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?