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Norman Albers

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Certainly as of the late 1990's I read several of Europe's populations shrinking, at least potentially, with a birth rate plummeting quite below two+. I can see temporary economic problems when there are not many young workers to support the relatively large aging group. Beyond this, I am concerned about the economic mania, in general, for GROWTH. This seems to be the measure of progress in the United States, and seems ignorant to me. There is related discussion over the need for low-rung labor; neither the US nor Europe has dealt well with this. We need a more sane ideology to move into a livable future on this planet.

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I do not need to grow much larger. I seek to grow in quality by continually cutting energy needs and being smarter. It is not an acceptable mindset to measure our success by how much larger our own society gets. Europe is so much smaller than the US, you people must have a different, more mature perspective on this. What are appropriate economic measures of happiness? They must be completely sustainable. I think in terms of zero population growth as well as zero-point fields. What then is appropriate growth?

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Appropriate growth is growth which matches the ability of individuals to obtain the resources they need to live

 

Under your typical natural selection model the population grows ahead of the available resources, then competition determines who dies. That's not exactly a moralistic model.

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Still not seeing the problem here.

 

Are you concerned about world population growth overwhelming natural resources?

 

the opposite, I think. He's worried about an underpopulated europe not being able to support it's older generation, and how the economy will be affected by a smaller work force.

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No, I think he's trying to say that the population is shrinking but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In other words, the traditional measure of prosperity as growth in all things (like GDP) is inherently flawed, since a bigger economy is not necessarily a better one in terms of things like individual happiness and long-term sustainability.

 

Norman, is that about right?

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Thank you Sysiphus, that's about my line of thought. Sorry if I complicated things, but there are these relevant lines of thought like about immigration. My main thrust is that more is not better. In Europe is there any land left to build new houses? Here there is depending on your choice of land management and we hotly discuss this in Southern Oregon. Some people find happiness in building new subdivisions, and Grants Pass has seen such a wave of building. Most of this is at least contained in the urban boundaries, but if we had no control some would trash rural land. Economic growth is such a mantra in the news, like we're only supposed to be happy if it's all growing larger and larger. I don't buy this and see the need for a new paradigm. Remember some Americans are still letting go of the myth of the open frontier. There is no where to hide to garbage or pollution. We get China's mercury in our streams for God's sake, and we won't even talk about the radioactive river in western USSR. What does it mean to have a growing economy?

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As a generalisation, the benefit of a growing economy is that it increases the material well-being of the population, such as in health care and education.

 

Right, it increases the total amount of material wealth. But if the population is growing at the same rate, then I'm not any wealthier, I just have more neighbors like me, fouling up my air and making me compete harder for the same space.

 

Unfortunately, the way unrestrained capitalism works, an economy does need perpetual expansion to stay prosperous, a problem that both Adam Smith and Karl Marx (that is, the two economists I've read...) saw as grave, since it can't go on forever and it does lead to overpopulation and exhaustion of resources. Neither gave a real solution. Well, communism is a "solution," but for Marx, communism was a long-term prediction, not an immediate suggestion. It's very counterintuitive, since you would think that if we're prosperous in 2006, and there's 0% growth, we'll still be prosperous in 2007 - after all, there's the same amount of stuff. But, unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way, and economies which don't grow tend to become more stratified in terms of rich-poor gap, which in turn leads to the shrinkage of the economy, since there simply aren't as many significant consumers.

 

The "expand of die" phenomenon is, I agree, surely the mark of a doomed idealogy, if history is any tutor...

 

But then, maybe there have been advances in economics in the last few hundred years. Maybe a more "sane idealogy" is possible, wherein a slower-growing (or "stagnant") economy - that is, one that is actually indefinitely sustainable yet beneficial to individual prosperity - can be maintained. Surely they give out those Nobel prizes in economics for something...

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Some interesting points. Thanks for elaborating. :)

 

As Sisyphus points out above, there have been advances in economics in recent years that appear to be mitigating the cyclical nature of economics. George Will and Robert Reich (Clinton's Secretary of Labor) discussed this briefly on a talk show on Sunday and I thought it was interesting that over the last 15 years the cycles have greatly smoothed out.

 

One thing that I think we should review our level of concern about is the "gap" between the "haves" and the "have nots". This was a useful indicator when the "have nots" couldn't feed or clothe themselves, but today that monicker applies to people who own cars and houses and Xbox 360s and DVD players and all sorts of things. The fact that the gap between the Joneses and the people who can't keep up with them is growing -- is that really something I need to be forced to deal with in the form of higher taxes and subsidies for these "have nots"? (And even if you dispute what constitutes a "have not", can we at least agree that giving these specific people more money just to even out the disparity is unnecessary? Isn't that just another form of greed?)

 

On another subject, Norman raised the issue of where to put the garbage. But I seem to recall a recent episode of Bullsh*t in which it was stated that all the US's garbage, if combined, could be placed in a relatively small parcel of land just a couple of square miles in size. Perspective is a funny thing, and something that I think people of science should be more cognizant of. That's assuming it's true, of course -- Bullsh*t is hardly a reliable source. :)

 

Another subject raised by Normal was unchecked land use. This in my view is a very valid concern and one which actually doesn't entirely relate to population growth. There is probably a connection there, sure, but I think urban sprawl is tied more to economic growth. At the very least there's more than one factor at work there. We could well take away more land from nature even if we were shrinking in size, don't you think?

 

But I agree with the concern, and I think it's a great example of the "tragedy of the commons" problem that faces local governments. Heck, as I write this I'm sitting on a piece of land that by all natural forces should be under several inches of water in the Everglades. How the Everglades has been handled (or not handled) over the years is a prime example of this tragedy in action.

 

But there's good news here that I think also has to be taken into consideration. We spend money on these things and we learn from our mistakes. The Everglades is no longer directly threatened by expansion because of laws and regulations (my land was reclaimed before I was born, btw -- the only thing my house displaced was an old parking lot). We accept our mistakes and we learn and we move forward, and there's no better example of that than where I live.

 

But it's not a fait accompli by any means. When we reclaimed this land we undertook a permanent obligation, and ongoing, generational conservation duty is necessary. For example, a recent, post-Katrina study included the Everglades as an area where dikes and dams are failing due to lack of sufficient maintenance. Clearly more attention is needed there. And Florida is considered one of the SUCCESS stories. Obviously we can and need to do better.

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I too am a liberal in some things but conservative in others but don't ask and don't tell in still others. Once a conservative country man tried to pin me down with just that question, are you a liberal or a conservative. I danced all around him, insisting that the wise man defines every issue for himself. On land and the Everglades, I read last year of some reversal and restoring of swamps somewhere there. This may have involved an agreement with agriculture. When speaking of population I coined the word megabutts, of which the US now has what, 250?

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Pangloss:

 

Just as an aside, the goal of narrowing the gap between have and have-not (or, if you prefer, have and have-more) has nothing (or little) to do with compassion. I, too, couldn't give a damn whether everyone can afford an XBox. I certainly can't, and I don't resent that. I've knowingly chosen extensive education in less-than-lucrative fields, and I know I'm never going to be rich unless I sell out and go to law school. Such is how it should be.

 

ANYWAY. As I said, it's not about compassion for those specific individuals. It's cruel, cold economics. Conditions that favor a narrowing gap, and a bigger, wealthier middle class, means more consumption and a strong economy. A thousand middle class people is an infinitely stronger economy than one multi-millionaire and thousand serfs. The same for a thousand millionaires vs. one billionaire. A narrowing gap is good for everyone except the super-rich in the short term, and everyone including the super-rich (or at least their children) in the long term.

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Pangloss:

As I said, it's not about compassion for those specific individuals. It's cruel, cold economics. Conditions that favor a narrowing gap, and a bigger, wealthier middle class, means more consumption and a strong economy. A thousand middle class people is an infinitely stronger economy than one multi-millionaire and thousand serfs. The same for a thousand millionaires vs. one billionaire. A narrowing gap is good for everyone except the super-rich in the short term, and everyone including the super-rich (or at least their children) in the long term.

 

 

Maybe I'm just confused, but that sure seems mighty interpretive. Sure a thousand people with a million bucks is better than one persion with a billion. But a thousand people with a billion is better still. A widening gap could mean either thing. Why assume it's the bad thing?

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In Grants Pass are many older houses with poor insulation and single pane windows. Disappointingly none of the owners I've ever spoken to thought it was economic and thus made sense to invest two or three thousand dollars in such improvements that would cut heating bills maybe 20%. It is nice to see some of the rundown places being completely brought back to code. There should be incentives and choices to do such intelligent things, and creating multi-unit housing in town, in reasonable growth, not just cutting up more hillside real estate.

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I agree, it would be to everyone's long-term benefit to emphasize things like energy efficiency and land conservation over pure consumer power, even if it means significantly less growth in the short term. I support government-based encouragement and regulation in these areas, since it is not something the market can take care of, itself.

 

From my limited experience, I also share your curiosity about European approaches. When I was living in the UK, it seemed like there must have been far, far stricter zoning laws for land use than the U.S. High density village and town centers, surrounded by sharp borders of basically rural areas. This stands in sharp contrast to the huge, horrible swaths of exurban sprawl we see in so many areas of America. I think we would be very wise to push towards similar policies. The British model is much higher efficiency, preserves land, and is a lot more pleasant. Exurbia, on the other hand, embodies all the very worst aspects of American shortsightedness, wastefulness, and unrestrained capitalism. Strip malls and McMansion developments are the worst possible thing for the environment, and are an economic hole that eventually we're going to have to dig ourselves out of, at terrible cost.

 

(Incidentally, if I'm wrong about what most of UK is like, then we would still be wise to push towards my misconception.)

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Good discussion. Several of our French friends weighed in on small autos, urban style and efficiency, back a few months. Science News just featured sprawl and the choices in urban/suburban design that Europeans have already faced for quite some time. Witness the term "crisis of the commons". Good one. Last year I read a study of streams in Greece and the uncovering of history from millenia back of folks enjoying life near mountain streams, cutting all the trees, etc., and getting wiped out. Experience, indeed. In the next county up from me, four people were killed in a landslide below a clearcut mountainside back in the 90's, and it did help wake up the need for stewardship. I live against "harvestable" timberlands and happily am part of a strong neighborhood organization with money and legal power to kick butt on the BLM.

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High density village and town centers, surrounded by sharp borders of basically rural areas. This stands in sharp contrast to the huge, horrible swaths of exurban sprawl we see in so many areas of America. I think we would be very wise to push towards similar policies. The British model is much higher efficiency, preserves land, and is a lot more pleasant. Exurbia, on the other hand, embodies all the very worst aspects of American shortsightedness, wastefulness, and unrestrained capitalism. Strip malls and McMansion developments are the worst possible thing for the environment, and are an economic hole that eventually we're going to have to dig ourselves out of, at terrible cost.

 

This is where we part company. I think that's pushing one specific social method due to ideological concerns that have little connection with energy use and land management. I think we can be spread out and be efficient, especially in the Internet age. Also I'm not convinced that urban packing is in itself more efficient in energy usage. And I don't think land has to be public in order to be preserved -- private ownership isn't evil, and it's going to happen (possibly even more so) if we're all packed together in cities.

 

Gotta watch those PC cliches -- sometimes they bite back.

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This is where we part company. I think that's pushing one specific social method due to ideological concerns that have little connection with energy use and land management. I think we can be spread out and be efficient, especially in the Internet age. Also I'm not convinced that urban packing is in itself more efficient in energy usage. And I don't think land has to be public in order to be preserved -- private ownership isn't evil, and it's going to happen (possibly even more so) if we're all packed together in cities.

 

Gotta watch those PC cliches -- sometimes they bite back.

Do not denigrate what is good expression for many people. Do speak of the panorama we are all developing.

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