This gets at a debate I often have, are the limits to economic growth currently external in terms of resource depletion, or just a consequence of contradictions of capitalism? And I honestly think it's both. You see this in the US with a larger share of profit going to financial services, digital services and the managerial class not and primary production. This means that profits by and large aren't being invested in more assets to create more growth. The growing inequality also means less consumption capacity for workers.
But of course the real question from a sustainability perspective is why do we need growth? And the answer of course is so that capital can make a return... and we can't conceive of a system without capital return. (unless it's feudalism I suppose)
Corporate bureaucracy really could be it's own subject, but I think it does cut against the labor constraint argument. The managers who manage managers aren't really doing any work and their power comes at the expense of the people who actually have to do the job while fending off management.
Of course the good part about the garden is that all such distinctions between production, consumption, labor and just being alive can take a backseat for awhile.
"Of course the good part about the garden is that all such distinctions between production, consumption, labor and just being alive can take a backseat for awhile. " Exactly how I feel!
In my own professional sphere of software engineering it has become increasingly easy to build systems of vast complexity to the point where not even their notional creators fully understand what they do. In turn the end users of enterprise systems in sectors like telecommunications face a harder and harder job wrangling these systems towards the ends they are notionally there to serve. Automation, or so-called "closed loop systems" - machines instructing other machines (by "AI" if you must) - is now the holy grail.
This aspect of ungovernable complexity seems pervasive now in every sphere of human activity; the annual budget over runs of the Irish Health Service have become a running national joke, while the service seems to get worse with each passing year. It seems to also be the root of the failure of liberal technocratic politics: unable to solve the problems of the modern world, messaging becomes the one thing remaining that can and must be controlled, which leads to cynicism and disillusionment in the body politic. This was skewered in the recent film "Rumours", where the G7 leaders gathered to agree the wording of a communiqué for some unspecified crisis find themselves mired in an increasingly absurd Beckettian limbo.
Meanwhile voters increasingly turn to politicians who offer them childishly simple explanations and make them feel less unmoored, at least for a while. But the underlying problems cannot be wished away.
How hyped is AI. Companies are not making a return, energy consumption is dangeroue, ai systems are inventing stuff. They say they have run out of data to mine.
“AI is neither a promise or a threat but a necessity to manage an ever increasing complexity”
This is the strongest indicator of a hypercomplex society; whether or not AI is necessary or an add-on. Right now in the US, AI is used to keep the treadmill of the growth economy moving faster and faster and has become integral to its functioning in many aspects of daily life. I have only been in Sweden once and that was over forty years ago. From what little I read about everyday life in Sweden and its public policies, I suspect it is becoming hypercomplex faster than France (where I live) and Germany. Probably on a par with the UK. The US is clearly hypercomplex. The importance of this "new" term is that hypercomplex societies have built-in limits that will 1) stop growth AND 2) cannot contract to a lower level of complexity. In short, if Sweden and the UK continue on their present paths they will collapse into rubble like the US. France, Germany, Spain, Italy will likely contract into quasi-feudal regional polities. The emergent reality of the collapse of complex societies is just like Tainter said in The Collapse of Complex Societies(1988); a lower order of complexity based on regional polities. This had multiple forms, the most important being the change from manorialism to feudalism. But there was a Dark Age while this was happening. I see a Dark Age in Europe and Mad Max scenarios in the US. This is why we left several years ago.
Gunnar's small herd of cattle reminds me of the Rob Roy era of the clans in Scotland. Mobile wealth that is relatively easy to manage and track. My particular emphasis is social links based on root crops.
Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations) got it wrong when he linked the economy to labor. In truth, all economies are an energy equation, and we grasped this fully until Smith came along. In our model, despite Smith's assertions being echoed by the majority of economists since him, economic growth is linked to the amount of fossil fuels we burn in a given year in a ratio that is as close to 1:1 as is mathematically possible. If Texas and Alberta and Britain and Norway woke up tomorrow to find all their reservoirs had miraculously filled back up with conventional crude, growth would be as explosive as it was in the 1950's once more. But that ain't gonna happen and the days of growth for this model are well and truly done. All the other stuff we ascribe growth to is a sideshow, not a driver. The various nuisances increasingly besetting the livestock industry are a classic symptom of an overmature model on the path to becoming too complex to function. Artificial intelligence being an example of that complexity, not a solution to it. Classic decline and fall stuff.
I do agree on the huge relevance of fossil fuels even though I think it is a mistake to neglect labour. - which of course also is energy.... Also, the link is more with "net energy" than fossil energy per se. Both Sweden and Norway have a lot of hydroelectricity which work quite well with a rather small fossil fuel footprtint (mostly concrete for the dams and all the steel for pylons etc.).
I'm not dismissing other forms of energy, i'm just looking at baseline. In our model, take away fossil fuels and we are done, instantly, as a global civilization. Labor sure, but it does not support the model as Smith would have it - without fossil fuels, there is nothing to labor at, as would support our model.
This gets at a debate I often have, are the limits to economic growth currently external in terms of resource depletion, or just a consequence of contradictions of capitalism? And I honestly think it's both. You see this in the US with a larger share of profit going to financial services, digital services and the managerial class not and primary production. This means that profits by and large aren't being invested in more assets to create more growth. The growing inequality also means less consumption capacity for workers.
But of course the real question from a sustainability perspective is why do we need growth? And the answer of course is so that capital can make a return... and we can't conceive of a system without capital return. (unless it's feudalism I suppose)
Corporate bureaucracy really could be it's own subject, but I think it does cut against the labor constraint argument. The managers who manage managers aren't really doing any work and their power comes at the expense of the people who actually have to do the job while fending off management.
Of course the good part about the garden is that all such distinctions between production, consumption, labor and just being alive can take a backseat for awhile.
"Of course the good part about the garden is that all such distinctions between production, consumption, labor and just being alive can take a backseat for awhile. " Exactly how I feel!
In my own professional sphere of software engineering it has become increasingly easy to build systems of vast complexity to the point where not even their notional creators fully understand what they do. In turn the end users of enterprise systems in sectors like telecommunications face a harder and harder job wrangling these systems towards the ends they are notionally there to serve. Automation, or so-called "closed loop systems" - machines instructing other machines (by "AI" if you must) - is now the holy grail.
This aspect of ungovernable complexity seems pervasive now in every sphere of human activity; the annual budget over runs of the Irish Health Service have become a running national joke, while the service seems to get worse with each passing year. It seems to also be the root of the failure of liberal technocratic politics: unable to solve the problems of the modern world, messaging becomes the one thing remaining that can and must be controlled, which leads to cynicism and disillusionment in the body politic. This was skewered in the recent film "Rumours", where the G7 leaders gathered to agree the wording of a communiqué for some unspecified crisis find themselves mired in an increasingly absurd Beckettian limbo.
Meanwhile voters increasingly turn to politicians who offer them childishly simple explanations and make them feel less unmoored, at least for a while. But the underlying problems cannot be wished away.
How hyped is AI. Companies are not making a return, energy consumption is dangeroue, ai systems are inventing stuff. They say they have run out of data to mine.
A circle of sense eloquently put, thank you
“AI is neither a promise or a threat but a necessity to manage an ever increasing complexity”
This is the strongest indicator of a hypercomplex society; whether or not AI is necessary or an add-on. Right now in the US, AI is used to keep the treadmill of the growth economy moving faster and faster and has become integral to its functioning in many aspects of daily life. I have only been in Sweden once and that was over forty years ago. From what little I read about everyday life in Sweden and its public policies, I suspect it is becoming hypercomplex faster than France (where I live) and Germany. Probably on a par with the UK. The US is clearly hypercomplex. The importance of this "new" term is that hypercomplex societies have built-in limits that will 1) stop growth AND 2) cannot contract to a lower level of complexity. In short, if Sweden and the UK continue on their present paths they will collapse into rubble like the US. France, Germany, Spain, Italy will likely contract into quasi-feudal regional polities. The emergent reality of the collapse of complex societies is just like Tainter said in The Collapse of Complex Societies(1988); a lower order of complexity based on regional polities. This had multiple forms, the most important being the change from manorialism to feudalism. But there was a Dark Age while this was happening. I see a Dark Age in Europe and Mad Max scenarios in the US. This is why we left several years ago.
Gunnar's small herd of cattle reminds me of the Rob Roy era of the clans in Scotland. Mobile wealth that is relatively easy to manage and track. My particular emphasis is social links based on root crops.
Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations) got it wrong when he linked the economy to labor. In truth, all economies are an energy equation, and we grasped this fully until Smith came along. In our model, despite Smith's assertions being echoed by the majority of economists since him, economic growth is linked to the amount of fossil fuels we burn in a given year in a ratio that is as close to 1:1 as is mathematically possible. If Texas and Alberta and Britain and Norway woke up tomorrow to find all their reservoirs had miraculously filled back up with conventional crude, growth would be as explosive as it was in the 1950's once more. But that ain't gonna happen and the days of growth for this model are well and truly done. All the other stuff we ascribe growth to is a sideshow, not a driver. The various nuisances increasingly besetting the livestock industry are a classic symptom of an overmature model on the path to becoming too complex to function. Artificial intelligence being an example of that complexity, not a solution to it. Classic decline and fall stuff.
I do agree on the huge relevance of fossil fuels even though I think it is a mistake to neglect labour. - which of course also is energy.... Also, the link is more with "net energy" than fossil energy per se. Both Sweden and Norway have a lot of hydroelectricity which work quite well with a rather small fossil fuel footprtint (mostly concrete for the dams and all the steel for pylons etc.).
I'm not dismissing other forms of energy, i'm just looking at baseline. In our model, take away fossil fuels and we are done, instantly, as a global civilization. Labor sure, but it does not support the model as Smith would have it - without fossil fuels, there is nothing to labor at, as would support our model.