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Economic Growth at the crossroads?

Economic growth at the crossroads?

  • We have reached the ecological limits foor economic growth and should develop a steady state economy

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • We have not reached the limits of economic growth by any means.

    Votes: 5 45.5%

  • Urgent action needs to be taken if we are to avoid a catastrophy

    Votes: 2 18.2%

  • We have plenty of time and space to develop and grow, it's not an issue.

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Total voters
    11
Also even if we try to compare material input to products which are material you will see that it is reduced.
Compare weight and MPG of today's cars to cars from the 50s.
Or compare size and electricity consumption of today's TV and TV from the 60s.
TV from the 60s weigh 50kg and consumed in the range of 500 watts.
Nowdays comparable screen size TV would weigh 5kg and consume 15 watts at most.
bigger ones 50 watts. In 10 years it will probably consume couple of watts.
 
The U.S. Commerce Department released a comprehensive report, entitled “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus,” which found that intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to, or 34.8 percent of, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

http://www.uspto.gov/news/publications/IP_Report_March_2012.pdf
 
And speaking of cars, chances are, with robo-cars, number of cars will be reduced by factor of 10 or more in not so distant future.
 
barbos said:
bigfield said:
You specifically mentioned games and movies.

Game development consumes electricity, offices and office supplies, IT and communications hardware and services, multimedia production technology and services, product manufacture and packaging, distribution services, promotional products and services, and merchandising, plus other things.

Movie production consumes much of the same, plus set and prop production, vehicles and fuel, temporary accommodation, and a folding chair for the producer.

Both of the above industries consume material in proportion to the number of entertainment products they produce. Less games and movies, less energy and supplies required.

The point being that digital products are no different from material products, in that they consume materials in order to be produced, and producing more of these things consumes more materials.
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Material costs are totally inconsequential to game developers and pretty inconsequential to movies. The core activity in both businesses has nothing to do with material input and resulting product is not material, it's information.
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Movie makers and game developers cannot do anything with information without consuming a diverse range of materials. To say that material costs are totally inconsequential is ridiculous.

barbos said:
So for a given amount of material games and movies produce much higher amount of GDP.
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This is contradictory to your claim that material costs are inconsequential.

All you are saying is that games and movies are more profitable than some other products or services.

A growing information economy faces the same problem of growing material consumption as does an industrial economy.
 
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barbos said:
Also even if we try to compare material input to products which are material you will see that it is reduced.
Compare weight and MPG of today's cars to cars from the 50s.
Or compare size and electricity consumption of today's TV and TV from the 60s.
TV from the 60s weigh 50kg and consumed in the range of 500 watts.
Nowdays comparable screen size TV would weigh 5kg and consume 15 watts at most.
bigger ones 50 watts. In 10 years it will probably consume couple of watts.
Click to expand...
Energy efficiency has nothing to do with material input.

A car's fuel efficiency has no bearing on how much energy and materials are required to manufacture it.
 
DBT said:
Loren Pechtel said:
All of those things are physical.

More and more of what we use is digital, though.
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You can't eat digital, you can't wear digital, digital alone won't provide you with shelter, digital information alone does not put the bread on the table, all of which are the fundamentals of life. Information, just as with all goods and services within a stable population achieves equilibrium, which is the peak of economic (commercial activity) and the formation of a steady state economy...why do you think that nations with stable birth rates are trying to stimulate higher birth rates through the use of various benefit schemes? Nor does a steady state economy entail limits to scientific endevour and social advancement.
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But we don't need to eat any more now than before.

We are already seeing the first steps of wearing digital--as time goes on we will have fewer clothes because what we have will be more adaptable.

It doesn't directly help with shelter but as time goes on our material possessions get smaller--we need less sheltered space.

These are all basically keyed to the population size, not the size of the economy.
 
bigfield said:
barbos said:
bigfield, you are not making much sense.
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Must be my accent.
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None of what I've read here makes much sense.

What is the relation between capacity and economic growth?

Let me suggest water, birth rates, and demands impacting survival. Of those the only ones that may be connected are water and demands.

Birth rates are more an index of how free we are from demands on productivity in the form of offspring. If we take the latter and examine it I think we'll find there is lots of room for more stuff and less demand to generate consumers based on our existing capacity to produce things.

Traditional factors like water supply and its effects on our ability to produce enough to survive haven't really been broached yet. We can drill into water tables for some decades yet before we have to begin generating fresh water from such as ocean water which should take us very far into the third millennium before we actually reach conditions similar to those posed by  Interstellar (film).

So I conclude, tie breaker here, we aren't near our capacity.
 
barbos said:
bigfield said:
The self-sufficient services fallacy: the belief that it does not require the consumption of materials in order to produce services.
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Nobody said that game industry is self-sufficient, but these fatass game developers eat the same amount of material food regardless of how many games they make.
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Just as making games is limited by the financial and time constraints of the user. If the market for games is saturated, current games are merely replaced by new products, with the result of a steady state economy in gaming products. After all, the individual user does not play longer and and longer and spend progressively more money on games. Entertainment does not provide perpetual growth in the economy.
 
As I have said many times, concept of economic growth does not apply to developed economies, which are to a large extent limited by innovations.
 
barbos said:
As I have said many times, concept of economic growth does not apply to developed economies, which are to a large extent limited by innovations.
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The concept of economic growth (the need for growth) is an issue that is brought up by our political leaders practically on a daily basis. Creating more jobs, building more houses, offering inducements to stimulate a higher birth rate, skilled immigration, etc, etc.
 
fromderinside said:
bigfield said:
Must be my accent.
Click to expand...

None of what I've read here makes much sense.

What is the relation between capacity and economic growth?

Let me suggest water, birth rates, and demands impacting survival. Of those the only ones that may be connected are water and demands.

Birth rates are more an index of how free we are from demands on productivity in the form of offspring. If we take the latter and examine it I think we'll find there is lots of room for more stuff and less demand to generate consumers based on our existing capacity to produce things.

Traditional factors like water supply and its effects on our ability to produce enough to survive haven't really been broached yet. We can drill into water tables for some decades yet before we have to begin generating fresh water from such as ocean water which should take us very far into the third millennium before we actually reach conditions similar to those posed by  Interstellar (film).

So I conclude, tie breaker here, we aren't near our capacity.
Click to expand...

If the report that we are burning our ecological capital at a rate of 1.5 planets is true, then, unless we change our way of doing business we are heading for big trouble at some point in the future. It's a question of not if, but when is it enough.

Limits to economic growth
Development of steady state economics (sometimes also called full-world economics) is a response to the observation that economic growth has limits. Macroeconomic policies in most countries, particularly those with large economies as measured on a GDP scale, typically have been officially structured for economic growth for decades.[3] Given the costs associated with such policies (e.g., global climate disruption, widespread habitat loss and species extinctions, consumption of natural resources, pollution, urban congestion, intensifying competition for remaining resources, and increasing disparity between the wealthy and the poor), some economists, scientists, and philosophers have questioned the biophysical limits to growth, and the desirability of continuous growth.
 
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