[p2p-research] The end of growth?

[Alex Rollin]

Indeed.  Well said.

A

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Michel Bauwens<michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kevin,
>
> I really like your last paragraph, and wonder if you could expand it to a
> full blog article?
>
> i.e.
>
> A drastic reduction in inputs required per unit of output, and the
> disappearance of the price mechanism altogether for much of what we
> consume, would register in conventional econometric statistics as a
> catastrophic economic collapse.  But it would be entirely compatible
> with a radical increase in actual material standard of living.
>
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 3:50 AM, Kevin Carson
> <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/8/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > But it is only a particular kind of growth that has become impossible,
>> > the
>> > kind that neoliberalism and friedmanism promoted that refused to take
>> > into
>> > account any externalities.
>> >
>> > A steady state economy, that recognizes that any input has to recycled
>> > back
>> > into the system to the degree that it depletes physically limited
>> > resources,
>> > has tremendous 'alternative growth' potential.
>>
>> Exactly.  The question of whether "growth" can continue is meaningless
>> until the neoclassical conception of what "growth" itself means is
>> pinned to the board for a thorough dissection.
>>
>> Since conventional measures of economic output and GDP reflect
>> primarily the economic value of inputs consumed, they are largely
>> irrelevant.  The GDP consists largely of the cost of Bastiat's "broken
>> windows" and of the cost of waste.  The more superfluous steps are
>> added to the Rube Goldberg mechanism of material production, and the
>> more tribute we have to pay for proprietary design and content, the
>> higher the GDP--even if we're working longer hours to pay for the same
>> stuff.
>>
>> A drastic reduction in inputs required per unit of output, and the
>> disappearance of the price mechanism altogether for much of what we
>> consume, would register in conventional econometric statistics as a
>> catastrophic economic collapse.  But it would be entirely compatible
>> with a radical increase in actual material standard of living.
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
>> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>
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>
>
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-- 
Alex
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.- Socrates