Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Interesting. They've got Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill on board. And I'm interested in Degrowth. |
Can't help thinking of the many attempts to start this kind of "alternative society" in various forms and places over the past 40 or so years. Eventually it comes down to some people who do the real work and the rest that spend their time devoted to "sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community."
Eventually those that do the work realise the freeloaders are, well, freeloading and leave - and the community collapses. Making this a world-wide movement is just there to "enslave" (because nobody else is going to do it) those who just get on with stuff.
No, I don't want to work hard to support George Monbiot's desire to be taken seriously as a writer - thanks.
And I still have a vote, or is someone planning to take that away ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
I think this could be a case of Ephemeralization. "[A] term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, [it] is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing". Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result in ever-increasing standards of living for an ever-growing population despite finite resources." |
Obviously ultimately that is impossible, but there is no evidence of us being near a limit yet - we keep on escaping those jaws even now. If you want to slow population growth help make the people breeding better off - they choose usually to have fewer children as not so many of them die and they don't have to rely on them to support themselves in old age. That means helping the 3rd world to become better of economically but of course that goes against the anti-growth idea.
So what to do, what to do ? Nobody seems to answer that one. But any other choice will involve imposing a growth limit on these people - that means force. Are you happy with that ?
On a better note anything that opposes the completely Immoral idea of
Malthusianism is OK with me.
Why is it immoral ?
It was enacted for real as a policy in India during British rule - and yes I am not proud.
Some of those in charge as part of the Raj (including the top man in India) were taught by Malthus in school and believed that the only way to deal with a particularly bad famine was to allow as many people to die as required until food levels matched the population again.
So no famine relief, no food, no water - nothing - and yes people died in their thousands. Real people.
Even though it would have been possible to transport food and water into the region for only a financial cost. Those in charge decided not to as it was only defying what they had been taught.
But hey at least Malthus was proven right in this instance.