Non - House prices

@Kudos

I won’t respond to each point otherwise this is gonna become too long and bore the pants of everyone else. Plus, I’m not gonna pretend I have the answer to each specific point you raise. To be honest, this conversation is best done over a pint rather than on an internet forum!

But, in short, the issue is at the macro level. A capitalist economic system requires growth due to the need to create surplus value (I’d really recommend reading some David Harvey to go into this in detail). However, growth is not / cannot be decoupled from environmental pressures (a solid analysis of the literature on this can be found here). And so, to address the environmental crisis, we need to transition to a post-growth, and therefore likely post-capitalist, economy (However, there’s a really good paper, here, on why this would actually increase wellbeing for almost everyone).

Some of the examples you give are good. However, looking at the micro-level hides what’s happening at the macro. Take your nature reserve example. On the micro level, you’re right, this a great idea for a business with ecological benefits. However, in order to service the loan you borrowed from a bank, you need to make a profit. That requires the creation of surplus value somewhere else in the economy which then makes its way to you through fee-paying visitors (there’s a good paper analysing whether there is a role for for-profit business in a sustainable economy here)

If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, there are a few good and accessible books I can recommend. Happy to DM you if you’d like but obviously don’t want to push anything on you!

I thought I’d also just respond to one of your points directly as I think it’s an important one:



So, this is one of the issues that is being grappled with at the moment – the concept of the “marginal propensity to consume”, that is, the resource intensity of consumption at different points on the economic spectrum. More basic needs are generally more resource intensive – food, housing, heating etc. So, there is one school of thought that suggests redistribution will increase consumption-based emissions.

However, there are obviously moral objections to keeping people poor just to keep down emissions. In addition, carbon and material footprints are significantly higher amongst the rich, with research suggesting that much of this excess consumption contributes little to furthering their wellbeing.

So, through the redistribution of wealth, and the downscaling of unnecessary material consumption amongst the rich, we can create “ecological space” for the poor to increase their consumption to meet their basic needs. However, we also need to create systems which lower the material requirements of meeting basic needs for all – for example, choosing public transport over car ownership, swapping higher wages for more free time etc., reducing private land ownership and increasing access to commons etc. Economies with a growth imperative aren’t capable of delivering this given their mandate to maximise profit, rather than maximise social value.

And just quickly on the concept of rebound: A good thought experiment to illustrate the concept comes from the invention of the chain saw. Say, in the past, people felled one tree a day using a manual saw. Then someone invented the chainsaw. Rather than fall one tree in an hour and take the rest of the day off, a growth economy, with the need to generate surplus and maximise profit, will instead use the increased efficiency to fell 10 trees a day. So, in short, efficiency savings are always reinvested into increasing profits.

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This is all a fast-moving area of research, and no-one claims to have all the answers (least of all me). But more and more economists are now accepting that growth is, at least part of, the problem and how we transition to post-capitalism is an area of much interest at the moment.

Sorry everyone, I'll stop clogging up the forum with this now.

Christ, we have some intellectual heavy weights on this forum!

Good stuff.
 
@Kudos
So, through the redistribution of wealth, and the downscaling of unnecessary material consumption amongst the rich, we can create “ecological space” for the poor to increase their consumption to meet their basic needs. However, we also need to create systems which lower the material requirements of meeting basic needs for all – for example, choosing public transport over car ownership, swapping higher wages for more free time etc., reducing private land ownership and increasing access to commons etc. Economies with a growth imperative aren’t capable of delivering this given their mandate to maximise profit, rather than maximise social value.
The thing about most of this lot, is that it relies on the government to be competent and efficient and successful. Is that something that can be relied on?

Sainsbury's, for example, made £150m profit in year end 2020 but redistributed £3 billion in wages to their employees on the way. Could the government redistribute as efficiently?
 
I love it too @klaus_afcb . Altho I am officially post-caring, my latest read is "deep adaption - navigating the realities of climate chaos". thrilling stuff, if societal breakdown is your thing!

:utc:
 
The thing about most of this lot, is that it relies on the government to be competent and efficient and successful. Is that something that can be relied on?

Sainsbury's, for example, made £150m profit in year end 2020 but redistributed £3 billion in wages to their employees on the way. Could the government redistribute as efficiently?

I wouldn’t really call what Sainsbury’s is doing redistribution though. Given that the poor people spend a greater proportion of their income on food and much of that £3 billion will go to executives etc., you could even argue that it’s redistribution from poor to rich.

However, I completely agree with your point on the state and the government.

Some argue that the state is a fundamentally capitalist institution by definition, with a mandate to uphold and further the interests of capital. This is clearly incompatible with post-growth transitions. Much of the work within the post-growth literature therefore discusses the need for more participatory forms of democracy, from more radical proposals like neighbourocracy, sociocracy or democratic confederalism, to more conventional ideas like citizens’ assemblies or direct democracy through referendums. Part of my research includes examining how a basic income (which would likely require a large state apparatus) could increase participation in grassroots politics, collective action, and the community economy.

So yeah, it’s an important point you raise.
 
The thing about most of this lot, is that it relies on the government to be competent and efficient and successful. Is that something that can be relied on?

Sainsbury's, for example, made £150m profit in year end 2020 but redistributed £3 billion in wages to their employees on the way. Could the government redistribute as efficiently?
Could Sainsburys fill potholes, collect rubbish, put out fires, deter crime, educate children, care for those not capable of working ?

Trickle down economics and no such thing as society was debunked with the demise of Reagan and Thatcher.
 
Could Sainsburys fill potholes, collect rubbish, put out fires, deter crime, educate children, care for those not capable of working ?
No, which is why the government took £1 billion or so out of those wages and another £1 billion or probably more out of VAT. There are rich people making £150m out of Sainsbury profits, but there is also a lot of other cash swilling round the system doing a lot of good.
 
No, which is why the government took £1 billion or so out of those wages and another £1 billion or probably more out of VAT. There are rich people making £150m out of Sainsbury profits, but there is also a lot of other cash swilling round the system doing a lot of good.
1/3 of low paid wages taken by a low tax government, more efficient to levy a transaction tax on the money moved out of the country by the low tax paying companies surely.
 
It's complicated. Yes, house prices are utterly out of control and young people are being screwed by a viciously greedy rental economy and/or morally bankrupt lending practises. However the second comment has a few salient points about sacrifices. Today we are used to just imagining something and going out and getting it, so I accept that my parents made sacrifices that I have not.

 
Might be more accurate to say that people of your parents’ generation made sacrifices that aren’t open to you now.

For instance, I bought my first flat in 1986. The year before, I was lucky enough to pay a low rent, had three jobs, hardly ever went out and, by scrimping and saving, managed to turn my £1,000 of savings into the £6,000 I needed for the deposit, legal fees etc. That £6,000 is about £22,000 in today’s money.

With the best will in the world, I can’t see how anyone in their twenties, as I was then, could possibly manage to do the same now given high rents and high house prices. I feel sorry for today’s youngsters.
 
And, at the end of that, you weren't saddled with student debt in the tens of thousands and a mortgage where the value is probably five to seven times your salary.

But, you know, I saw a young person buy a coffee in Pret once so it's all their fault.
 
Depends so much on what part of the country you live in. Anyone up in the Midlands today have a quick look in the estate agents windows, the prices for small flats and houses bears no resemblance to the costs in the South East.
 
Depends so much on what part of the country you live in. Anyone up in the Midlands today have a quick look in the estate agents windows, the prices for small flats and houses bears no resemblance to the costs in the South East.
Nor do wages
 

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