need stronger governance, not with total control, but certainly with a much better level of regulation.

And if we don’t head towards sustainability, we will get just the same; ever-more efforts from government to control all the things that are getting progressively further out of control.

Less government control from this point forward is something we are simply NOT going to get! And thank goodness for that! The last thing we need as the stresses of antisustainability manifest themselves more and more, is a greater level of anarchy, where the rich, powerful and more ruthless and self-centred elements would rule the roost!

continued

<< What would be an example of something that government would not have a right and duty to control, given it has to control anything that might not "endure"? >>

Can’t think of a single thing! Government should control, or at least strive to influence by implementing incentives, all resources, services, infrastructure and things pertaining to them that might not endure where they could endure if they were better managed!

<< How would govt know whether it's robbing present or future humans in any given action? >>

It wouldn’t! In the end-of-spectrum interpretation, the very use of any non-renewable resource, such as our minerals, could be deemed to be robbing future generations. The government, in consultation with experts and all other interested parties, would need to make a value-judgement on what we need to exploit now and what we should leave alone for a few years or decades.

<< Why is it not a blank warrant for unlimited power? >>

Ahh, now isn’t that an interesting question! This seems to sit right at the core of your concerns. You seem terrified that government could gain enormous power and exercise great suppression of you and all its citizens, as some dictatorships do. It is surely a very paranoid concern in relation to our democratic type of government, which the people simply won’t let get too autocratic.

The prospect of less government control and hence more control by the powerful, ruthless and greedy, is surely of much greater concern.

But wait, there’s more. I haven’t answered all your questions yet. So please don’t respond until I have.

Jardine, your last post was just a set of repeated questions, so it appears that I have addressed all your questions.

So please answer these:

1. What is so different about sustainability? Twice I have put to you (and twice you have completely ignored it) that government addresses all manner of things without knowing the full detail of them. Indeed there are always going to be variables and unknowns. But this doesn’t stop government from developing policies and hence regulatory frameworks to improve these sectors. Practically everything I can think of is like this: education, environment, health, business, road rules, national park regulations, alcohol use…. Why should sustainability be different to everything else in having to have all variables and unknowns eliminated before the government can implement any policies?

2. What is really going on here? I get the feeling that you are not actually too concerned about sustainability at all but are fundamentally concerned about government gaining too much power and that you feel the best state for our society is the one with the least amount of government influence, which indeed would be approximating anarchy. Am I right?

<< What is still missing, after all these posts of yours that say exactly the same thing, is any semblance of evidence. Apparently, it is supposed to be obvious. >>

Well Pericles if it is not obvious to you by now, there’s not much I can do to make it any more apparent.

If you can’t see that for all the enormous expense that has been put into Sydney’s roads over the last say thirty years, there has been scant little improvement in the alleviation of congestion, which is directly because of population growth and the ever-increasing number of cars…

If you can’t see that the water situation in SEQ was dire before the rains of couple of years ago, with quite harsh water restrictions across the board and a very grim outlook if substantial rains hadn’t come…which was due directly to the very rapid population influx… which the government did NOTHING to try and slow down in the face of the resource crisis…

If you can’t see that an enormous amount of our wealth generated largely by the amazing ongoing mining boom isn’t being put into services and infrastructure all over the country, without leading to net improvements, but rather is just chasing the tail of ever-rapidly-increasing pressure on these things and massive demand for ever-more…

If you can't see that it is government that drives this population growth, and which could greatly reduce it and steer it away from places where it exacerbates major issues if they had the presence of mind to do so...

And all the while the business community supports rapid population growth all the way...

<< …any semblance of evidence… >>

Wow, ye really does only see what ye wants to see and conveniently ignores the most enormous elephant in the living room! But then again, after all this time, that is hardly likely to change, is it.

How about you give an example or two of where businesses have called for a stop to the increasing demand in situations where the supply capability is precarious.

Yup. There's the problem. Right there.

>>Well Pericles if it is not obvious to you by now, there’s not much I can do to make it any more apparent.<<

As I said before, generalizations simply don't cut it. If you were to provide some specific examples, we might possibly make some progress. But with vague arm-waving such as this, we're pretty well stuck...

>>...there has been scant little improvement in the alleviation of congestion, which is directly because of population growth and the ever-increasing number of cars<<

Or alternatively, the result of successive governments' perpetual round of under-investment, fudge, political compromise and outright corruption that gives rise to such half-baked schemes as the monorail, the light rail system, the various tolled tunnels that are over-engineered, over-priced and under-used etc. etc - the list is very long indeed.

>>If you can’t see that the water situation in SEQ was dire before the rains of couple of years ago<<

And how much effort had the government taken previously to ensure adequate water supply to the population that they knew would be growing? "Please, after you", said the horse to the cart.

>>How about you give an example or two of where businesses have called for a stop to the increasing demand in situations where the supply capability is precarious.<<

That's a silly request indeed. What exactly are the signs that I should be looking for? Perhaps if you first tell me where the supply is "precarious", and which businesses are involved, we can jointly do some investigation. Because when you think about it logically, you are far more likely than I, to have a list of "situations where the supply capability is precarious", are you not?

Ludwig
Imagine a discussion with an ecologist who assumed that eucalyptus communities dominate the flora of Eurasia.

You: “Why do you say that?”
He: “Because it must be so.”
You: “Well how do you know?”
He: “Because. It must be so because it must be so.”

Can you see, nor not, that process of reasoning does not make sense?

Because that’s what you’re doing, and that’s ALL you’re doing.

Actually you’re varying it with other similar illogic, like this:

You: “But you agree that, in fact, eucalypts are not the majority communities anywhwere in Eurasia?”
He: “Yes.”
You: “Then why do you say they dominate the flora of Eurasia?”
He: “Because. Surely they should.”
You: “Why do you say that?”
He: “Because. They should because they should.”
You: “Why?”
He: “Because I believe people who say it should.”
You: “How do you know they’re right?”
He: “Because. I assume it’s true.”
You: “So what? How do you know it’s true?”
He: “It must be so.”
You: “Because what?”
He: “It must be so because it must be so.”

I would also support sustainability policy as much as you do, if I indulged myself in such vicious illogical gibberish.

“I assume that government CAN manage sustainability.”

It’s obvious you *assume* it!

The question is whether you can prove it’s true. You are in effect using your opinion as the criterion of truth and logic. No offence, but that’s virtually the *definition* of idiocy.

“The notion that they simply can’t do this is a step too far for my meagre brain to deal with!”

Then why are you discussing it?

If you won’t accept the possibility that your notions are wrong, even after you have accepted multiple propositions that government cannot in fact do it, then what’s the point in talking about it?

“I AM making an effort to understand [Mises].

No you’re not. Making an effort means honestly examining the null hypothesis, and seeking to disprove your own opinions, not just adhering to your previous opinions regardless of the fact you have conceded what categorically proves them wrong.

“I can’t see a reason in the world why I shouldn’t assume that government IS inherently very capable of this.”

I’ve shown you numerous reasons, and you’ve conceded that they’re right.

a) Even a perfect government (and you agree it isn’t perfect) would have to control every human action.
(The totalitarian communists only wanted to control all production. You want to control all production *and all consumption*. So it’s not a “meaningless” comparison – you’re more totalitarian than they were!)

b) As for whether democracy won’t let them get too autocratic, obviously if it did, it would be totalitarian, and if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be sustainable!

c) Even if they could and should control all human action, still they would have no way of knowing whether they are improving or worsening sustainability even in their own terms, and you’ve admitted that.

d) It would be less sustainable not more, because of the economic calculation problem, which you’ve admitted you don’t understand
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3839

“So, according to your amazing logic; because I make the assumption that government can do what it is supposed to do, I lose the entire argument and you win…”

More gibberish. You haven’t established it’s “supposed to”; that’s what’s in issue.

And even if you had, it wouldn’t follow that it *can*.

(What government is “supposed to do” is set out in the Constitution, at Section 51: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html
Please show us where it says “managing sustainability”.)

And yes, arguing that it can do it because it should do it, means you’re not making sense and have lost the argument.

“The government, in consultation with experts and all other interested parties, would need to make a value-judgement on what we need to exploit now and what we should leave alone for a few years or decades.”

See how you’ve assumed it again?

You have to show how government making that value judgment, would necessarily be more sustainable, and more representative of all interested parties, than the status quo. You can't just assume it!

“What is so different about sustainability?”
The officers in charge of providing roads and hospitals etc. don’t need to ensure that the resource-use of people in 50, 500, 5,000, and 50,000 years’ time is not compromised. Those in charge of sustainability do.

“Twice I have put to you (and twice you have completely ignored it) that government addresses all manner of things without knowing the full detail of them.”

I’ve ignored it because by merely pointing to other governmental actions, all you’re doing is arguing in a circle - again! Your argument is just “government can rationalize scarce resources to their most valued ends, because government can rationalize scarce resources to their most valued ends”.

It’s just a mental vice. I’ve proved my argument and demolished yours, and you can’t defend your own argument, and can’t refute - and actually agree with - mine.

See Ludwig, I don’t just argue “It can’t because it can’t because it can’t”.

I start by assuming that government can manage sustainability, and then I ask what would they need in order to do it. I don’t just *tell* you reasons regardless whether or not you agree. I *ask* you, and only if you agree, do I use that agreed datum to construct my argument. And then I show *reasons* why they can’t do it.

Your methodology is entirely different. You adopt a proposition that cannot be falsified by logic or evidence; you look on reasons which show it’s not true, agree that they’re correct; and just keep going round and round in circles, insisting it must be true because you find it unthinkable otherwise.

Well think otherwise! *Change* your anti-sense, anti-human, anti-freedom beliefs!

Okay, settle it. Any reply by you that repeats the same error constitutes an irrevocable admission that you are wrong, a compleat idiot, and owe me a big fat slab of the finest ale.

<< As I said before, generalizations simply don't cut it. >>

Haaahahaaa. The bigger and more profound an example is, the more you see it as a generalisation, apparently!

Now that IS funny, Pericles!

<< Or alternatively, the result of successive governments' perpetual round of under-investment, fudge, political compromise and outright corruption that gives rise to such half-baked schemes as the monorail, the light rail system, the various tolled tunnels that are over-engineered, over-priced and under-used etc. etc - the list is very long indeed. >>

Under-investment….over-priced ?!?

One gets the feeling you are trying to cover anything that the government does with one broad brush stroke and paint it all the same filthy colour!

What we can see from this list of yours is that the government has indeed been putting great effort and massive money into trying to alluvial congestion, in Sydney and elsewhere, without much success. And the reason is? It is primarily due to ever-rapidly-increasing usage/pressure/stress/demand.

And yes, when this happens and solutions to it become very difficult if not impossible, then we get all manner of complications happening: political compromise, overstated benefits, corruption, etc.

Crikey, if the issue was easy to fix, the government would have done it, and won great acclaim for doing so, yes?

continued

<< And how much effort had the government taken previously to ensure adequate water supply to the population that they knew would be growing? >>

Nowhere near enough.

Could this be the start of a breakthrough?? You have apparently acknowledged here that the government is indeed not good at implementing services / infrastructure / resource supply capability in preparation for increasing demand. Wonderful!

I’m sure you appreciate that population growth is very largely controlled by the government, and that they would, if they were half-decent managers of this country, either make sure that the supply side of the equation was all in place ahead of any increase in demand, or that the planned increase in demand was halted or at least slowed right down.

I asked:

>> How about you give an example or two of where businesses have called for a stop to the increasing demand in situations where the supply capability is precarious. <<

Nope. You give no examples. I’m sure you woulda if you coulda - as I have said to you several times before when my requests for corroboration of your assertions has gone unanswered!

Come on, you know exactly what I’m asking for here. You assert that business plans do largely align with the right sort of governmental plan for our national future, and you assert that businesses are inherently very careful to plan their future in regards to resource access. So… where are the examples?

For example; what business has ever recommended to the Qld government that they strive to stop heaping pressure on the precarious water-provision capability in SEQ via their facilitation of rapid population growth?

Or… what mining company has ever told the government that they should slow down the rate of mining rather than open up more mines? Or forestry. Or fisheries. Or farming…..

Pericles, not meaning to be rude, but I am beginning to equate you with the old black knight! http://youtu.be/zKhEw7nD9C4

< Trying to alluvial congestion > ??!!??

Fascinating!

Of course that should have read: 'Trying to alleviate congestion'.

Sheesh! |:>/

As usual, Ludwig, you have the whole thing arse-about-face.

>>For example; what business has ever recommended to the Qld government that they strive to stop heaping pressure on the precarious water-provision capability in SEQ via their facilitation of rapid population growth?<<

That is hardly an example of a business ensuring its supply, is it? Which is what we were talking about.

>>Or… what mining company has ever told the government that they should slow down the rate of mining rather than open up more mines? Or forestry. Or fisheries. Or farming…<<

Why on earth would they do that, if they have a workable plan to maintain the flow of raw material - including carbon-based life forms - that takes into account the limitations of their environment. Which is precisely what they do. And they publish these plans every year so that their shareholders can see that they are prudent managers, with a clear view of their future.

What you still fail to accept is that companies are apolitical, and operate with a level of openness and clarity that would be unthinkable to governments. Open any annual report you like - BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Newmont, RioTinto etc. - and you will see exactly how they align their own futures with that of Australia.

Have a look as well at the timber industry, and how it manages its relationship with its environment. Here's an example:

http://www.austgum.com.au/australian-plantations-woodchips/home.html

And since you also mention fishing, here's a major Australian company addresses the issues:

http://www.australfisheries.com.au/corporate-profile/message-from-the-ceo/

You might even care to glance at their sustainability statement.

http://www.australfisheries.com.au/sustainability-2/sustainability-statement/

What's left. Oh yes, farming.

I don't know a great deal about agriculture, but I would imagine that any farm would need to have a sustainability plan that preserves its productive capacity for the long term - otherwise, they would simply go out of business. Here's Elders annual report, that will give you some idea of what is involved:

http://www.elderslimited.com/upload/2012-Elders-Limited-Annual-Report.pdf

If you can find any holes in that, to support your theory that they are all rapists and pillagers of our fair land, please identify them.

<< “I assume that government CAN manage sustainability.” It’s obvious you *assume* it! The question is whether you can prove it’s true >>

No it isn’t Jardine!

Why do I need to prove this any more than you need to prove the opposite?

We assume that people, organisations, governments, etc can do things all the time in the absence of proof. And guess what…. there is no way of proving that they can actually do it until they’ve actually done it!

If they fail, we can’t say that that is proof that they couldn’t have done it. If they are successful, that would constitute proof that they were capable of doing it. Unless they had previously done it, nothing else would constitute proof!

So you’re asking for the impossible.

Think about that – it literally is impossible to prove that our government can manage sustainability or that they are utterly incapable of managing sustainability. The only real way that we can approach proof either way is to look back at what has transpired in about the year ?2500!

And maybe even then we won’t able to establish proof either way, because with a few small differences in methodology, the opposite outcome could perhaps have resulted.

In the absence of a very good reason to not assume that government can manage sustainability, I will continue to assume that they can. And really, I can’t see any reason why that assumption would be fallacious.

There are certainly some big things stopping them from properly addressing sustainability at the moment, but this doesn’t mean that they’re not capable of it.

continued

<< “I AM making an effort to understand [Mises]”. No you’re not. >>

Um, how about this quote from Mises’ ‘Economic Calculation in The Socialist Commonwealth’, a stultifying and boringly inane paper if ever there was one!.... except for this from Chapter 45:

< (4) Finally, we have environmental policies, which are becoming progressively broader in scope and more draconian in enforcement. To the extent that such policies go beyond the protection of individual rights and property—and they are now far, far beyond this point--they become antisocial and destructive of capital and living standards. In fact, in many if not in most cases, it is the obliteration of economic productivity per se which is intended and which constitutes the in-kind welfare subsidy to the well-heeled and well-organized minority of upper-middle class environmentalists. >

< The connection between environmentalism and socialism is even stronger when we realize that what socialism brings about unintentionally--the abolition of humanity as a teleological force shaping nature to its purposes--is precisely the aim of the radical environmentalist program. >

( :> |

Heavens to murgatroid, your Herr Mises was as mad as a hatter!

continued

<< d) It would be less sustainable not more, because of the economic calculation problem, which you’ve admitted you don’t understand http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3839 >>

Oh no, Jardie, Izzy and Humey – you’re all the same dude!! Wow, how many more monikers do you have on this forum??

The first thing I notice is that this general thread received precisely NO responses. Maybe that it is an indication that I’m not the only one who didn’t understand it, at least not in the way that you expressed it.

I remember reading it a whole bunch of times, because environmentalism and any critique of it is right up my alley. I couldn’t make enough sense of it to respond.

But upon rereading it another half a dozen times, I might be able to agree that economic calculation certainly does not take into account things like minerals still in the ground, wilderness in national parks or granny’s assistance in looking after the grandkids.

This is a fundamental fault of our economic system which is based on the highly flawed indicator; GDP. This indicator is much more flawed than this – it also counts economic activity generated by bad things like smoking, floods or road accidents as positive contributions! In fact, it is a shockingly poor indicator of economic growth, let alone our quality of life that is supposed to be directly related to economic growth, let alone our long-term prosperity!

But your use of this as something against environmentalism is entirely misplaced. Environmentalists have been raising just these concerns for a long time (bearing in mind that ‘environmentalist’ is a very broad term, as is ‘economist’ and that some understand this while others don’t, just as some economists worship GDP and endless economic growth while others can see it all in a more realistic manner).

Where do you get this assertion that many environmentalists have hostility towards producing things at a profit? And how does this relate to your explanation of economic calculation?

Oh, of course, von Miseries said it, therefore it is gospel, end of story!

continued

<< (What government is “supposed to do” is set out in the Constitution, at Section 51: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html
Please show us where it says “managing sustainability”.) >>

Oh, so because sustainability is not mentioned in the constitution, our government is not supposed to try and achieve it?

Surely you are not suggesting this, Jardine.

Don’t you think that when the constitution was drawn up, the word ‘sustainability’ was probably not really well known, at least not in the sense that we are using it?

I doubt that at that time anyone was thinking too much about the size and rate of growth of the Australian population (along with per-capita consumption, environmental alienation, etc) becoming a problem to manage with respect to resources, infrastructure and ongoing demand/supply balance. I’d put it to you that nothing like that was even remotely in the brain-space of our illustrious forefathers!

Don’t you think that sustainability is inherent in the very purpose of government! If we are not going to have a government which strives to balance supply and demand and make sure that our life-supporting resources and mechanisms are in place now and into the indefinite future, then what is government actually doing?

For goodness sake, a sustainable future is indeed inherent in the very purpose of government! Surely you wouldn’t argue that it is the role of government to direct us down an unsustainable path or to just carry on with no regard to sustainability or antisustainability?

And of course, there is nothing in the constitution which goes against the pursuance of a sustainable future, is there.

The list of legislative powers of the parliament to which your link refers me is moot in our discussion. It doesn’t tell us anything one way or the other.

continued

<< “What is so different about sustainability?” The officers in charge of providing roads and hospitals etc. don’t need to ensure that the resource-use of people in 50, 500, 5,000, and 50,000 years’ time is not compromised. Those in charge of sustainability do. >>

No they don’t. We’ve been over and over this.

We know what the most unsustainable aspects are and hence what needs to be addressed most urgently. There is no requirement to know every little detail up front. We just need to head in the right direction and then progressively refine the overall policy platform…. in just the same way that government has approached all sorts of issues over the years.

<< *Change* your anti-sense, anti-human, anti-freedom beliefs! >>

WTF are you on about here??

This is completely disconnected with anything that we’ve discussed so far (or at least the last two are!).

It’s even crazier than your statement following your explanation of economic calculation that environmentalists have hostility towards producing things at a profit!

You make these wild assertions with no attached explanation or connection to what has gone before, let alone any proof. And yet you insist that I prove the validity of my position. Wow!

Ludwig, rationalwiki.org has a 'bemused' take on von Mises. Referring to "Human Action"...

"He then proceeds to derive his immutable "laws" of economics from a single axiom, the "action axiom." Mises doesn't formulate it as simply as his followers like Rothbard, who usually state it simply as "Humans act," or "Individual humans act with a purpose," this is the essence of the axiom. Mises, however, distinguishes what he calls "action" from instinctual behavior. Action is defined as behavior that is done with some intention in mind, i.e. goal-oriented. While he admits the possibility of materialistic explanations, he argues that the assumptions of dualism and free will are necessary for a "science" of human action.

Of course, besides the problem of deriving an entire system of faith-based economics from a single axiom, Mises runs into the problem of making a clear-cut distinction between "action" and "instinct" that doesn't exist in psychology and the cognitive sciences (indeed, he dismisses the whole of psychology, anthropology, etc. as merely "historical" and thus unable to make any predictions).

Mises also claims this tautological axiom is irrefutable, and thus a rock-solid basis for all economic theory. If you attempt to refute the claim that humans act, then you are, by definition, acting! "

and

"From here, Mises goes into how awesome completely laissez faire market policy is, gold buggery, and other typical Austrian hijinks. However, sane students of economics probably closed the book way back at the point when Mises declared his "theories" unfalsifiable."

[Check out Mises' letter to Ayn Rand from 23 January 1958.]

Wm Trevor

“faith-based economics”

What’s that supposed to mean?

Austrian methodology is based on logical deductions from axioms.

It’s no more “faith-based” than logical deductions from axioms generally. Trigonometry is based on logical deductions from the axioms of Pythagoras’s theorem. Is trigonometry “faith-based”, according to you?

You don’t refute Mises theory by merely expressing disapproval or incredulity, and citing misrepresentations from hostile secondary sources.

But your ridicule of the very idea of irrefutability could only make sense if all propositions were capable of being true. It’s you with a faith-based methodology, not me.

Besides, how can you assert Austrian methodology is more faith-based than Ludwig’s:
1. AT NO STAGE has he given ANY reason for his belief that government can achieve sustainability. He merely insists that it must be true because he wants it to be true, or because government takes action in other areas, or because government is supposed to do it because government is supposed to do it.
2. He admits they cannot know what they would need to know.
3. He admits they would need to control every single human action.
4. He admits he can’t understand the argument from economic calculation, but which he insists must be wrong.

Yet after conceding that they can’t do what they would need to do, he nevertheless merely insists that government can do it. What is that if not a faith-based methodology?

“Mises, however, distinguishes what he calls "action" from instinctual behavior.”

I don’t think that’s correct. Can you cite an original source?

The critical distinction is between voluntary action, and non-voluntary action such as the knee-jerk reflex. Austrian theory doesn’t apply to the knee-jerk reflex. It applies to all purposive human action.

An axiom provides a good root of logic from which logical deductions can be derived. If you agree with the proposition “man acts”, then there is no issue.

But if you deny it:
“No he doesn’t!”
then in denying it you had to perform a self-contradiction and hence the proposition is axiomatic.

You are proving, not refuting Austrian theory.

Ludwig

“Oh, so because sustainability is not mentioned in the constitution, our government is not supposed to try and achieve it? Surely you are not suggesting this, Jardine.”

If I say government is supposed to provide free overseas surfing holidays, or free ice-cream, does that mean it’s supposed to?

If you’re not using the Constitution, your only escape is to fall back to arguing “It’s supposed to because it’s supposed to”.

You owe me more beer mate.

“your Herr Mises was as mad as a hatter!”

Why? You haven’t given any reason. What of that quote don’t you agree with?

“you’re all the same dude!!”

Peter Hume is my cousin’s sister’s husband’s brother’s friend.

Who’s Izzy?

“Maybe that it is an indication that I’m not the only one who didn’t understand it…”

You cannot insist that something is wrong if you admit that you don’t understand it.

I agree with you about GDP being a highly flawed indicator. But ordinary people don’t use it, do they? You don’t use GDP in making any personal or economic decisions, do you? And businesses don’t either: they use profit and loss – whether people are buying their stuff or not.

It’s government who uses it, because, being outside the market, they can’t get the information they need from consensual transactions, and are driven into this kind of misuse of statistics and aggregate measures.

“Where do you get this assertion that many environmentalists have hostility towards producing things at a profit?”

Umm… you? What you’re arguing is that population and sustainability policy are needed because businesses are rapacious of natural resources, and ever-ready to unwisely and unfairly deplete them, because they are motivated only by profit; and that profit should not be the basis on which resource-use decisions are made; and that’s why government should make them …. aren’t you?

If environmentalists were not hostile towards producing things at a profit, there’d be no need for environmental policy, would there?

“And how does this relate to your explanation of economic calculation?”

You have correctly understood the economic calculation problem as concerns private transactions.

Money can only be used to calculate values of things exchanged against money. It can’t be used to calculate values or things that are not exchanged for money. That’s why we can’t put a money value on our appreciation of the moon.

As for the public problems, imagine a state of *full socialism*. The state owns all the means of production. There is no market for capital goods, because the purpose of socialism is to abolish it.

Now prices are a market phenomenon. So this means there will be no prices for capital goods.

Take a concrete example. I’m replacing fences. A star picket costs $5; a fence-post made from recycled plastic costs $20; a strainer-post costs $35 if steel; $20 if timber; or I can cut one down for free, but it costs labour which has a money value. And so on. So out of all the different possible ways to use natural resources, I can *calculate* the most economical way to build a fence in terms of money prices, down to the exact dollar if I want.

Under *full* socialism, calculation in money prices like that would not be possible, because there wouldn’t be a market or prices for the capital goods – the fencing materials. Instead of a market, expressed in money prices, there would only *bureaucratic allocations* of *physical quantities* of *myriad different products* made by the state.

This means that the central planner, or panel of experts, in deciding what materials to use, will not be able to calculate the more economical way of building a fence or railway or whatever. They will be confronted only with myriad different possible ways of combining the *physical quantities* of myriad different materials. But whether to use a steel or wooden strainer post, whether to use labour to install them or machinery – they will have no way of *calculating* which way is more economical or wasteful in units of a lowest common denominator of value.

That’s the economic calculation problem in a nutshell.

It means that, under full socialism, the government *must* grossly waste economic and natural resources, because there’s no alternative possibility. And that’s exactly what happened in the countries that tried full socialism.

Now in reality, we don’t have full socialism. We have partial socialism – some things are provided by the market on the basis of profit and loss, and some things are provided by the state on the basis of political or bureaucratic decision-making. But the economic calculation problem remains to the extent of government ownership, because *the purpose of government ownership of things in general, and natural resources in particular, is to displace decision-making on the basis of private ownership and the operations of profit and loss*! Whether it’s education, roads, hospitals or sustainability.

This means that government’s only ability to calculate economically in a partial-socialism situation, like the western democracies, is because of the remaining spheres of private property and markets that have not been wiped out by the advance of governmental decision-making. And it’s why your concerns about sustainability, overwhelmingly concern resources in *public control*: water, the environment, infrastructure.

Thus in deciding natural resource use, government will have all the same limitations and human weaknesses as everyone else – ignorance, greed, corruption etc. -
PLUS it will have the additional enormous problem that it has no rational means of economic calculation, and will either
a) waste far more resources to achieve a given end, or
b) waste the current generations’ welfare impermissibly EVEN IN ITS OWN TERMS.

“We know what the most unsustainable aspects are and hence what needs to be addressed most urgently.”

No you don’t know, and you’ve already admitted it:

1.
<< How do you know how much of a depletable resource should be consumed now, versus conserved for the future? >>

“We DON’T know!”

2.
<< How would govt know whether it's robbing present or future humans in any given action? >>

It wouldn’t!

You cannot claim to know what is most unsustainable if you admit that you don’t know what is to be conserved, or how much.

VB thanks.

Peter, you need to improve your comprehension skills.

In an effort to assist Ludwig with further commentary on Mises I quoted two sections and referenced a footnote link from rational.wiki.org...

Hence the quotation marks and my observational "'bemused' take on von Mises" descriptor at the start.

Take up your criticism with them.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Category:Debates

I didn't repeat their quote from Brad deLong [footnote 7 from "When Reactionary Goldbug Austrian Plumber-Economists Attack!!"]

"My view is that Money and Credit is very readable--compulsively readable, in fact: I have just spent two and a half hours telling myself "it's OK; I will just read one more page...". But it is only readable in a rhetorical-excess-train-wreck mode, for it is also totally bats--- insane."

Because I thought its tone intemperate.

Which is also why I left it to Ludwig to read Mises' letter to Rand less publicly than here because he says, "It is a devastating exposure of the “moral cannibals,” the “gigolos of science” and of the “academic prattle” of the makers of the “anti-industrial revolution.” You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you."

Wm Trevor

You need to improve your comprehension skills.

“In an effort to assist Ludwig with further commentary on Mises I quoted two sections and referenced a footnote link from rational.wiki.org...”

Ludwig was having trouble understanding the argument from economic calculation. Nothing you cited provides any assistance in understanding it.

“Take up your criticism with them.”

You’re the one quoting it as an alleged assistance. I’ve shown why it’s wrong. Take it up with them yourself since you obviously mistakenly regarded them as an authority.

Or you can admit you’re wrong in quoting it as of any relevance; or provide a rational justification of your technique of reference to second-hand sources, misrepresentation, ad hominem, and circularity.

Or shall I use your technique and see whether it persuades you? Your beliefs are not “sane”. There. How about that? Does that persuade you of anything in issue about sustainability policy? Because that’s the intellectual level you’re operating at.

If sniveling ad hom and reference to irrelevance and absent non-authority were proof of anything but your own bad manners, you’d certainly be on to a winner.

However if you think you’re providing any refutation of Austrian methodology, or any sensible comment on the economic calculation argument, you’ll have to improve your logical faculties as well as your comprehension level.

Wm Trevor

>>Brad deLong said
>>"My view is ... insane."

So what?

> Mises ... says, "It is a devastating exposure ... better than you."

So what?

If you have any honest or intelligent or relevant comment to make, what is it?

Pericles, just as I expected; my request for a few examples, of things that were eminently examplable, did actually result in you producing a few examples. Wonderful!

But it did take two attempts. You surprised me the first time by not answering such a simple request.

Of COURSE there are examples of businesses SAYING that they are environmentally- and sustainability-minded. And get this – there are also actual examples of them DOING this!

But when you look at the big picture, the momentum is very much the opposite.

I make the simple point again that rapid population growth is OBVIOUSLY stressing infrastructure, services, resource-supply capability, environmental integrity and as a result; our future wellbeing. And yet businesses, almost universally do NOT lobby the government for a capping of the population or a slowing of growth, and do in fact support high population growth all the way!

None of your examples go anywhere near mentioning continuous population growth, nor any of its abovementioned consequences. So, what are they actually saying then??

One could argue that they are either trying to be seen to be green or to be conscious of securing future resources for themselves, while actually not being truly environmentally responsible, either deliberately or because they just don’t get it!

<< If you can find any holes in that, to support your theory that they are all rapists and pillagers of our fair land, please identify them. >>

There you go again with one of your frequent extremist statements. Show me where I have ever called ‘them’ rapists and pillagers.

Thanks WmTrevor for your assistance in grappling with von Mises. It is good to see that I am not alone in finding him to be wildly off-track.

Ludwig

You haven't shown
a) that you understand it (while admitting you don't), and
b) any reason against it
so your only basis for saying it's "wildly off-track", is that it doesn't agree with your prior opinion, which you refuse to change even when *you agree* with its categorical disproofs.

"I make the simple point again that rapid population growth is OBVIOUSLY stressing infrastructure, services, resource-supply capability, environmental integrity and as a result; our future wellbeing. And yet businesses, almost universally do NOT lobby the government for a capping of the population or a slowing of growth, and do in fact support high population growth all the way!"

You're only proving my point. Population growth is not obviously stressing the services provided by the private sector is it? That's why they're not objecting. Why should they?

It's only stressing goods or services controlled by government, NOT because there's too much population, but because these are goods or serviced controlled by government and government does not have the competence to manage them so as to balance the needs of people and the environment versus now versus in the future.

In other words, they don't have the competence to manage sustainability. It's staring you in the face! The fact that you are wrong, is the point of departure for your whole confused train of thought; which ends where it began.

For example, the private providers of water don't see increased demand for water as a problem - they just act accordingly, and supply and charge accordingly. But government starts out from *not* charging accordingly - because they can't economically calculate - then mismatch supply to demand, and then you have the gall and stupidity to blame the existence of human beings, and call for total government control of everything!

And then you wonder why I point out the fact that your belief system is irrational, anti-human and totalitarian!

In your invincible ignorance you are arguing that *much greater* wastage of natural resources is better for the environment!

JKJ,

You seem to be referring to "sustainability" in the realms of services or goods provided - a business/supply model.

What has that got to do with environmental sustainability in its purest sense?

As in this sort of caper:

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80152

Or this...

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-04/07/content_28468610.htm

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/fish-03282013183834.html

Thank you for the thank you, Ludwig... and for understanding it is possible to link to references without personal judgement being implied or applied.

Which is why I can include this to further assist:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4406&page=0

Remember?

"So, OF COURSE there is economic science!
Crikey, that’s not rocket science! It’s a pretty easy concept to grasp!"

You already agree with at least one poster here... apparently.

Even if my reaction is, So what?

I wrote:

<< Oh, so because sustainability is not mentioned in the constitution, our government is not supposed to try and achieve it? Surely you are not suggesting this, Jardine. >>

Jardine, you replied:

<< If I say government is supposed to provide free overseas surfing holidays, or free ice-cream, does that mean it’s supposed to? If you’re not using the Constitution, your only escape is to fall back to arguing “It’s supposed to because it’s supposed to”. >>

That’s pretty whacky stuff! Going by your own ‘irrefutable’ logic, YOU cannot use the Constitution to support your argument when there is nothing in it to support your argument!!

There is nothing in the Constitution that says that government shouldn’t be pursuing sustainability! And if you logically think about it for just one single second, you will realise that if they are not pursuing sustainability, they must automatically be taking us down an unsustainable path. There’s no other alternative. And if you think about it for just one more single second, you will come to the realisation that this would be extremely irresponsible and downright contra to the very purpose of government!!

<< You have correctly understood the economic calculation problem as concerns private transactions. >>

Why, thankyou!!

I can therefore confirm that I have understood this for a very long time and that it was your inimitable jargonistic style of explaining it that left me confused.

Maybe this ‘economic calculation’, where so many important things fall outside of the realm of conventional economics, helps to demonstrate why government is so important and why we can’t just leave things up to market forces, yes?

continued

You’ve both just shown that you don’t understand the economic calculation argument as it applies to government.

If you can show that you can understand it, I’ll respond. If not, it just means you’re going yarbleyarble yarpyarp in circles.

>>“Maybe this ‘economic calculation’, where so many important things fall outside of the realm of conventional economics, helps to demonstrate why government is so important and why we can’t just leave things up to market forces, yes?”

A couple of years ago, the NSW bus service did the equivalent of 50 trips to the moon and back EMPTY. The UK government has just spent a million dollars per green job. Examples could be multiplied.

If you can't understand the significance of these facts, or think it's just some kind of strange coincidence, it means you need to *think* before you *yarble*.

Poirot you’ll have to do better than just posting links. If you can’t understand the issues, and can’t make your own argument, I’m not going on an errand to construct your argument for you.

As for your argument about the Constitution, Ludwig, you obviously don’t know the first thing about constitutional law. Its purpose is to limit government; that’s why it sets out a list of things that government is authorised to do.

If this were not so, and if your back-to-front homespun theory was correct, then there’d be no need for a constitution, would there? The Constitution could be one sentence “The government has unlimited power to do anything it wants.”

Thank you for confirming that you are a totalitarian and don’t understand what you’re talking about – again!

Hold ya hosses there Jardine. I'm having problems with the uploader! At last it has decided to let me submit the next post!...

<< As for the public problems, imagine a state of *full socialism* >>

What’s ‘full socialism’ got to do with our discussion?

What I would like to see is somewhat better government regulation, which would mean us becoming a little more socialistic, if you want to see it that way. But that’s it. Not anywhere near full socialism.

As to what you want to see in terms of government, I still don’t understand. It seems to be something much closer to anarchy. But how close? How much rule of law would we still have under your / von Mises’ vision? And how could we have ANY rule of law and meaningful regulation thereof without having some considerable form of government?

<< Thus in deciding natural resource use, government will have all the same limitations and human weaknesses as everyone else – ignorance, greed, corruption etc. - PLUS it will have the additional enormous problem that it has no rational means of economic calculation… >>

And a society without a central organisational authority WOULDN’T have all the problems of ignorance, greed and corruption, wouldn’t it??

These bad human traits wouldn’t be MUCH more manifest if we weren’t under some form of control via government, wouldn’t they?

And values that fall outside of conventional economic would be much better-considered, would they?

I put it to you that these things would be MUCH worse in the absence of government! In fact, cripplingly so!

Of course inherent human weaknesses exist within government. But obviously a society like ours with an imperfect government would be a thousand times better than one with no government.

How could the present-day management of our resources and any future planning about the security thereof possibly be any better if it was just left up to market forces, the whims of the most powerful and self-centred, or an anarchic rabble of the highly ignorant, greedy and corrupt?

continued

I wrote:

>> We know what the most unsustainable aspects are and hence what needs to be addressed most urgently. <<

You replied:

<< No you don’t know, and you’ve already admitted it… >>

‘Scuse me, I haven’t admitted any such thing. The most important aspect is to stop the demand for everything from rapidly increasing, until such a time that we can be pretty damn sure that all the necessary factors to support such an increase, ongoingly, are in place.

continued

Hey, this has all become way too silly.

All this fibble-fabble about proof, circular reasoning, the ‘need’ to know every little detail before we can develop policies and the ‘importance’ of not being able to include everything of significance in our economic calculations just leaves me completely cold.

As I’ve said before, this is the wrong debate.

What we should be discussing is how to achieve a sustainable future, NOT whether it is even possible for government to do it or not.

If you think that government can’t do it, then put up ideas of how it can be achieved outside of government, or how we can head in that direction even if you think that we can’t ever actually achieve true sustainability in the strictest sense.

There you go again, Ludwig, claiming it is "OBVIOUS", yet declining to provide any evidence, let alone proof.

>>I make the simple point again that rapid population growth is OBVIOUSLY stressing infrastructure, services, resource-supply capability, environmental integrity and as a result; our future wellbeing<<

So far, only one of us has actually taken the trouble to support their position with anything other than hot air. And sadly, that isn't you.

>>None of your examples go anywhere near mentioning continuous population growth, nor any of its abovementioned consequences. So, what are they actually saying then??<<

[sigh] What they are saying, Ludwig, is refuting your contention that:

>>In fact, it is the continuously increasing demand on our water resources, which comes as a direct result of big business pressure, ie: market forces, and the weakness of government, that is the biggest problem of all in the management water.<<

I challenged this by pointing out that major companies have a direct, open and visible interest in conserving their business inputs - including water. You, meanwhile, have consistently failed to support your opinion with anything more concrete than... more opinion.

>>One could argue that they are either trying to be seen to be green or to be conscious of securing future resources for themselves, while actually not being truly environmentally responsible, either deliberately or because they just don’t get it!<<

Yes, of course they could conceivably be doing exactly that. The only problem is that you have no evidence that they do, and I have shown several examples that indicate the opposite. As you are only too well aware, which is why you spend so much time ducking and weaving.

>>There you go again with one of your frequent extremist statements. Show me where I have ever called ‘them’ rapists and pillagers.<<

I'm happy to modify that accusation. What would you prefer to call them?

All this fibble-fabble about logic LOL!

Ludwig just can't see why he should bother himself with whether his statements are true or not!

Unbelievable. You've just got to wonder, what motivates people to adopt this posture of invincible ignorance? In EVERY SINGLE POST in this entire thread, Ludwig has just assumed what is in issue, and knows it, and just keeps doing it.

Ludwig why don't you conserve the earth's precious resources by stopping using the internet for a start, and stopping consuming any product made from what you call "alien" species - you know, like meat, bread, fruit, vegetables? Or I suppose you live on Poa tussock and gumnuts do you?

Wow Jardine, you are becoming very petulant!

<< You’ve… just shown that you don’t understand the economic calculation argument as it applies to government. >>

Dear o dear, one minute you say that I do understand it and the next you say the opposite!

It is seems that if I disagree with you then it automatically means that I don’t understand! ( :>/

I wrote:

>> Maybe this ‘economic calculation’, where so many important things fall outside of the realm of conventional economics, helps to demonstrate why government is so important and why we can’t just leave things up to market forces, yes? >>

You replied:

<< A couple of years ago, the NSW bus service did the equivalent of 50 trips to the moon and back EMPTY. The UK government has just spent a million dollars per green job. Examples could be multiplied. >>

What do you think our bus service would look like if there was no government?

It would either not exist at all or would exist only for the workers of a particular company, or at best it would exist for all the workers of a particular sector. But it simply wouldn’t exist for the larger community – for all those not associated with the company or sector that was running it.

Examples could be multiplied greatly. All manner of things wouldn’t get funded, because they wouldn’t be directly related to the profit motive or wellbeing of the companies that run the show. Old-age pension, the arts, a large part of education and health, environmental concerns, etc, etc. The gap between the rich and the poor would blow right out. You’d either be in with the right crowd or out on the street! Nothing in between! A fair prediction?

Crikey, life for most people in your near-anarchic libertarian world would be downright horrible!

<< As for your argument about the Constitution, Ludwig, you obviously don’t know the first thing about constitutional law. Its purpose is to limit government; that’s why it sets out a list of things that government is authorised to do. >>

continued

Wow, this constitutional bit is really weird! It has got to be one of the craziest notions I have ever heard that government can’t constitutionally address sustainability! Again, there is NOTHING in the Constitution to suggest this. So I have got just put all your comments on this particular point down as pure ‘yarble’!

<< If this were not so, and if your back-to-front homespun theory was correct… >>

Who’s seeing things back-to-front??

What is so hard for you to grasp here? We inherently need to either consciously head towards a sustainable future or else we will peak and crash. Then in the difficult recovery phase, while licking our wounds, we will be asking ourselves why we and our government didn’t pay much more attention to this sustainability thing… and from then on maybe we will give it the respect it deserves.

If we look at the Constitution, we will see that everything mentioned there aligns with this notion. Nothing goes against it. Even though sustainability or any of its key components weren’t even in the minds of our nation’s forefathers, it was inherent in those seeking to build and maintain a prosperous nation that the supply capability of all essential resources not blow wildly out of balance with the demand and that the environment not become highly degraded, yes?

The notion that the Constitution says that government is not allowed to address sustainability has got to be one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard!

It is such back-to-front thinking to put the Constitution ahead of the bleedingly obvious right thing for our government to do!

And given that there is nothing in the Constitution to say, suggest or in the slightest bit imply, that our government can’t address sustainability, your comments on this whole aspect constitute some very woolly thinking indeed.

continued

<< Thank you for confirming that you are a totalitarian… >>

You and Pericles make a good pair with your extremist end-of-the-spectrum statements. You know full well that I’m nowhere near being a totalitarian, so why do you say such a thing?

Just getting angry and frustrated?

Can’t you see that this sort of statement seriously degrades the quality of your argument.

More empty bluster, Ludwig?

>>You and Pericles make a good pair with your extremist end-of-the-spectrum statements. You know full well that I’m nowhere near being a totalitarian, so why do you say such a thing?<<

It might have something to do with the fact that you believe the government should take charge of our entire existence, by regulating where we live, how many children we should have, where we should grow trees, every aspect of how businesses should behave etc. etc.

Your notions of individual responsibility could be written in longhand on the back of a postage stamp. Do tell, is there any aspect of our lives where you believe that we should be allowed to exercise free will?

Aaaah haaaahahahaaa! Pericles, that’s a classic!

Can’t you see the glaring contradiction?

You assert that I hold some absurd end-of-the-spectrum position which you know I don’t… which you are wont to do ever more frequently…

<< ...the fact that you believe the government should take charge of our entire existence >>

And then….

You ask…what is my position?…

<< …is there any aspect of our lives where you believe that we should be allowed to exercise free will? >>

Don’t you think that just maybe possibly it could possibly maybe be a reasonable idea to ask the questions first and establish my position based on the answers I give?

And then maybe possibly you might be in a position to assert what my position actually is!!

As I said to Jardine: getting angry and frustrated, are we??

Engaging the fingers on the keyboard before you engage the brain?

I thought you and Jardine / Izzy Is Mise / Peter Hume were mortal enemies, as per your exchanges on this thread: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4406&page=0 (Thanks to WmTrevor for reminding me about it).

Well, be careful, you’re cutting a bit close to supporting him with your last post! Surely you wouldn’t want to be seen dead doing that!

Heeeheheheee! Very entertaining!

Very... schoolyard, Ludwig.

>>Heeeheheheee! Very entertaining!<<

Unfortunately, that seems to reflect the level of maturity that you are bringing to the table these days.

And how about you answer the question:

>>Do tell, is there any aspect of our lives where you believe that we should be allowed to exercise free will?<<

Do you believe that the government should have the ability to tell us where we can and cannot live, for example. Or instruct us on the number of children we should produce?

This will put to rest all the doubts surrounding your stance, and enable us to "establish [your] position based on the answers [you] give"

Pericles, in response to your post of 17 May 2013 10:29:54 PM:

I make the simple point…AGAIN… that rapid population growth is OBVIOUSLY stressing infrastructure, services, resource-supply capability, environmental integrity and as a result; our future wellbeing, and neither the business community nor any sector of it nor any individual companies are lobbying the government to reduce this aspect of growth.

The business community is so obviously NOT tuned into the sustainability of our whole society!

They’re not tuned into the sustainability of water supplies. And for goodness sake, there even appears to be stark little genuine effort to address the sustainability of the key resources that particular industries rely on, eg forests and fisheries.

I don’t know how you can still be arguing against this. It’s just crackers!

You wrote:

<< If you can find any holes in that, to support your theory that they are all rapists and pillagers of our fair land, please identify them. >>

I replied:

>> There you go again with one of your frequent extremist statements. Show me where I have ever called ‘them’ rapists and pillagers. <<

You responded:

<< I'm happy to modify that accusation. What would you prefer to call them? >>

Thankyou for conceding that I have never called the business community, nor anyone, rapists and pillagers, nor alluded to anything of the sort. Thankyou for admitting that you pulled that out of thin air, as you have been doing a little too often lately.

continued

Now for goodness sake, the next time you feel the urge to deliberately misrepresent my position, stop, think… and don’t do it… because it WILL come back to bite you!

If you don’t fully understand my position, ask questions, and ye shall then know.

You and Jardine are good debaters with an excellent command of the English language. But this misrepresentation business, or defamation, of the views of your opponents is of extremely poor form. Any fool can do that sort of thing. It is at stark odds with your skills and intellect!

To answer your question; I’d prefer to call businesses utilisers or harvesters or perhaps exploiters of resources.

<< Do tell, is there any aspect of our lives where you believe that we should be allowed to exercise free will? >>

Er….ummm…….let me think about it for a couple of hours……

Oh….yes… the answer is…..

Yes, dear Pericles, the answer is………

YES !! !! !!

How about that eh?!?

.

.

What a stupid question! / :>\

continued

<< Do you believe that the government should have the ability to tell us where we can and cannot live, for example. Or instruct us on the number of children we should produce? >>

YES, The govt should be able to tell us where we can and cannot live. It should have the right to tell us that we can’t live in a national park, or in the middle of a busy city street or in someone else’s house if they don’t want us there, etc. And of course the govt approves or denies new residential developments, thus affecting where we can and can’t live. But apart from obvious restrictions like this, we should have as much freedom as possible to live where we want. However, if there are significant negative consequences to people living in a particular place, the govt should implement disincentives to slow down the rate of people moving in, or even laws to stop it entirely if the circumstances warrant it.

The govt should NOT tell us how many sprogs we can have. If our average family size was well above replacement level, then yes they could possibly implement laws to restrict us to three, or two. But we are nowhere near this situation in Australia.

So Pericles, now that you have the answers to your questions, can you do the right thing and retract this statement, with apologies, please:

<< It might have something to do with the fact that you believe the government should take charge of our entire existence, by regulating where we live, how many children we should have, where we should grow trees, every aspect of how businesses should behave etc. etc. >>

Thankyou.

You and Jardine are good debaters with an excellent command of the English language. But this misrepresentation business, or defamation, of the views of your opponents is of extremely poor form. Any fool can do that sort of thing. It is at stark odds with your skills and intellect!

Oh yeah, I said that didn’t I.

Well it was worth saying twice!

That is an odd request, Ludwig.

>>So Pericles, now that you have the answers to your questions, can you do the right thing and retract this statement, with apologies, please<<

Let's have a look.

>>YES, The govt should be able to tell us where we can and cannot live<<

That seems rather categoric.

>>If our average family size was well above replacement level, then yes they could possibly implement laws to restrict us to three, or two<<

And that is also a yes, they should have the right to do it.

So, on what grounds are you asking for a retraction?

But wait, there are two more to go.

Do you believe that the government should have the right to tell us where we should grow trees, and to govern every single aspect of running a business? We are fully aware that they do this, of course, but I'm only asking whether you support the concept. Just to round it out, you understand.

As for this...

>>Thankyou for conceding that I have never called the business community, nor anyone, rapists and pillagers, nor alluded to anything of the sort. Thankyou for admitting that you pulled that out of thin air, as you have been doing a little too often lately.<<

What a sensitive flower you must be, if you found that imagery a little strong. You can find it rampant on many anti-establishment, conspiracy and Greenie web sites, which is why I thought it reasonably appropriate here.

Oh, by the way, I don't mean that you are literally a flower, of course. That would be silly.

Well, how about that. You didn’t apologise!

Waaaaa!! I’m gonna tell my Mummy!!

As if you ever would have!

<< What a sensitive flower you must be, if you found that imagery a little strong. You can find it rampant on many anti-establishment, conspiracy and Greenie web sites, which is why I thought it reasonably appropriate here. >>

Haaaaa hahahaha!

It appears on some conspiracy or greenie websites, hahaha, so you thought it appropriate here!! Haaahahahaa, what a classic! What an amazing piece of logic! Hahahaheeee, the same sort of logic you use with some of your arguments eh? You read some utter bunkum on some wonky website, so you think it is alright to assert complete bunkum here!

Aaaaaaaaaah haaaaaaaaaaaa hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeiiiii!

Ahh, you have made my day Pericleeheheheees!

That's a little sad, Ludwig.

>>Aaaaaaaaaah haaaaaaaaaaaa hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeiiiii!<<

It appears that I have somehow goaded you into making a complete idiot of yourself.

This would seem to be an appropriate juncture for me to leave the "discussion". See you next time.

<< That's a little sad, Ludwig. >>

Not at all, my dear Pericles. It is great that you can be so entertaining.

See you next time, which is bound to be in the very near future! ( :>)