songbird wrote:
Do you acknowledge that capitalism produces unacceptible
outcomes if growth is not maintained?

no. i think deflation or steady state on prices
is as preferable to some people as inflation is to
others. i think the policy of pushing the system
to have some inflation is actually destructive in
the long term, but the governments/social tinkerers
at present like to hide all sorts of inefficiencies
by using this. also it is a transfer of wealth
indirectly (not very efficiently either) from savers
to debtors (usually this means from the elderly to
the young).


Show me where there has been zero growth or contraction under capitalism for
any length of time. Now tell me what the unemployment was like then. That
is the boogy man the financial controllers and leaders are all scared of.


the crap results are crap because the system is crap
front loaded from the start. garbage in, garbage out.


There is much more to it than weak businesses going under in bad
times. But let's stick to the point.

that capitalism requires profit? well how many
times can i disagree with that as it's pretty clear
to me that the system doesn't magically stop when
companies go non-profit or have a bad year. even in
the worst parts of the Great Depression there were
still companies in business, there were still people
buying and selling things. it really wasn't a problem
of capitalism, but many failed policies and the lack
of banking regulations. then about 80 years later we
ignored the lesson and made banking regulations too
lax and once again the economy took a severe hit,
but in that mess there were a lot of opportunities
for the smart person willing to take risks.


Sounds to me that you are not a true blue free market capitalist at all.
You want it reined in. If it is a naturally correcting system then why is
this necessary?

Because the ways that capitalism does its corrections if left unattended are
not acceptable to you. You also point out that the controls that are used
are not always effective. Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit that the
system is broken?


values will
change as resources become more limited. that's
the nature of the beast. prices rise as supply
becomes limited. people either produce their
own (food, water, etc.) or conserve or find other
sources. what drives the whole system is the
many individual choices made, how they add up.
when we start bumping up against hard limits
like fresh water and food supply then people
will start valuing water conservation and not
wasting so much food. this type of gradual shift
is already happening and will continue to happen.

There are three things wrong with this:

1) The assumption that market forces will eventually result in a
satisfactory new equilibrium

no, i only claim the system keeps working. it is a
dynamic system that also has many conflicting forces
just like there are many different actors with varying
degrees of influence.

i suspect the future is going to be full of many
unsatisfied people. we're not a species geared towards
contentment. it's not a skill that is taught, valued
or explored by many. i think i've done fairly well on
that count though, perhaps others can learn from what
i'm doing...


This is a blue-sky imagination product. Either you have to show that
capitalism with zero growth will continue without ultrahigh
unemployment or that a new system that doesn't produce unemployment
with zero growth will evolve. You have done neither.

i think you ignore the fact that for the most part
actual production of real things is a very minor part
of capitalism these days. i.e. the values have already
shifted. most people could be considered unemployed or
under-employed because most of what they do is shuffle
information, provide entertainment to others, they
really aren't producing tangible things.

You are confused between the level of employment in a business sector and
the resources it demands. Despite the swing from large employment in
agriculture, then industry and now information and services all those
workers who don't actually produce material goods still want them. The
mechanisation of agriculture and industry have if anything added to the
material resource requirements of the economy.


2) The assumption that the transition will be gradual and orderly

i don't make that claim either. i've been a student of
the markets and history to know better. the only argument
i'm making is that the system continues to function without
growth. we've had many periods of deflation or stagnation
and in those cases the markets worked, people bought and
sold things and the world did not end. yes, it hurt some
people and was painful, but that doesn't show that the
system didn't function. what it did show is that people
don't normally have any long-term thinking for retirement
or very much discipline when it comes to savings and
investing.


What you define as 'continue to function' would result in such social costs
that no politician who wants to stay in office would say the situation was
satisfactory. I would be the same as I wouldn't want to be lynched by an
unemployed mob either.



3) The assumption that it will happen soon enough to allow orderly
transition away from dependence on diminishing resources.

We see as plain as day with the climate change issue people will
stick to the old ways until the bitter end. They will not prepare
in time for a new future. They will waste time, deny, continue to
exploit limited resources until the last. The concept of finite
resources that limit growth and require a whole new way of thinking
is not one that people want to believe - therefore they don't -
therefore they will not prepare for it.

no, there is no assumption of orderly because you
are talking about people here. people panic and
freak out over all sorts of things. all i assume is
that the system continues to function.


But it will function so badly that you have bent the meaning of 'function'
so far out of shape to be useless. I begin to think that in many ways you
actually agree with me but you are too emotionally wedded to the American
Dream (the one based on a high expansion, high consumption capitalist
system) that you can't give up on staying with capitalism and claiming that
it will 'work' no matter what.

David