I'm hitting a LOT of value in conversations from using the
?? Can't remember -- Ridley or Romer or Warsh formulation ??
"Technology advance is about re-arranging atoms." Not about using them up.
An awful lot of recent tech advance has been using less stuff for the same results by building better.
Suppose
1 pound of iron makes a horseshoe ...
making 2 horseshoes takes 2 pounds.
If you can find a way to make a horseshoe that's as good, or even 90% as good from half a pound of iron, you're winning. If you can use 1 oz of steel instead, that's a big capitalist win, so long as steel stays near $500/mt vs. iron's $100/mt.
HUGE chunks of capitalism are "do the same with less", rather than "use more"
I'm providing the following in an attempted capacity as the "devils advocate", putting forth some arguments as to why there might be a big gulf between your entrepreneurial approach and the "degrowther".
> "They believe that “endless economic growth” necessarily leads to the destruction of the environment and an unsustainable world for humanity, therefore they want to attack growth itself."
The link in the belief between "endless economic growth" and destruction is based on the coupling between economic activity and resources. That "endless economic growth" is compatible with a finite planet would somehow have to put to life a decoupling of our economy from the environment. This hypothesis has been treated in detail and found to be lacking in empirical evidence: https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Decoupling-Debunked.pdf
You speak about a paradigm shift "from a focus on zero sum political conflict that mostly makes us all worse off to inspire an understanding of how a voluntary, entrepreneurial approach to solving problems can make us all much better off." What about a paradigm shift in our economy? While I think many of your suggestions are necessary parts of an ecology of solutions for dealing with the metacrisis (of which the environmental crisis is only part and symptom of), I think there is good reason to believe that most of them could be questioned on grounds similar to the following questioning of the efficacy of carbon pricing (in particular points 1, 3 and 5):
"Carbon pricing faces five major issues that limit its use for accelerating deep decarbonization. First, carbon pricing frames climate change as a market failure rather than as a fundamental system problem. Second, it places particular weight on efficiency as opposed to effectiveness. Third, it tends to stimulate the optimization of existing systems rather than transformation. Fourth, it suggests a universal instead of context-sensitive policy approach. Fifth, it fails to reflect political realities." (From https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2004093117 )
While your suggestions are undoubtedly relevant attempts at solutions, I believe the degrowther would view all of them as "inside the box"-attempts that do not sufficiently address the underlying causes.
I hope this may provide some justification for why one could be skeptical to why "inside the box"-approaches like the ones you sketch are sufficient for a paradigm shift in our economy and how we relate to the world, as well as why one can be naturally led to believe that "infinite economic growth" is problematic on a finite planet where the economy is strongly coupled to energy and resources.
I'm hitting a LOT of value in conversations from using the
?? Can't remember -- Ridley or Romer or Warsh formulation ??
"Technology advance is about re-arranging atoms." Not about using them up.
An awful lot of recent tech advance has been using less stuff for the same results by building better.
Suppose
1 pound of iron makes a horseshoe ...
making 2 horseshoes takes 2 pounds.
If you can find a way to make a horseshoe that's as good, or even 90% as good from half a pound of iron, you're winning. If you can use 1 oz of steel instead, that's a big capitalist win, so long as steel stays near $500/mt vs. iron's $100/mt.
HUGE chunks of capitalism are "do the same with less", rather than "use more"
I'm providing the following in an attempted capacity as the "devils advocate", putting forth some arguments as to why there might be a big gulf between your entrepreneurial approach and the "degrowther".
> "They believe that “endless economic growth” necessarily leads to the destruction of the environment and an unsustainable world for humanity, therefore they want to attack growth itself."
The link in the belief between "endless economic growth" and destruction is based on the coupling between economic activity and resources. That "endless economic growth" is compatible with a finite planet would somehow have to put to life a decoupling of our economy from the environment. This hypothesis has been treated in detail and found to be lacking in empirical evidence: https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Decoupling-Debunked.pdf
You speak about a paradigm shift "from a focus on zero sum political conflict that mostly makes us all worse off to inspire an understanding of how a voluntary, entrepreneurial approach to solving problems can make us all much better off." What about a paradigm shift in our economy? While I think many of your suggestions are necessary parts of an ecology of solutions for dealing with the metacrisis (of which the environmental crisis is only part and symptom of), I think there is good reason to believe that most of them could be questioned on grounds similar to the following questioning of the efficacy of carbon pricing (in particular points 1, 3 and 5):
"Carbon pricing faces five major issues that limit its use for accelerating deep decarbonization. First, carbon pricing frames climate change as a market failure rather than as a fundamental system problem. Second, it places particular weight on efficiency as opposed to effectiveness. Third, it tends to stimulate the optimization of existing systems rather than transformation. Fourth, it suggests a universal instead of context-sensitive policy approach. Fifth, it fails to reflect political realities." (From https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2004093117 )
While your suggestions are undoubtedly relevant attempts at solutions, I believe the degrowther would view all of them as "inside the box"-attempts that do not sufficiently address the underlying causes.
I hope this may provide some justification for why one could be skeptical to why "inside the box"-approaches like the ones you sketch are sufficient for a paradigm shift in our economy and how we relate to the world, as well as why one can be naturally led to believe that "infinite economic growth" is problematic on a finite planet where the economy is strongly coupled to energy and resources.