REFERENCES AND QUOTES Philosophy 2021 Shift from efficiency to sufficiency - References and quotes BEYOND GROWTH Against unlimited growth. “economic sufficiency is the essential foundation of all national greatness and progress”. Teleological constraint. “only low-entropy matter / energy has the physical potential for usefulness, for receiving the imprint of information and purpose” 187 A new development model for the whole world “would emphasize population control, limits to inequality in distribution, and production for sufficiency in basic needs.” 196 Optimum population. How many people? For how long? Living at what level of per capita resource use? Sufficiency 197 I DECOUPLING DEBUNKED – EVIDENCE AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST GREEN GROWTH AS A SOLE STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY Change policy of efficiency to sufficiency 58 Efficiency into collapse. Trying to brake while accelerating. 59 I DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST Economy of the future must alter not only income but the distribution of wealth, time and power. Natures network by branching fractals, river delta, branches in a tree, blood vessels, vein In leafs. Balance between systems efficiency and resilience. Nature teaching for economy is diversity and distribution. See The Science of Flow Says Extreme Inequality Causes Economic Collapse https://evonomics.com/science-flow-says-extreme-inequality-causes-economic-collapse/, MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH 145 Ayres and declining exergy into useful work “increasing efficiency with which energy is converted into useful work”. Oil is invisible slaves. End of growth. EROI. See TURNING POINT: THE END OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH?, SUSTAINABILITY ECONOMICS: WHERE DO WE STAND? on exergy into useful work as the driver of growth on technical efficiency, useful work and growth. Digital revolution is material and energy intensive. Sharing economy means slower growth. 215 Cree in Manitoba and sufficiency 233 I THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISISReligious and secular obsession with perfection, to transcend spatial and temporal limits imposed on human corporeality. Escaping death through efficiency 165 To be efficient (maximum output with minimum input of time, labour, energy, and capital), perpetual motion and imitating Gods thinking the world into existence. Efficiency secured during the Industrial revolution its place as a temporal tool for securing immortality where more efficient means more productive, more wealth and less time lost. Fredrick Taylor and the spread being efficient as a virtue into other areas. However efficiency runs against love and care 166 I ARBETSSAMHÄLLET – HUR ARBETET ÖVERLEVDE TEKNOLOGIN The uncritical acceptance of claims of rationality and efficiency 95 Consumer society just a solution for over production. Irrational consumptions reflects irrational production. 96 Consumption as way to endure work 97 The stimulating society. Consumerism supported by commercial interest joining hands with government defending power structures and the working society. Advertising making you unsure of yourself stimulating and the government handing you money to cover the insecurity with consumption 99 Lehman Brothers’ Paul Mazer "We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs." Protestantism, Ebenezer Scrooge and capita 100 Discussion of true and false needs 110 The irrational overproduction is shown by the waste of material and human resources within the sphere of production. 145 Waste is a part of capitalism. Technical changes in the production will force us to change our economic system and the obligation to work See Dougnut economy on who will own the robots 146 Waste in food production 152 Waste of human time in production 185 I TURNING POINT: THE END OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH? Reasons for being skeptical about economic growth 1190 No hope for technology to drive economic growth. All product and services are dependent on energy. Positive feedback cycle is the engine of economic growth. Higher prices and declining efficiency in turning energy to useful work. 1191 Energy conversion efficiency (exergy to useful work) is declining. 1192 Slowdown in efficiency gains means slow economic growth. 1193 I ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS Neoclassical economics believe human beings are insatiable why expanding growth is a desirable goal (end), with ever-greater provision of goods and service is thought to expand welfare. Market revealed desire ends. See THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on goals, < DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST on problem of utility and narrow picture of human beings. Limits of pareto efficient allocation. Problem with efficiency. 4 Ultimate mean and end spectrum. “...humanity ultimate economic problem is to use ultimate means efficiently and wisely in the service fo the ultimate end.” 48 Philosophy and religion discuss ultimate end. Idolatry, treating economic growth as end because it is not really ultimate. Ranking ends, setting a priority of ends is a consequence of scarcity, is an ethical problem. Economics starts with a given ranking or that any subjective taste is as good as anyone. Physics study ultimate mean. 49 “Thus, the remaining segment of the spectrum is the middle one of allocating given intermediate means ti teg service if a given hierarchy of intermediate ends. This is the significant and important economic problem, or rather political economic problem, quite distinct from the ethical and technical problems.” 49, 50 Yogi Berra, “We may be lost but we are making great time” 235 An economic system should not be devoted to the most efficient means of producing material goods bur rather to the most efficient mean om producing human well-being. 396 Redefining efficiency. Comprehensive efficiency measure, efficiency measure 423 I THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER “If subsystems can largely take care of themselves, regulate themselves, maintain themselves, and yet serve the needs of the larger system, while the larger system coordinates and enhances the functioning of the subsystems, a stable, resilient, and efficient structure results.” 82 “If you define the goal of a society as GNP, that society will do its best to produce GNP. It will not produce welfare, equity, justice, or efficiency unless you define a goal and regularly measure and report the state of welfare, equity, justice, or efficiency. The world would be a different place if instead of competing to have the highest per capita GNP, nations competed to have the highest per capita stocks of wealth with the lowest throughput, or the lowest infant mortality, or the greatest political freedom, or the cleanest environment, or the smallest gap between the rich and the poor.” 140 I MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH 6. Maintain a healthy balance of resilience and efficiency. “Noting that the factors which contribute to efficiency (large size, high-capacity, streamlining) are opposite to those that contribute to resilience (small size, diversity, dense connectivity), Ulanowicz discovered that healthy ecosystems maintain a balance of both.” To much focus on efficiency and size one reason for collapse of big banks. 20 I PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH “This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity is without historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival.” In current system economic stability is dependent on growth. “No subsystem of a finite system can grow indefinitely – at least in physical terms. Economists have to be able to answer the question of how a continually growing economic system can fit within a finite ecological system. The only answer available is that growth in dollars must be ‘decoupled’ from growth in physical throughputs and environmental impacts. But as we shall see more clearly in what follows, this hasn’t so far achieved what’s needed. There are no prospects for it doing so in the immediate future. And the sheer scale of decoupling required to meet the limits set out here (and stay within them in perpetuity while the economy keeps on growing) staggers the imagination.” “In these circumstances, a return to business as usual is not an option. Prosperity for the few founded on ecological destruction and persistent social injustice is no foundation for a civilised society. Economic stability is vital. Protecting people’s jobs – and creating new ones – is absolutely essential. But we also stand in urgent need of a renewed sense of shared prosperity. A deeper commitment to justice in a finite world.” 57 “‘Amid the crisis of 2008’, remarked an Economist leader article at the time, ‘it is easy to forget that liberalisation had good consequences as well: by making it easier for households and businesses to get credit, deregulation contributed to economic growth.’” 67 Growth is not necessary for basic entitlements 97 Economic turbulence can mean humanitarian loss 105 “Humanitarian loss in the face of economic turbulence, in other words, may be more dependent on social structure and political response than on the degree of economic instability that is encountered.” 107 The functioning of capitalist economy. 109 Absolut increase in CO₂ Figure 5.2 116 Increasing material footprint 118 No evidence of decoupling however evidence of the opposite. 119 “Capitalist economies place a high emphasis on the efficiency with which inputs to production (labour, capital, resources) are utilised. Continuous improvements in technology mean that more output can be produced for any given input. Efficiency improvement stimulates demand by driving down costs and contributes to a positive cycle of expansion. But crucially it also means that fewer people are needed to produce the same goods from one year to the next. As long as ‘aggregate demand’ grows fast enough to offset this increase in ‘labour productivity’, there isn’t a problem. But if it doesn’t, then this dynamic means that less labour is needed and someone somewhere loses their job. If demand slows for any reason – whether through a decline in consumer confidence, through commodity price shocks or through a managed attempt to reduce consumption – then the systemic trend towards improved labour productivity leads to unemployment.” 109 There is no simple formula that leads from the efficiency of the market to the meeting of ecological targets. Simplistic assumptions that capitalism’s propensity for efficiency will allow us to stabilise the climate or protect against resource scarcity are nothing short of delusional. The truth is that there is as yet no credible, socially just, ecologically sustainable scenario of continually growing incomes for upwards of nine billion people. And the critical question is not whether the complete decarbonisation of our energy systems or the dematerialisation of our consumption patterns is technically feasible, but whether it is possible in our kind of society. The analysis in this chapter suggests that it is entirely fanciful to suppose that ‘deep’ emission and resource cuts can be achieved without confronting the structure of market economies.” 125 “But even as the engine of growth delivers productivity improvement, so it also drives forward the scale of throughput. Nowhere is there any evidence that efficiency can outrun – and continue to outrun – scale in the way it must do if growth is to be compatible with sustainability.” 126 “The driver for efficiency is essentially the profit motive: the need to increase the difference between revenues from sales and the costs associated with the so-called factor inputs: capital, labour and material resources.” “Efficiency quite literally drives growth forwards. By reducing labour (and resource) inputs, efficiency brings down the cost of goods over time. This has the effect of stimulating demand and promoting growth. Far from acting to reduce the throughput of goods, technological progress serves to increase production output by reducing factor costs.” Rebound effect. Physical limit to efficiency. 130
I DANA (DONELLA) MEADOWS LECTURE: SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS Goal of national economy is growth. System goes into conniption if it doesn’t get growth. 15:00 PART 1 “Remember goals, are the most important defining characteristic of a systems, more so than interconnections, more so than elements. A meaningful, moral, satisfying goal – with a sense of enough. Growth as a goal is asking for unsustainability on a finite planet. There is no way. There’s got to be an enoughness and the goal has to be something to do with real human fulfillment not just getting more” 29:35 PART 2 real human fulfillment 30:03 PART 2 cultural commitment to protect resource base 1:55 PART 3 we got to have an enough “If you get how we are interrelated with the environment and that all of this throughputs that run our lives come from the environment, go back to the environment and that we cannot be out of balance then you start inventing new functions and purposes. The first thing that you see is that growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture! We got to have an enough!” 07.38 PART 3 “The question of growth. If you just listen around you to the mindset, the current culture, telling you how growth is going to solve a problem. If you just, every time you here that start saying, ‘growth of what?, and why?, and for whom?, and who pays the cost?, and how long can it last?, and what’s the cost to the planet? and how much is enough? Just do that! You are going to screw up mindsets. People are going to hate it. But that what’s needed, is to start rethinking at this level, even if you don’t know the answers to those questions, and hardly anybody does because we don’t ask them, but you’ve got to admit those are good questions: growth of what, for whom, at what cost, paid by whom? for how long? and how will that fit within the capacity of the planet to support it, and when will we get there?, when will we have enough?, where are we going anyway? Those are mindset upsetting questions, paradigm upsetting questions” 9:22 PART 3 To encouragement Next encouragement