Subject: [SANET-MG] Economic Growth (and Neoclassical Economics) vs. Sustainability

From: Brian Czech <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 19:28:24 -0800

Hi all,

I am new to the list.  I am a conservation biologist
with the federal government and founding president of
the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State
Economy (CASSE).  My government job (biodiversity
conservation) is an exercise in futility as long as
economic growth (increasing production and onsumption
of goods and services) is the primary domestic policy
goal of the American polity.  Due to the tremendous
breadth of the human niche, the scale of the human
economy expands at the competitive exclusion of
wildlife in the aggregate.

I’ve come to view economic growth as not only the
biggest problem facing biodiversity conservation but as
a major threat to national security and international
stability.  I’ve been writing on this topic since my
Ph.D. research 10 years ago.  I proposed the steady
state revolution in Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train:
Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to
Stop Them All.

I invite you to visit the CASSE website:

Www.steadystate.org

and e-sign the position on economic growth at the
Action page:

http://www.steadystate.org/PositiononEG.html

The reasons for signing the position are provided at
the CASSE website.  No contact information is requested
and no further contact results from e-signing.

I was glad to see the recent exchange on the merits of
mainstream economics for sustainability purposes.  My
thoughts on that are provided in Shoveling Fuel.

Happy holidays,

Brian Czech, President
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
Arlington, VA
WWW.STEADYSTATE.ORG

**************

  Steve:

Baloney.  The profession of Economics is a lap-dog. 
The powers that be, 
political and economic, have co-opted the economics
profession, which is 
entirely a captive of market fundamentalism.

Those brave economists who stray too far from
fundamentalism are ignored or 
worse.  I'm thinking of Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen,
Herman Daly, and maybe Kenneth 
Boulding, from earlier decades.  It is time for
economists to get serious and 
admit the limitations of the market model.

Or, maybe something has changed that I don't know about
in the ten years I've 
been away.

My two cents.

John Lozier
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
West Virginia University Extension Service
PO Box 6108, Morgantown, WV 26506-6108
Telephone 304-293-6256
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

>>> [email-masked] 12/24/04 1:14:58 PM >>>

James,
I can't say what ecologists believe, but your
generalization of
economists' beliefs is absolutely wrong.  Depletion of
resources is of
great concern to economists and there is a huge field
devoted to proper
management of those resources and another to the
measurement of their
value.  You can argue that the measurement of economic
activity based on
GDP ignores natural resource depletion, but there is an
effort to
provide green accounting in that area, also.  As an
aside, The Economist
magazine this week had a piece on Bhutan and how it has
been decreed
there to measure development with GDH (gross domestic
happiness) instead
of GDP.  Economists are well aware of the externalities
of economic
activity, and the problems arising in non-market
valuation of their
worth.

Steve Ford

-----Original Message-----
From: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group
[ mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
James Kotcon
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 11:35 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Self-suffiency and
Sustainability

         I think part of the issue is whether "new
wealth" is in fact
being created.  Most economists will ignore depletion
of renewable and
non-renewable resources and assume that "wealth" is
being created 
simply
because economic activity occurs.  Ecologists argue we
should take a
more holistic approach. Economists reply that much of
the ecosystem
services and resource depletion that ecologists worry
about is not
quantifiable, and thus fall into the tap that the only
thing that counts
is what can easily be counted.

JBK

At 07:21 PM 12/23/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>
>No closed economy can survive.  Outside funds are
essential to ! a
>healthy economy.  Unless new wealth is created as a
regu lar part of
>business, the entire planet would sink into poverty
and despair in a
>few weeks.  The same is true of a farm or a village. 
Descending to the

>level of hunter gathers is not high on my list of
goals but that is our

>fate if we don't pay attention to business.
>
>Neal Van Milligen
>< http://www.kentuckyenrichment.com>
www.kentuckyenrichment.com
><mailto:[email-masked]>[email-masked]
>
>
>
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*****
Jim Kotcon
304-293-3911 ext. 2230 (office)
304-293-2872 (fax)
304-594-3322 (home)
West Virginia University
Division of Plant and Soil Science
401 Brooks Hall, P. O. Box 6058
Morgantown, WV 26506

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Brian Czech, President
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy 
5101 South 11th St.
Arlington, VA  22204
USA

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---

From: Lion Kuntz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 02:28:24 -0800

--- Brian Czech <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am new to the list. ...
> stability. ...

When you play a game where others make the rules, they get to
make a rule that says "you always lose no matter what you do."

The game of economics is created where others make all the rules
and it includes that one about you always losing.

If you care about conservation biology you need to make up
entirely new games that only has winners, no losers at all.

The game as it has been is that nothing larger than a rabbit can
further evolve on North America: the genepools are too small,
the habitats too fragmented or degraded, the migration pathways
chopped and blocked, all the good waterholes taken or spoiled.
Any time spent on that game, even fighting it, makes you a
certified loser perpetually and eternally.

If you want biodiversity to win, then you need a new game with a
set of win-win propositions. Diversity wins, people win.

Here's how the new game is played:
RULE #1: Palaces for the People, upgraded lifestyles, upgraded
living standards, right-sized human habitats where the jobs,
stores, destinations are commuted to the people in dense
mixed-use eco-villages, eco-cities.
RULE #2: Ecological Synergy Agriculture, right-sized compact,
productive, featuring 60 to 200 lifeforms from five kingdoms of
life into short-chain Integrated Biological Systems (IBS) food
webs. 2 to 5 acres feeds 100 people a whole balanced diet.
RULE #3: Solar PV Breeders, using photon power to melt rocks to
make more PV cells.

The way the game is played is you mix and match those three
rules until you get it right, until it all works together. You
know when you've got it right by the fact that agricultural land
shrinks by 75% but people all eat better while farmers status
improves in society, by everybody on earth having a secure
comfortable home with all the utilities provided, and no more
pollution from transportation or industry.

You know you have won the game when there are no more anoxic
dead zones in the oceans, no more species being added to the red
list.

The new game is played without one single stick of lumber
necessary to build cities of more than 1,000,000 people, and
forests can grow unmolested to draw down excessive CO2 levels
back out of the red zone.

When you get tired of always losing, click the links below...

=====
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sincerely, Lion Kuntz
Santa Rosa, California, USA
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
http://www.ecosyn.us/Welcome/ (currently under construction)
http://www.ecosyn.us/Interesting/ (available now)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Palaces4People/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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