Limits to Growth - At Our Doorstep, But Not Recognized

Zero Hedge, Our Finite World blog ^ | 06 February 2014 | Gail Tverberg

[Rembrandt]

“Did you read the article?
I didn’t read anything in there that was opposed to capitalism.”

I read the first part - it was painfully obvious that the author was slamming the tenets of Capitalism. I read it. I understood it.

[Lorianne]

How so? I didn’t read it that way at all.

[Lorianne]

I’m still not seeing how you can say the author “seems to be a Malthus adherent”. That may be true but I don’t see how you can conclude that from this article. (I haven’t read any other articles from her so I can’t say is she is or isn’t)

[Vince Ferrer]

I am saying that the author seems to be Malthusian because the author is focused on the supply side of resources, while holding human behavior as a constant. Malthus considered the idea that the population would fill to any resource limit to be axiomatic.

"That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,

That population does invariably increase when the means of substinence increase "The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world".

—Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter VII, p 61

"Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition".

—Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter II, p 18 in Oxford World's Classics reprint.

While it is certainly a good idea to look at resources and their availability, I don't accept Malthus' belief that a population will expand just to fill up resources, and I am not reading the article from that perspective. In fact, his theory "That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase" is notably false today. In the past 30 years, more people have been lifted out of poverty than ever before in history, and while Malthus would predict a baby boom to fill the newly created resources, sinking the population back into misery, the opposite has happened. The birth rates worldwide have collapsed.

The author does not take into account the collapsing birthrate and aging of society, and quickly approaching peak of our population in the calculations of resource useage. The author is only arguing from the perspective of resource scarcity, and that the population carrying capacity will overreach those limits and be reduced by "misery." This is what Malthus would argue if he were here today.

[Lorianne]

She is not really arguing from resource scarcity, but rather from enough resources to form CAPITAL sufficient to obtain more resources. The main gist of the article has to do with capital formation and the level of debt we’ve become dependent on in order to capitalize on resources readily available.

[antidisestablishment]

Add imagination and balls.

Cowards don’t produce anything but more rules to protect their own asses. Scarcity is the bogeyman of bureaucrats who live to make sure others don’t have more than them.

[antidisestablishment]

Afircans die as quickly as they reproduce—and that’s not from resource scarcity.

Depopulation of the West should be our greatest concern, but society still prefers the infernal lie of limitation as ameans to prosperity. If the West continues its suicidal path, our (few) descendents will look with longing at today’s third world. There will not be enough people to maintain a civil society after the coming catastrophes.

[antidisestablishment]

Really?

For example, it now takes more resources to extract oil. This is why oil prices have more than tripled since 2002.

This is a total lie. The largest increases are caused by speculation and regulation—not the cost of production or scarcity.

And as to population:

But it seems unlikely that we can have a world economy that will provide food and shelter for 7.2 billion people.

If this isn’t a direct threat from scarcity, then I don’t know what to call it. The strange quandary is that the suggested scarcity is debt capital. I find myself agreeing with a couple of arguments, but the elephant’s shadow is just too dark to be missed.

In essence this author has conflated one large economic fact with scarcity propaganda. In fact they are conveniently juxtaposed:

Truth:The reason we are getting poorer is because hidden parts of our economy are now absorbing more and more resources, leaving fewer resources to produce the goods and services we are used to buying. Lie: These hidden parts of our economy are being affected by depletion.

The truth is apparent--but the culprit is GOVERNMENT. Stealing an ever-larger portion of the economy while strangling business except those who feather its nest, it not the road to prosperity. Debt is certainly a problem, and it will lead to collapse, but that debt is also created and exacerbated by government.

Globalization has created an unmanageably large economic system. Decoupling a currency from real economic activity has always ended poorly. According to many experts, we already have created more debt than a combination of all of the economic activity in world history. It's no wonder so many older countries have seen cyclical massive devaluation of their respective currencies over time. Maybe it's time for a Jubilee.

[Rembrandt]

There are no limits in Capitalism; it’s a constantly changing economy. It shrinks, it expands. Money is created, money is lost. If there is a loser, it doesn’t require that there be a winner; vice versa is also true. The article, as far as I read, didn’t agree.