[p2p-research] what to think of the market

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Michel Bauwens wrote:
> As for abundance, that is indeed a strand on this list, with charles collis,
> nathan cravens, and many on the open manufacturing list ... it's not a
> perspective that I share. On the contrary, I think we will experience a
> powerdown and a return to more moderate material wealth, for a host of
> reasons to do with global warming, resource crises, etc... My perspective is
> immaterial abundance combined with a steady state economy that grows
> sustainably. Yes, this sounds utopian, but is there any other choice beyond
> dislocation of the infinite growth engine?

Sounds *dystopian* to me. :-)

I feel it is a false choice that we either do things the way we are now, or 
are forced to change to some lower level of technology.

Just what already exist as off-the-shelf technology, like Nanosolar's 
printed PV panels, could give us an amazing infrastructure, because energy 
is at the heart of so many issues about sustainability. And there are so 
many other possible energy alternatives from biofuels to wind power to even, 
someday, fusion energy. Nanosolar type technology by itself alone is likely 
scalable to supply all our power needs.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar

The only issue is how soon we do that or something similar. People are 
naturally a little hesitant in seeing how well stuff works in practice 
before they scale up. Plus, there are so many things in the pipeline, even 
when you see a good technology, sometimes you wait to see if something even 
better will work out (given we have centuries of fossil fuels like coal). 
And then, there are the inevitable bottlenecks and SNAFUs and so on that 
need to get dealt with.

Global climate change, while real, is possible to deal with by engineering 
and migration. It may be expensive, and a lot of people may not want to 
move, but we have a huge industrial base to deal with it, like building 
artificial islands, or building new cities in the Russian heartland, and so 
on. For example, the global defense budget (more than a trillion dollars a 
year) is enough money at $10K per person to build new (small) homes for 100 
million people every year. In ten years, that a billion new homes. Clearly, 
the resources are there to solve this problem. The USA literally could print 
several trillion dollars of fiat currency tomorrow to relocate hundreds of 
millions of people into nice new homes or floating islands over the next 
decade, and the USA economy and US workers would be better off for building 
them (maybe inspired by Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion house design but with newer 
materials? :-).
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house
And that is even without limiting carbon emissions.

Resources naturally substitute in a market. The market may not distribute 
wealth well, but it certainly can create it and substitute for it (as long 
as external costs are controlled).
   http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

There are huge problems we face, but the global world product is about US$60 
trillion a year, which is a lot of money to do a lot of things. The real 
limits are skilled labor, tools, raw materials, and energy, of course, but 
we really, truly, still have vast amounts of all of that, and could easily 
have more if we stopped wasting so much on various things (like school, 
intended to keep people out of the labor force, or tobacco, or lots of other 
junk). The issue is all about the control system, as well as containing 
pollution, not the raw materials. Now, we may not be able to resolve those 
social conflicts, but social conflicts are not really technical limits, even 
as better technology may make some social conflicts easier to solve (like if 
we just sucked carbon out of the air with some new technology -- I just read 
about something like that the other day).

For me, the only variable is do we have Armageddon before we transform to an 
amazing economy, with Armageddon perhaps driven either by accident or 
intentionally in brinksmanship by the old guard using post-scarcity 
technologies as weapons to prop up their artificial scarcity world view.

Unfortunately, your sentiment contributes to the old guard's justifications. :-(

That's not to say much of our society in general might not *choose* a 
simpler infrastructure, including one with less obvious technology using 
less obvious energy day-to-day. Ursula K. Le Guin describes such a 
civilazation in "Always Coming Home". But, short of a major war, "powering 
down" will be a choice, not a necessity, IMHO.

--Paul Fernhout
More on abundance here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html