Tuesday, October 23, 2018

The World According to The Dematerialist

We have established to our own satisfaction that the world is at or near the limits to economic growth. (To convince denialists, it might be convenient to show that some of the essentiial components of economic growth entail the extraction of increasing quantities of  natural resources and the degradation of increasing quantities of energy corrected by entropy, that is, thermodynamic availability.)  American-style capitalism entails (i) the development of technological advances that displace workers for whom new jobs must be found, (ii) economic inequality that will be tolerated only under a rising standard of living for the work force, (iii) fractional reserve banking, and (iv) a stock market.  All of these require perpetual economic growth.  Thus, American-style capitalism cannot be sustained.  Inasmuch as it is unlikely that it will be replaced in an orderly fashion, we must wait for its collapse remembering that "evil's death is sure - but slow".  In the meantime, we must attempt to increase awareness of the possibilities for new systems.  We must begin now to solve the problems associated with every possible social system.  I hope to present my vision of the Earth as a Garden with a Natural Political Economy as discussed in these pages, at https://www.dematerialism.net/, in the papers linked to that site, and in my large book On the Preservation of Species, which I had better get busy redacting.

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