Economics is a value-free science. Markets cannot be qualified as inherently "good" or "bad" by any economic scientist. Exactly what happens in any given economy depends on the subjective preferences of market actors. In regulated economies, however, the arbitrary whims of politicians and bankers comes into play. All this is why praxaeology is such a useful tool (and why laissez-faire Austrian economists were able to predict the '08 crash so accurately).
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~asmayer/rural_sustain/governance/Hardin 1968.pdf Just as a good resource when discussing collectivism vs the pursuit of rational self interest. I'm also looking for a great essay I read by Heidegger on environmentalism, it speaks directly to the movement of monetizing ecosystem services currently going on in ecology...
I think the kernel of the problem is the feudal notion of inherited wealth. The concentration of capital, therefore control of resources, to an elite group of families results in poor long-term planning for the general population. We took a wrong step when we became agrarian creatures, and we don't seem to be able to put it right
I dunno if it's just that - you look at the very nature of our ecological crimes and they are crimes against later generations. It might make perfect sense in the short term to deforest a region for farming, but we keep making those compromises for the short term. It's like dining and leaving the bill for your grand kid's. We haven't even articulated a proper definition for sustainable development, as basically any sort of development is unsustainable; you can't just keep building solar power plants for eternity, they have an environmental cost in terms of the land they take up, minerals required for construction, etc. I hate to get all hippie up in here, but until we treat biodiversity and natural spaces as their own good incommensurable with money, we're headed for some form of ecological collapse. One issue I see with the idea of monetizing ecological services is it leaves the ability for a technical solution open - if I can genetically engineer algae grown in a plant to do the work of five wetlands, well, those wetlands become a lot less valuable. I'd rather the wetlands of course, but we've had politicians who, responding to calls to save the redwoods, replied "So we'll build a fence around one of them, what's the problem?"
Giving everything a dollar value is the way of the world, unfortunately. As long as it's all about the bottom line, the most profitable solution will win out. Just look at the bitter irony of bio-fuel monoculture. You're not disagreeing with my hypothesis though - that global decisions are ultimately made to safeguard a handful of people in the relative short-term. Just look at the effort - billions of man-hours - that go into increasing the virtual worth of a few people. We're not even doing anything tangible for our masters any more; like building pyramids or tilling their fields. Just racking up numbers on a screen. Surely we could come up with more productive ways of directing our energies and aspirations? If we must have nations, at least we could give each citizen an equal stake. Nepotism, crony-ism and only worrying about how they are perceived, rather than how they act, are the result of concentrations of power. If we really want to save the environment, however, we have to consume less. I can't see many people going for that, to be honest.
I guess I just assume that, even in this situation, the environment will wind up coming up short unless basic questions about our duties to the environment, separate from all economic concerns, are answered. Yeah, that's a major point of disagreement I've had with people actually. A lot of folks in biology think that it's a question of overpopulation, but it ain't. If we wanted to sustain every current resident of our planet at the living standard of an American graduate student, we'd need 24 Earths. The consumption of one American family is a far larger ecological footprint than one in India, and that's what's killing us. But look at me writing that on my apple computer, eating BBQ ribs and drinking Californian wine.
I have a pet theory that, if you take the growth of humanity as analogous to the growth of a single human, then at the moment we're at the scribbling on the walls and trying to shoot cats with BB guns stage of development. It won't be until we've grown up and moved out for a while that we'll truly appreciate home and treat it with respect. I tend to agree with the idea that for humanity to have any long-term future, we can't all be on the same rock. Or you could reduce the world's population by a significant amount, then have a car and a MacBook and central heating without feeling guilty... except maybe for all the dead people...
I felt that Daniel Hannan relied far more on sophistry. I couldn't help thinking throughout his speech that of course he thinks capitalism is a great system; he's got a car and a dishwasher. The gist of his argument seemed to be that he's met the captains of industry, and they're jolly nice chaps that enjoy the same simple pleasures you plebs do. So we have nothing to fear from our masters, and we should enjoy scrabbling around to pick up their crumbs and be thankful for having the freedom to decide which crumb we fight over. Also, did he really say that Marx was incorrect that we would see an increase in oligarchs? Haven't we?
Britain and the US (the latter moreso) are and have been corporatist/cronyist for more than a century (or longer, depending on how you reckon it). Not really reasonable to say that Hannan was wrong-if he were right that the US and/or UK were laissez-faire capitalist. I'm not too familiar with Hannan's speeches, but if he was holding up the US and/or UK as examples of capitalism, he's dead wrong.
[ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d3wWia09UC8[/ame] How is the middle class created, progressive taxation.
http://nextshark.com/one-comic-perfectly-sums-up-class-differences-in-society/ This is an excellent example of why some socialiam is needed in any society, so that the ones with ability are allowed to use there potential.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-corporation-tax-on-uk-retail-sales?CMP=fb_gu Boom, headshot, at last some headway on corporate tax avoidance.
Wow. On the one hand, I approve. On the other hand, I'm trying to figure out what the unintended consequences of this is going to be. I'm generally of the opinion that business leaders tend to play smarter politics than politicians.
