Limited resources and economic growth

[luiz]

Lots of good posts, I'll address them all in time.

This is illegal in "international law", and it's not the point anyway, it's about how the big powers try to manage resource availability. They have been very successful as things go.

I really disagree. They way I see it, all reasonably powerful countries that felt like they needed nukes for their security got the nukes. Even poor, backwards Pakistan. Non-proliferation failed. At the end of the day, the only reason the likes of Japan and South Korea don't have their own nukes is because they feel safe under the American umbrella. If they didn't they would get nukes, and you know as well as I do that international law is useless to stop this.

That's when the stats you posted started. You were presenting them as part of general long-term trend towards improvements, when actually these stats start from a base much lower than earlier decades. I.e. the trend is short-term and there is no reason to think it will continue longer-term.

In economics, a 50 year trend is not "short-term", it is very much "long-term". The rise of the developing world (part of it anyway) is very much a long-term trend. In fact some developing countries already reached first world levels of development.

Moving from a healthy farm life to disease-ridden squalor is not coming "out of poverty". It's sheer nonsense to talk about wealth versus poverty when such things are being compared.

I think you are grossly idealizing chinese farm life. During Mao's reign of terror they were not healthy peasants, they were starving peasants dying by the millions. And it's not like life was paradise before communism: pesants were working long hours in back-breaking activities merely to feed themselves, without any wealth accumulation.

There's a reason why those "healthy farmers" are so desperate to get industrial jobs in China: they make life better. As the socialist economist Joan Robinson noted after visiting pre-industrial societies in Asia, "the only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited at all". Pre-industrial societies meant life was very very tough for most people.

Yeah, but this is wrong. More people are at risk from famine than ever in recorded history. Famine is not just a state of being, it is a catastrophe that happens when people push the edge of the bread line and expose themselves to higher risks from sudden changes of food availability (caused by things like over reliance on one crop, soil erosion, and so on).

More people, on absolute numbers, may be at the risk of famine. But:
-Less people in relative terms now face famine than at any other point in history, and that's the number that matters. We are 7 billions now, naturally all absolute numbers are big.
-Less people are actually facing famine than at several other points in history. The totalitarian soviet and chinese regimes produced millions of starving victims just last century, we see nothing like that now.

Almost certainly longer, discarding accident, warfare and complications in childbirth; certainly more than people in the modern Third World, which is what we are talking about. Most modern health problems post-date the neolithic revolution or are caused by it.

Well, our modern sedentary lifestyles brought us increased peace, less risk of accidents and techonological advancements including medicine, that made complications in childbirth much rarer. That's why excluding them from comparisson is absurd.

Nope, life expectancy increased tremendously. In the last decades the advances have been even more spectacular in the Third World. If the global life expectancy is 70 years, that's because people are living quite longer in the Third World as well, since that's where most people live.

Their "products"? You're imagining that the relative "value" of American products will remain similar as more and more countries around the world make the same things and consume more of them. That's just not how it works. Anyway, American/Western products are not even the source of their wealth; the source of their wealth is their relationships with poorer countries.

No, the source of their wealth is their physical and human capital accumulated over centuries. They will remain tremendously wealthy in the forseeable future.

 

[luiz]

So an improvement of less than 3-fold over a hundred years. Now that impressive (I imagine if one is doing 100 the efficiency goes way down also).

The increase was much better than 3 fold if you think about the quality delivered. If you want a car that only runs as fast as the T with the same autonomy, you could get a 100% electric car that consumes no oil whatsoever.

Production is being increased but at the expense of the long term viability of the soil. It can't be increased indefinitely.

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0417-dirt.html

I think our discussion became too focused on food, and that's my fault because of my initial example. But here's something to think about (and this goes for everyone who brought up future food problems): the human population is of 7 billion people. According to the UN and IFF, it will peak at about 10 billion people in the second half of this century. Well, that's a very modest increase, there's no challenge there. We don't need to increase what we produce that much, in fact we already probably produce enough to feed 10 billion people. Considering there's absolutely no sign that food productions will decrease, I really don't see food production as a barrier to continued economic development.

No, the bottom line is that efficiency doesn't matter if way more people are using way more resources. It's more eco-friendly to live in a one room shack with an incandescent bulb than a 4-bedroom house with a bunch of fluorescent bulbs.

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

I entirely agree, but that does not detract from my premise unless you think environmental problems will lead to an economic collapse.

Theoretically relying on super abundant solar panels is a pretty cool idea too. The actual efficiency of converting solar energy to usable electricity is pretty small right now though.

That is true. That wonder I have is how we can continue driving so much. The grid currently couldn't handle even a small percentage of cars being put on it.

No doubt efficiency will increase. And no doubt we will adapt our lifestyle to whatever energy source becomes predominant.

lol, I wouldn't call myself a Marxist. Theoretically perhaps economic development of some sort could continue for some time though ideally eventually life would reach an ideal where a steady state could be reached. Ideally (and inevitably) this state would be a society which valued sustainability & frowned upon consumerism & our current "collect 'em all" culture I think is already showing itself to be unsustainable even environmental issues aside.

I didn't mean you were Marxist, I meant that the purpose of this thread is not free-market proselytising, it's a thesis that can be supported or rejected by people of any political persuassion. Ol' Karl was and anti-Malthusian, after all.

Also, note that I am not trying (in this thread) to offer a moral apology of mass consumption society. I am merely saying it can technically continue indefinitely.

I figure we know non-renewables are eventually going to become cost-prohibitive, why not stay ahead of the game instead of letting energy monoliths be able to dominate us when we become vulnerable.

That's because while we know some resources are finite and will probably run out, we don't know when, and we don't what sort of replacements can come up and how much they'll cost. If it was clear that some resource is running out in X years, even if X is a large number, that would be automatically reflected on its future prices. And thus there'd be incentive to research alternatives, proportional to X and to the importance of said resource.

Time will tell. There are a lot of people & groups who fear otherwise though.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com...y-peak-oil-warns-severe-global-energy-crisis/

Personally I think it couldn't hurt to get more prepared now & have governments encourage such pragmatic planning.

We're not putting all our chips on fusion, though. For the medium term the fossil fuel economy is alive and well, and there are several lines of research for its replacement. And as I always say, the future will probably not be dominated by a single energy source in the same way the present is by oil. There'll be several sources, and we'll always be researching new stuff and making the existing stuff better.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Lots of good posts, I'll address them all in time.

I really disagree. They way I see it, all reasonably powerful countries that felt like they needed nukes for their security got the nukes. Even poor, backwards Pakistan. Non-proliferation failed. At the end of the day, the only reason the likes of Japan and South Korea don't have their own nukes is because they feel safe under the American umbrella. If they didn't they would get nukes, and you know as well as I do that international law is useless to stop this.



In economics, a 50 year trend is not "short-term", it is very much "long-term". The rise of the developing world (part of it anyway) is very much a long-term trend. In fact some developing countries already reached first world levels of development.


I think you are grossly idealizing chinese farm life. During Mao's reign of terror they were not healthy peasants, they were starving peasants dying by the millions. And it's not like life was paradise before communism: pesants were working long hours in back-breaking activities merely to feed themselves, without any wealth accumulation.

There's a reason why those "healthy farmers" are so desperate to get industrial jobs in China: they make life better. As the socialist economist Joan Robinson noted after visiting pre-industrial societies in Asia, "the only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited at all". Pre-industrial societies meant life was very very tough for most people.


More people, on absolute numbers, may be at the risk of famine. But:
-Less people in relative terms now face famine than at any other point in history, and that's the number that matters. We are 7 billions now, naturally all absolute numbers are big.
-Less people are actually facing famine than at several other points in history. The totalitarian soviet and chinese regimes produced millions of starving victims just last century, we see nothing like that now.


Well, our modern sedentary lifestyles brought us increased peace, less risk of accidents and techonological advancements including medicine, that made complications in childbirth much rarer. That's why excluding them from comparisson is absurd.

Nope, life expectancy increased tremendously. In the last decades the advances have been even more spectacular in the Third World. If the global life expectancy is 70 years, that's because people are living quite longer in the Third World as well, since that's where most people live.


No, the source of their wealth is their physical and human capital accumulated over centuries. They will remain tremendously wealthy in the forseeable future.

If this is what you want to argue and believe, then I'll leave you to it as it feels a bit like argument for the sake of it now. The kind of short-termist economics you're talking about don't answer your questions. No, not everyone in the village can be a lord. The long term trend (i.e. real long term, not short-termist "long term") is for what are now third world countries to get poorer relative to Western countries. We set up trading empires all over the world, farmed out the worst and least empowering industries, pulled out and set up a bunch of trading treaties trapping these lands into slave relationships and crushing with force any attempt to get out of such relationships. Yes some third world states needing bolstered against communism have been boosted, but elsewhere it only works if it enriches Western elites more that it enriches poorer countries. The only hope for the 3rd World is that Western elites become detached from Western populations, but this would deprive them of political and military backing, and already we are already seeing unrest against elitist detachment in the West.

Otherwise, regarding resource exhaustion, there are a variety of books out there that help illustrate why what you hope for is unlikely, Jared Diamond's Collapse is a popular example.

 

[Gatsby]

A significantly lower energy way of life overall, but it's not going to be easy to convince the pampered princesses who live in the west to give up their ipods and SUVs. (The pampered princesses would be us, by the way )

I mean, this is going to be a gradual process, yes? I suppose it'll mean that energy prices are going to continue to go up, so yeah, over time we are going to HAVE to live simpler. But people are going to get mad. They're going to complain to the politicians, who are going to start wars. After all, the middle classes of all the other countries are going to be complaining too.. including all of the developing economies, like China.

I don't think it's going to be an easy transition, no matter what. We know what we like, here in the west.. especially the U.S. We're not giving up our luxuries without a fight. I sense unrest in the near future unless we figure out how to run our cars on poop.

We'll be lucky if the world makes it through this process without a regional or global nuclear war. Even running our cars on poop and/or garbage isn't going to be anywhere near sufficient, as the blog I mentioned earlier demonstrates.

If the world - particularly the West - had gotten serious about a transition to a sustainable society 30-40 years ago, we could have had a relatively easy transition. Now we face a choice between a difficult transition or a traumatic transition. Want to guess which one is more likely at this stage? I'll give you a clue: "Drill, baby, drill!"

 

[innonimatu]

I think that what we are seeing in this thread is the power of the myth of unlimited economic growth/progress: it is the modern Paradise, that promise of an Eden to be.

Religion was the old opium of the people. This is the new one. Same as the old one.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think our discussion became too focused on food, and that's my fault because of my initial example. But here's something to think about (and this goes for everyone who brought up future food problems): the human population is of 7 billion people. According to the UN and IFF, it will peak at about 10 billion people in the second half of this century. Well, that's a very modest increase, there's no challenge there. We don't need to increase what we produce that much, in fact we already probably produce enough to feed 10 billion people. Considering there's absolutely no sign that food productions will decrease, I really don't see food production as a barrier to continued economic development.

I think it was focused on food because food is probably the main concern or potential risk when it comes to continued economic progress. With energy, at least, we have a lot of cheap bridge technologies, and we have enormous potential when it comes to solar. Peak oil is scary, but there's enough on the immediate horizon that one can be optimistic if they so choose.

But you've not dealt with any of the objections to the food issue. A failure of the 'ongoing progress' model when it comes to food production has serious consequences. Especially if it's some type of peak food situation.

You say "absolutely no sign", but this is mainly because you've seemingly ignored all of the signs that people have mentioned. In fact, I can see almost no reason to think we have sustainable food production now. And, like with energy, a serious hiccup in food would have long-term effects on the idea of 'continued economic growth', and its possibility.

 

[Winner]

Please don't be afraid to look at my fresh-water example

It's clear that even resources we consider perfectly renewable can in fact be exhausted if they are overdrawn, especially due to their uneven distribution. I hope I don't have to stress how important water is for pretty much every sector of the economy, from agriculture to hi-tech industry, and how its unavailability or high price could damage the economy.

 

[onedreamer]

I think it's a good idea to discuss this topic since it is frequently argued in this forum, by people of the most diverse political inclinations, that the objective fact that physical resources are limited means there is a real constraint on how much the global economy can grow. People who believe in this usually conclude that for one group nations to be rich another must be poor; as the pie is limited we must fight for its slices. I'd like to hear a more qualified explanation of why it is so in their opinion.

It isn't just about resources and nations, in order to be rich and stay rich someone else must be poor or impoverished. Do you really need a "more qualified" (I hope you meant detailed) explanation to something this obvious? Because it's like inquiring why do you need darkness to discern the light.
It is evident that you studied modern Economy, did you not? So you were indoctrinated to believe in a lot of fascinating theories about creating wealth from nothing and without impoverishing anyone else. Modern economy has its special mathematics, financial mathematics, to scientifically explain something that otherwise would make no sense. I mean no offense, but I doubt that any explanation will ever look reasonable for someone indoctrinated to reason with ad-hoc, peculiar rules. Just accept that you have a different opinion and stance on these topics. You are right because you follow your own ruleset and there's no way it can conciliate with other ones because the very foundations are different if not opposed.

 

[Narz]

I think our discussion became too focused on food, and that's my fault because of my initial example. But here's something to think about (and this goes for everyone who brought up future food problems): the human population is of 7 billion people. According to the UN and IFF, it will peak at about 10 billion people in the second half of this century. Well, that's a very modest increase, there's no challenge there. We don't need to increase what we produce that much, in fact we already probably produce enough to feed 10 billion people. Considering there's absolutely no sign that food productions will decrease, I really don't see food production as a barrier to continued economic development.

There are reasons to be concerned about food supplies. Prices are increasing and arable land in many parts of the world is decreasing. Until farming practices become more sustainable we can't really make accurate predictions over even the next twenty years let alone 'till the 2nd half of the century. Climate change is a wildcard too which cannot be very well predicted how it will affect food supplies.

http://www.grist.org/article/data-highlights-on-the-global-food-supply

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12252

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/world-food-supply-whats-to-be-done/

 

[luiz]

I have been out of home since yesterday, I'm on a small town with limited internet access. When I get back home tomorrow I'll try to address more posts.