Forum Post: The 'economy' needs to die! (or growth is not progress)
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 14, 2012, 8:12 p.m. EST by jph
(2652)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
All this agitprop noise about the 'fiscal cliff', and the need for the economy to grow at all costs, how the poor 'job-creators' need lower taxes, so they may help the poor, by giving them work,. really? The economy must ALWAYS grow?
Can we not just have a sustainable economy? One that maintains level and stable livings for people, without ripping down the last vestiges of the natural systems that sustain all life. This corporate/military culture is broken, when the thing people are calling for is more sht jobs,. and freedom for the wealthy to not be taxed to create these sht jobs.
The push for endless growth rises directly from the fact that this 'economy', the one based on the broken ideology of endless growth, is a straight up pyramid scam. The endless interest for the endless debt created by the workers in the sht jobs attempting to buy the right to 'just live' in the world, is what keeps the 1% in the 1%. They skim the interest for the debt,. yet they give nothing of value in return. They have a monopoly on lending (interest collecting) and a machine that make borrowing a requirement to survive. Even when we are debt-free and self sufficient, we are still funneling money to the 1%, whenever we pay government taxes,. since all that money goes to service the old debt and all new spending is done through new borrowing! Yes from the same old 1% corporate banksters who built and maintain this 'system' or pyramid scam.
further research; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_economy
the end state; http://www.zerogrowth.org/why.html
the way to get to the end state; http://degrowthpedia.org
Good comment. Sounds like you've seen the "Money as Debt" videos.
Yes I have, great short intro-videos to wake people up the the reality of the pyramid scam that is our monetary system around the world currently. There is MUCH information on the money system around the net, I encourage each of us to do independent research and bring more to the discussions around future money systems as we will have to replace this scam of a system soon!
Some people on the right fear some looming 'global government', and yet we have a global banking system that rules the world today, they fear something in the future that already exists. This is another level of control, to tell people to fear something in the future, while using this same thing in a slightly different form right in front of their faces..,
Regarding "future money systems" to replace the current scam, might I point you to my Money No More blog where I discuss my views on that subject in greater detail.
“. . . Concentration of wealth is harmful to Human culture and a threat to our survival. It's perhaps the greatest threat that civilization has always faced.” With that unambiguous introduction, Dr. Economicus begins to reveal the destructive nature of abstract economy. “Consider this analogy: In a hypothetical casino card game the house takes 5% of every pot. If 10% of the money at the table is on average played on each hand, then the house takes 0.5% of the money in the game on each rake. After 200 hands, 100% of the money that is on average at the table has been taken by the house. The only way the game may continue is to have new money come to it. The winners, of course, smell the new blood and even anticipate it greedily. And the biggest winner over a time is always the house. Until the free market ideologues took over, the biggest difference between a casino bank and finance was that the gaming house took a bigger cut of the handle. . . .”
Excerpt from: How Does That Work? https://www.createspace.com/3852916
thanks for the link, your book sounds interesting;
"While the economy is made to appear confusing or incomprehensible, it is made up of simple transactions. It's better understood as a secondary school level algebraic equation. But the con artists who profit the most from the efforts of the community, obscure their looting with a pseudo calculus of derivatives and flawed integration of profits under an imaginary growth curve."
church!
Interesting. Food for thought.
junk food for thought
has a critique, or just flinging poo?
Nothing can grow forever but the economic policies of the developed world are bases on the idea of permanent growth and havnt taken it in yet that that cannot be. Is it the policy of the Liberatarian parties that farming subsidies in the developed world should cease forthwith?
The fraction of 1%, that is the root of our current problems, don't want growth, they want consolidation of wealth. So, they have brought about this collapse to consolidate their wealth by eliminating competition, and what they consider to be excess population.
We could have unlimited growth, but we would have to replace our current system, free trade/globalization, which is really just imperialism, and replace it with the original economics, the "American System" which fought the revolution against imperialism.
Unlimited growth would start out as the expansion of advanced infrastructure around the world, and would culminate in a space program that would lead to the colonization of the solar system and beyond.
Yes, I do believe we have bumped heads on this in the past arturo,. Unlimited growth on a finite planet is absurd on its face. I am talking about the physical here, material stuff, resources;
"The steady state economy is an entirely physical concept. Any non-physical components of an economy (e.g., knowledge) can grow indefinitely. But the physical components (e.g. supplies of natural resources, human populations, and stocks of human-built capital) are constrained by the laws of physics and beholden to ecological relationships."
Sure we can have endless growth of knowledge, art, culture, creativity, spiritual understanding etc., and that should be our goal! However we are limited by physical reality here in the real world. I am talking about the economy in resources; food, shelter, transportation, etc., these things are limited, and need to be thought of as such. Any so called system, such as capitalism that is based on the refutable logic that resources are unlimited is tragically flawed, and doomed to spectacular failure. Sadly we will never reach the goal of endless 'creative growth' if we do not face the real reality of material limits.
It appears that you claim that the earth is limited in material resources, and I agree with this. But the universe is vast in the quantity of resources that it has to offer. The earth is just a speck in comparison.
On the moon, for example, there is enough of the Helium isotope that is used in fusion reactions, to provide energy for all humanity on the earth, at today's consumption rates, for close to two thousand years.
Why do you believe that man should limit himself to the earth alone? To me this is like Colombus saying that we should never have ventured off to America.
I think we need to learn to live in a sustainable balance on the earth long before we make any attempts to expand further,. . are we to simply ruin all we encounter ? plagues of locust come to mind.
energy is not the only issue, and your fusion dose not exist. lets leave the science fiction for the movies, deal in the here and now reality, not pipe-dreams of techno-fixes that will likely provide worse outcomes.
We have all the energy and resources we need for all people on earth to live very happily. All the calls for nuke energy are so the wrong-minded endless growth economic models can be pushed,. . more power pushed to the 1% at the expense of the 99% and all future generations.
Fusion doesn't exist yet, but progress is always made by imagining a non-existent future, then planning and taking the steps that are necessary to make that future a reality.
America was founded on such ideas of progress, so what you are espousing is, in a sense, an anti-American philosophy, originally developed by the main enemies of America to turn its progress backwards.
Who is the main enemy of America? The same as it has always been, the global financial empire. In the past it was called the British empire, and today, while it still has its major headquarters in the City of London financial district, we can just call it "globalization".
When America was first trying to establish its independence through building the capacity to manufacture its own goods, the empire advanced anti-industrial arguments to hinder our progress, and the same is true today.
Progress doesn't ruin all we encounter, it helps it to grow. Consider NAWAPA, the project intended to bring water from Alaska to the central American desert.
Environmentalists argue that the comparatively miniscule thread of an aqueduct would destroy various habitats, while neglecting to imagine the new habitats that would spring up all over America as a result of the water that is first brought for agricultural purposes, but eventually evaporates to distribute precipitation all over the country, creating a vastly greater abundance of new habitats for living things.
A space program would gradually spread such an abundance of life throughout the solar system and eventually the whole universe.
Nice,. if my vision of progress differs from your call me anti-American? Really? That in itself is anti-American dude.
And no I will not argue with you AGAIN about you dip-sht, hair-brain idea of RUNNING RIVERS BACKWARDS to artificially move water to a city build in a desert. "minuscule thread of an aqueduct" sure with nuke-power plants to pump water up hill for miles? minuscule my ass. All your techo-fix ideas are good science fiction, but not good science.
I am for continuous progress, for endless growth of human potential and creativity for the unlimited exploration of inner-space, however in a world that knows and lives within the finite limits of its own environments, in fairness, and humanity.
If you were to trace the anti-industrial movement to its sources, you would find that they are indeed anti-American, or in fact, against the concept of the nation state as a system that represents the 99%.
Most creative ideas are thought of as "hair-brained" at first. What the heck do we need a man on the moon for? But in fact, the space program was the best investment America ever made. It returned ten dollars in economic development for every dollar put into it. So I don't think we should concern ourselves too much with such short sighted accusations.
We built the California aqueduct, which became an indispensable part of our infrastructure. Nothing hair brained about that. China is currently working on the world's biggest water project:
"...it will carry water from the Yangtze River northwards along three routes to northeastern China's water-starved cities, including Beijing and Tianjin. When finished, the project will carry about 44.8 billion cubic meters of water a year."
You want more "green" don't you? The only way to grow the green stuff is by providing it with water. Think how "green" Canada and Alaska are, and wouldn't it be nice to have some of that "greenery" where there is only desolation today?
If we don't provide more water through this kind of approach, how will we? You know that a water crisis is inevitably pending in America today don't you?
And besides, I think we will see, like the Japanese, that we can't live with out nuclear energy. They had plans to shut it all down, then found out they couldn't do it. I think it will be the same for all of us.
What you are saying has nothing to to about the 1% and has all to do about our society.
Ever been to a pawn shop or thrift store? Ever been to Wally World or any of the other big box stores?
Tell me who's buying that shit? Is it the 1% or is it the 99%?
Lets not forget the thrift stores, pawn shops, antique stores and flee markets where there is so much shit for sale it bewilders even the most poorest in Afirca.
Our society has so much shit that there is no wonder the ecomony is in a slump - we can't buy anymore shit because everyone has so much shit they have to sell it.
Look around and you will see what I am talking about - stop blaming the 1% - the 99% have more shit then they know what to do with.
Do a search on Craigslist and you will see how much shit this country has for sale - look on Ebay and you will see how much shit there is for sale.
And everyone wonders why no one has any money saved.
massively missing the point dude,. the economy and the monetary system are based on the idea of 'endless growth',. this idea is a fiction.
the 1% maintain this fiction in their media, and manufactured culture machine. they do this so as to continue to take the interest on all the debt that their fiction makes possible,. . do you see?
Anyway, 'endless growth' is a fiction. and the very basis of all capitalist theory. What we need to build is a new reality based economic model. Let us end the fiction.