Living in a developed economy can blind us to the far more acute and chronic problems faced by our fellow human beings. How many times have I felt an injustice because my internet connection has randomly stopped working, or my PVR has failed to record a TV programme I wanted to watch? Embarrassingly many is the answer.
Even further afield in my own milieu I see suffering that I can't comprehend, and which vastly overshadows ny irritations and setbacks.
Pull back the focus to a world view and we see sights so harrowing that it is a challenge to write about them even in abstraction. The death of innocents from war, disease or starvation; the witnessing of those tragedies by those nearby (physically and emotionally) and impressionable is truly gruelling even for the distant observer.
That people should try to escape from such dreadful circumstances seems commendable and admirable. I like to think that I would have the skill and courage should it come to it. Such people, though, if they cross a line on a map are called immigrants, and some argue that developed countries can't spare the space or access to other resources that they need and/or use. Resourced need to be managed, undoubtedly, but is the resistance to 'immgration' more about cushioning oneself against exposure to the immeasurably more difficult circumstances that our fellow human beings face than about a genuine desire to scientifically and equitably marshal resources?
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
Privatisation of information
It's been rather dejecting picking books off my shelves, blowing off the dust, and looking on www.amazon.co.uk to see if any of them are likely to fetch a price. In most cases there are umpteen copies of the book for sale for Amazon's minimum price of 1p (plus £2.80 postage and packing).
It's sad thinking of all the costly books sitting there, gathering dust, and taking up space. No-one else can readily look at them, unless I try to sell them or give them away and this makes them even more of a wasted resource.
Yet, if I don't sell or give away the books now, I can only imagine that their inherent value will sink below even the worth of the fibres they are manufactured from, as the printed book becomes increasingly obsolete.
Some people have a romantic attachment to books - shelves of books create a good impression of scholarliness and the right kind of seriousness - and they can look attractive, it's true, but given the high cost of housing, the space they take up is expensive. Their low tech way of working pales against modern information technology and transporting them as part of giving them away or selling them is environmentally unkind.
Not that the books I have look attractive as shelved. There is a trace of order in the way are arranged, but this is based on their subject, not what they look like. To have them ordered aesthetically would require them to be indexed and their shelf location recorded and I'm not prepared to spend time doing that (am I?).
The ease with which texts can be distributed technically with modern communications means that in order to protect the intellectual property of the author, some kind of digital jiggery-pokery needs to be applied to stop the text being freely available. This was easier to limit with physical books owing to their bulk and comparatively poor portability and distributability.
But the only reason to try to prevent texts being widely distributed and available is to create scarcity so that a price can be charged. So far as fulfilling human needs by use of the text goes, there is no direct reason for depriving someone of the text in question. Therefore in an NLRBE all text would be freely available, and as the authors, like anyone else, would have their needs met anyway, they wouldn't need to participate in the scarcity creation.
It's sad thinking of all the costly books sitting there, gathering dust, and taking up space. No-one else can readily look at them, unless I try to sell them or give them away and this makes them even more of a wasted resource.
Yet, if I don't sell or give away the books now, I can only imagine that their inherent value will sink below even the worth of the fibres they are manufactured from, as the printed book becomes increasingly obsolete.
Some people have a romantic attachment to books - shelves of books create a good impression of scholarliness and the right kind of seriousness - and they can look attractive, it's true, but given the high cost of housing, the space they take up is expensive. Their low tech way of working pales against modern information technology and transporting them as part of giving them away or selling them is environmentally unkind.
Not that the books I have look attractive as shelved. There is a trace of order in the way are arranged, but this is based on their subject, not what they look like. To have them ordered aesthetically would require them to be indexed and their shelf location recorded and I'm not prepared to spend time doing that (am I?).
The ease with which texts can be distributed technically with modern communications means that in order to protect the intellectual property of the author, some kind of digital jiggery-pokery needs to be applied to stop the text being freely available. This was easier to limit with physical books owing to their bulk and comparatively poor portability and distributability.
But the only reason to try to prevent texts being widely distributed and available is to create scarcity so that a price can be charged. So far as fulfilling human needs by use of the text goes, there is no direct reason for depriving someone of the text in question. Therefore in an NLRBE all text would be freely available, and as the authors, like anyone else, would have their needs met anyway, they wouldn't need to participate in the scarcity creation.
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
Reflections on being unemployed
For £72 odd per week Job Seeker's Allowance, I'm supposed to spend 35 hours per week job seeking - not much more than £2 an hour. A fairly clear incentive to not claim JSA, and thus not be counted as seeking work.
My job seeking comprises trawling through e-mails with links to jobs, looking for ones for which I have skills/experience that seems to match the recruiter's requirements and that don't involve absurd amounts of travelling or relocation.
This is a needle in a haystack exercise; although I do find jobs that my skills/experience do somewhat match, the applications in the main fall into a black hole. One or two "unfortunately" e-mails do come back and I suppose it's better to fal at the first hurdle on these things rather than failing to be the best at interview.
"There are jobs out there if people want them; they just have to look" is the mantra, but asserting the first clause does not make it true, however many times or however forcefully it is repeated. As to the second clause, it seems absurd. In what sense are jobs "hidden" and if they are, why?
My experience is that jobs are advertised by more than one agency, and are put in e-mails over and over again, such that I'm always finding jobs I've already applied for or already seen and decided not to apply for.
These jobs are really positions - that is engagements for several hours a week for extended periods of time. And by recruiting people with experience and skills the recruiters are abdicating their responsibility of training the people they employ. Someone else can do that. This makes the situation all the more tricky. I wouldn't object to being trained, but there has to be a position to go with the training. Otherwise, how does one choose what training to receive? Bricklaying? PHP? Sage? Raisers' Edge?
Find what you enjoy and do that is another maxim, bit it is not compatible with paying the bills, nor with spending 35 hours a week job searching (which has to include applying for jobs) nor with matching skills/experience with the posts available.
[touch of writer's block, now. To be continued, perhaps]
My job seeking comprises trawling through e-mails with links to jobs, looking for ones for which I have skills/experience that seems to match the recruiter's requirements and that don't involve absurd amounts of travelling or relocation.
This is a needle in a haystack exercise; although I do find jobs that my skills/experience do somewhat match, the applications in the main fall into a black hole. One or two "unfortunately" e-mails do come back and I suppose it's better to fal at the first hurdle on these things rather than failing to be the best at interview.
"There are jobs out there if people want them; they just have to look" is the mantra, but asserting the first clause does not make it true, however many times or however forcefully it is repeated. As to the second clause, it seems absurd. In what sense are jobs "hidden" and if they are, why?
My experience is that jobs are advertised by more than one agency, and are put in e-mails over and over again, such that I'm always finding jobs I've already applied for or already seen and decided not to apply for.
These jobs are really positions - that is engagements for several hours a week for extended periods of time. And by recruiting people with experience and skills the recruiters are abdicating their responsibility of training the people they employ. Someone else can do that. This makes the situation all the more tricky. I wouldn't object to being trained, but there has to be a position to go with the training. Otherwise, how does one choose what training to receive? Bricklaying? PHP? Sage? Raisers' Edge?
Find what you enjoy and do that is another maxim, bit it is not compatible with paying the bills, nor with spending 35 hours a week job searching (which has to include applying for jobs) nor with matching skills/experience with the posts available.
[touch of writer's block, now. To be continued, perhaps]
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Is equality irreducible?
If a sentient being from a far off world is observing this planet, and specifically the human species, would she assume that each specimen had equal rights? I don't mean empirically, I mean, why would she conclude that some people had acquired the power to control, to a large extent, what others do all day.
If we had equal rights, some argue, there would be no incentive to work. And your rights only derived from your fulfilling of your responsibilities.
But who determines what your responsibilities are, and to who they are and how did they get into that position? Yes you can sit down and from first principles work out what your responsibilities might be, but in practice, who controls what you actually have to do?
Admittedly, many people have some scope to choose what they do with their lives, but they select from a palette of activities that has been prepared by whom? Those who have control of money.
This palette is for most people a selection of ways of selling their labour for income, which is what the majority of us have to do for a large proportion of our lives in order to survive. Yes there are mechanisms to tide you over lean periods, but these are there so that those in control have enough people around to deliver the work that is unavoidable if they are to maintain their position, which work extends to that needed to protect them from raids by people wanting the means to survival.
Thus the system allows government, because government can exercise military power to stop people from abroad taking the assets of the rich, and can operate a police force, which serves to try to prevent people just taking what they need, and a health service to try to keep people sufficiently active to maintain the balance that the controllers of money need to ensure they remain in control.
... to be continued (maybe)
If we had equal rights, some argue, there would be no incentive to work. And your rights only derived from your fulfilling of your responsibilities.
But who determines what your responsibilities are, and to who they are and how did they get into that position? Yes you can sit down and from first principles work out what your responsibilities might be, but in practice, who controls what you actually have to do?
Admittedly, many people have some scope to choose what they do with their lives, but they select from a palette of activities that has been prepared by whom? Those who have control of money.
This palette is for most people a selection of ways of selling their labour for income, which is what the majority of us have to do for a large proportion of our lives in order to survive. Yes there are mechanisms to tide you over lean periods, but these are there so that those in control have enough people around to deliver the work that is unavoidable if they are to maintain their position, which work extends to that needed to protect them from raids by people wanting the means to survival.
Thus the system allows government, because government can exercise military power to stop people from abroad taking the assets of the rich, and can operate a police force, which serves to try to prevent people just taking what they need, and a health service to try to keep people sufficiently active to maintain the balance that the controllers of money need to ensure they remain in control.
... to be continued (maybe)
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Two wrongs don't make a right
This maxim was cited by Edwina Currie, a former government minister, on TV (Channel 5) recently, regarding tax evasion as compared to benefit fraud.
The maxim is worth repeating; it illuminates, but it does not take into account the scale of the wrongs. Tax evasion and benefit fraud are both wrong, but the former amounts to far more £ than the latter.
This comment was provoked by a discussion of the current strike by TfL employees. Maybe TfL employees, especially train drivers, are not the most pressing cause in the drive for equality, but if banks are too big to fail and have t be bailed out, why exactly can't TfL (staff) be) bailed out?
Sorry for getting all "political" but the double standards are a bit too much.
The maxim is worth repeating; it illuminates, but it does not take into account the scale of the wrongs. Tax evasion and benefit fraud are both wrong, but the former amounts to far more £ than the latter.
This comment was provoked by a discussion of the current strike by TfL employees. Maybe TfL employees, especially train drivers, are not the most pressing cause in the drive for equality, but if banks are too big to fail and have t be bailed out, why exactly can't TfL (staff) be) bailed out?
Sorry for getting all "political" but the double standards are a bit too much.
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Equality
The death of Nelson Mandela on 5 December 2013 has caused many to reflect on racial inequality. Racial inequality is too mild a term to use when discussing apartheid, which was not only separate development, but outright violence both - corporal and structural - against non whites, but in a reflection on inequality I will stay with the generic term.
In current UK law there are 9 protected characteristics:
The most obvious and readily applied way of discriminating against someone is socio-economically; they don't get a job because of their race, say, or they don't receive as good a service as others because of their age. These are pretty clear cut, but disability is less so. It has a meaning within the act, but our abilities are relative. One might be more intelligent and/or physically stronger than another. Even if I am not considered to have a disability, your greater abilities can enable you to take a more advantaged position than me.
Surely the spirit of the legislation must be that there should be no discrimination against people who are less able (intelligent, physically strong) than others? Not that I am condoning it, but is there any less reason to rise up against socio-economic inequality than racial inequality?
In our current system the advantage of physical strength and/or intellect that someone has over another is expressed mainly in the monetary system, and our monetary system has - built in - the characteristic that money mainly flows from those who have less of it to those who have more. In an RBE, where there is no money, the system would naturally tend towards equality.
In current UK law there are 9 protected characteristics:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion and belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
- Advance equality of opportunity
- Foster good relations between different groups"
The most obvious and readily applied way of discriminating against someone is socio-economically; they don't get a job because of their race, say, or they don't receive as good a service as others because of their age. These are pretty clear cut, but disability is less so. It has a meaning within the act, but our abilities are relative. One might be more intelligent and/or physically stronger than another. Even if I am not considered to have a disability, your greater abilities can enable you to take a more advantaged position than me.
Surely the spirit of the legislation must be that there should be no discrimination against people who are less able (intelligent, physically strong) than others? Not that I am condoning it, but is there any less reason to rise up against socio-economic inequality than racial inequality?
In our current system the advantage of physical strength and/or intellect that someone has over another is expressed mainly in the monetary system, and our monetary system has - built in - the characteristic that money mainly flows from those who have less of it to those who have more. In an RBE, where there is no money, the system would naturally tend towards equality.
Friday, 15 November 2013
Drugs and money - patents or patients
Eric Merola is about to release his sequel to his 2010 Burzynski, the Movie entitled Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II. I blogged about the issues raised by the first film longer ago than I care to check.
I sometimes think that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most worrying components of our current economic system. I am not cynical enough to suggest that everyone in the business is simply out to make money and doesn't really care about the public and its diseases, but how does one reconcile the issues?
I don't claim that Burzynski is excluded from this problem. He wants to (or needs to) benefit from patents on his treatment and with the current system who can blame him?
Only a purely objective, scientific study of the effectiveness of a treatment per unit of physical resource is saisfactory.With £/$ in the equation, even if this is possible, how can we ever be sure that £/$ is not distorting the science?
I sometimes think that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most worrying components of our current economic system. I am not cynical enough to suggest that everyone in the business is simply out to make money and doesn't really care about the public and its diseases, but how does one reconcile the issues?
- Ideally, drugs / treatments should cure or relieve the symptoms of as many people as possible per unit of physical resources consumed.
- In our current system, a return on investment (of £/$) is required.
- In our current system, people need jobs
I don't claim that Burzynski is excluded from this problem. He wants to (or needs to) benefit from patents on his treatment and with the current system who can blame him?
Only a purely objective, scientific study of the effectiveness of a treatment per unit of physical resource is saisfactory.With £/$ in the equation, even if this is possible, how can we ever be sure that £/$ is not distorting the science?
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Yet more collaborative consumption aka the sharing economy
There was a brief item on the subject on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday 12 October, headed "Ownership in 2013". There's a podcast at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/today/today_20131012-1046a.mp3.
Amongst the online resources mentioned were http://www.thepeoplewhoshare.com - "making sharing mainstream. We're on a mission to build a Sharing Economy and we love to help you discover that sharing is... fun, affordable, easy, accessible, mobile and of course social. We bring it all together on-line, on land and on-the-go."
They seem to be closely related to http://www.compareandshare.com/ - "the world’s one-stop comparison marketplace of the Sharing Economy."
Then there was Find, Invest, Grow which "works with young entrepreneurs, typically undergraduates and graduates of the past five years, to see them crystallise their ideas, support them through the development of their business plans and introduce them to suitable investors".
Googling around for more information, I found an article entitled Sharing is caring in The (London) Evening Standard. This site mentions to me very well-known resources such as airbnb, but also several currently USA only schemes, the most interesting of which - to me - was Postmate, a crowd-sourced bicycle courier service.
Sorted - www.sortedlocal.com - was more UK relevant. It offers up people in your area who are willing to do gardening and chores for an hourly rate.
Amongst the online resources mentioned were http://www.thepeoplewhoshare.com - "making sharing mainstream. We're on a mission to build a Sharing Economy and we love to help you discover that sharing is... fun, affordable, easy, accessible, mobile and of course social. We bring it all together on-line, on land and on-the-go."
They seem to be closely related to http://www.compareandshare.com/ - "the world’s one-stop comparison marketplace of the Sharing Economy."
Then there was Find, Invest, Grow which "works with young entrepreneurs, typically undergraduates and graduates of the past five years, to see them crystallise their ideas, support them through the development of their business plans and introduce them to suitable investors".
Googling around for more information, I found an article entitled Sharing is caring in The (London) Evening Standard. This site mentions to me very well-known resources such as airbnb, but also several currently USA only schemes, the most interesting of which - to me - was Postmate, a crowd-sourced bicycle courier service.
Sorted - www.sortedlocal.com - was more UK relevant. It offers up people in your area who are willing to do gardening and chores for an hourly rate.
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
https://sortedlocal.com
Monday, 30 September 2013
E-books; owning books
Prompted by buying a second hand book that will have to be transported from the USA to reach me, taking maybe several weeks, and another instance of a conversation with my anti e-book friend, I thought I would explore the attraction of owning physical books (p-books as I shall call them for brevity) alongside alternative views.
My friend spoke of how impressive a study full of p-books looks. It does, but the association of having shelves of p-books with being cultured, refined, educated, clever, was first made in a time when there were no e-books.The erudite of the future won't be identifiable by their shelves of p-books. If they want to display their eclat they will have to somehow graphically represent what texts are on their e-book reader. The fact that a person has books doesn't mean they have read all or part of any of them. In fact we can safely say that everyone has books that they intend to read all of but have not. With e-books, of course, this is less of an issue, as they take up so little space.
The point of owning books on a more practical level was that you wanted them to hand. Exhortations to borrow them from the library were pointless when you wanted 24-7 access to the information. This has obviously diminished with the www where you can look "anything" up at any time. You can borrow an e-book from the library. You will have access to it for a limited time (like a p-book from the library), but I don't know if there's a limit on the number of copies available. It's not a technical limit, but the author's income stream will disappear if the e-book can be borrowed by everybody at any time, rendering "owning" it fairly pointless.
I'm sure you can see the train of thought into an RBE here. In the current system, the author of a book has to withold its text from you because he has to eat, meaning he must sell his labour, but you must also sell your labour to get money to buy the book. The logical thing to do is to share the text oif the book as widely as possible (step forward e-book) whilst ensuring that everyone is adequately nutrified as a birthright and not because they coerced to sell their labour.
This is 'structural violence' work or die - it's that simple. Would people still work if not threatened with this structural violence? Well there's only one way to find out for certain, though evidence from volunteering and charitable donations suggests people do want to help each other
My friend spoke of how impressive a study full of p-books looks. It does, but the association of having shelves of p-books with being cultured, refined, educated, clever, was first made in a time when there were no e-books.The erudite of the future won't be identifiable by their shelves of p-books. If they want to display their eclat they will have to somehow graphically represent what texts are on their e-book reader. The fact that a person has books doesn't mean they have read all or part of any of them. In fact we can safely say that everyone has books that they intend to read all of but have not. With e-books, of course, this is less of an issue, as they take up so little space.
The point of owning books on a more practical level was that you wanted them to hand. Exhortations to borrow them from the library were pointless when you wanted 24-7 access to the information. This has obviously diminished with the www where you can look "anything" up at any time. You can borrow an e-book from the library. You will have access to it for a limited time (like a p-book from the library), but I don't know if there's a limit on the number of copies available. It's not a technical limit, but the author's income stream will disappear if the e-book can be borrowed by everybody at any time, rendering "owning" it fairly pointless.
I'm sure you can see the train of thought into an RBE here. In the current system, the author of a book has to withold its text from you because he has to eat, meaning he must sell his labour, but you must also sell your labour to get money to buy the book. The logical thing to do is to share the text oif the book as widely as possible (step forward e-book) whilst ensuring that everyone is adequately nutrified as a birthright and not because they coerced to sell their labour.
This is 'structural violence' work or die - it's that simple. Would people still work if not threatened with this structural violence? Well there's only one way to find out for certain, though evidence from volunteering and charitable donations suggests people do want to help each other
Collaborative Consumption - some example enterprises
These were, I think, published in Metro (free newspaper). I am noting them here for reference. I have no knowledge of them other than their reported existence.
For a more comprehensive list of collaborative consumption enterprises, see http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/directory/. There are lots if collcon enterprises about, many of them overlapping in the service they are sharing. I think a shakedown is needed.
I don't want to be naive or offensive, but it strikes me that some of these may be helpful to those facing "bedroom tax".
www.storenextdoor.com - rent out loft/garage space to someone looking for storage space.
www.spareroom.co.uk - rooms to rent Monday - Friday for commuters
www.rentmyitems.com - rent out tools and DIY items
www.parkatmyhouse.com - rent out a private parking space
www.gocarshare.com - matches passengers with car drivers for journey cost sharing
www.taskhub.co.uk - search for odd jobs tradespeople.
For a more comprehensive list of collaborative consumption enterprises, see http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/directory/. There are lots if collcon enterprises about, many of them overlapping in the service they are sharing. I think a shakedown is needed.
I don't want to be naive or offensive, but it strikes me that some of these may be helpful to those facing "bedroom tax".
www.storenextdoor.com - rent out loft/garage space to someone looking for storage space.
www.spareroom.co.uk - rooms to rent Monday - Friday for commuters
www.rentmyitems.com - rent out tools and DIY items
www.parkatmyhouse.com - rent out a private parking space
www.gocarshare.com - matches passengers with car drivers for journey cost sharing
www.taskhub.co.uk - search for odd jobs tradespeople.
Friday, 23 August 2013
Population - again
The issue has come again in my conversation, and I'd like to expatiate again.
The planet has a carrying capacity that cannot be exceeded. This is an undisputable point. The biosphere is a finite system, whether we like / ignore the fact or not.
We can only find out what that carrying capacity is, I suggest, empirically, by increasing the population. But we still have the problem of quantifying that carrying capacity. It has to be sustainable over time; if we sustained x billion for a month but then people started to die, would that have achieved our target?
Given that we know there is an upper limit, even if we can't quantify it, do we put the brakes on now? My opponent says it is better never to exist than to be born into starvation and curable disease, and that living on another planet is purely fantasy. But this involves speculation that the human population can't be sustained by technology as yet undiscovered and uncovers profound questions about the unborn which are perhaps the epitome of speculation.
If we should put the brakes on now, the problem I still have is with targetting those social groups that currently have the most children per woman. The idea that they can't afford them, or that someone else shouldn't have to bear the expense of them is really abhorrent to me. Is there another species that goes in for this kind of social engineering? Survival of the fittest may seem cruel intellectually, but it is unavoidable in practice.
Social engineering is aan abstraction. It is us imposing our will/morals on others when there are other options.
The planet has a carrying capacity that cannot be exceeded. This is an undisputable point. The biosphere is a finite system, whether we like / ignore the fact or not.
We can only find out what that carrying capacity is, I suggest, empirically, by increasing the population. But we still have the problem of quantifying that carrying capacity. It has to be sustainable over time; if we sustained x billion for a month but then people started to die, would that have achieved our target?
Given that we know there is an upper limit, even if we can't quantify it, do we put the brakes on now? My opponent says it is better never to exist than to be born into starvation and curable disease, and that living on another planet is purely fantasy. But this involves speculation that the human population can't be sustained by technology as yet undiscovered and uncovers profound questions about the unborn which are perhaps the epitome of speculation.
If we should put the brakes on now, the problem I still have is with targetting those social groups that currently have the most children per woman. The idea that they can't afford them, or that someone else shouldn't have to bear the expense of them is really abhorrent to me. Is there another species that goes in for this kind of social engineering? Survival of the fittest may seem cruel intellectually, but it is unavoidable in practice.
Social engineering is aan abstraction. It is us imposing our will/morals on others when there are other options.
Friday, 9 August 2013
Population
On the TV news (BBC I expect) recently, an economist was wheeled out to comment on whether the increase in population in the UK and especially London is good for the economy.
Yes, of course there is a need to match resource locations to population locations - a planning and logistical challenge, but what does being 'good for the economy' entail, exactly? How do we know if our ecnomy is doing what we want from it.
"The economy" is an abstract thing, yet it is so oftem mentioned it seems real. Something good for the economy, is something good full-stop.
A good economy is a growing economy, you might say. Usually, economic growth is used to mean an increase in GDP. I have challenged this approach on this blog and elsewhere, as have others far more qualified and able than me to do so. GDP is - very roughly - how much money is spent on things. But money must be spent on things for a reason. What is that reason? What are we trying to get our economy to do?
Have people live longer? That increases population, everything else being equal, yet it does seem to be what we are trying to do. Why do we want more people alive? I would say every species tries to increase its population, so why shouldn't we?
Quantifying the population that the planet can sustain can only really be done for definite by increasing population towards that limit. Te big questin for me is do we aim to have a sustainable population over time, or at any one time.
Yes, of course there is a need to match resource locations to population locations - a planning and logistical challenge, but what does being 'good for the economy' entail, exactly? How do we know if our ecnomy is doing what we want from it.
"The economy" is an abstract thing, yet it is so oftem mentioned it seems real. Something good for the economy, is something good full-stop.
A good economy is a growing economy, you might say. Usually, economic growth is used to mean an increase in GDP. I have challenged this approach on this blog and elsewhere, as have others far more qualified and able than me to do so. GDP is - very roughly - how much money is spent on things. But money must be spent on things for a reason. What is that reason? What are we trying to get our economy to do?
Have people live longer? That increases population, everything else being equal, yet it does seem to be what we are trying to do. Why do we want more people alive? I would say every species tries to increase its population, so why shouldn't we?
Quantifying the population that the planet can sustain can only really be done for definite by increasing population towards that limit. Te big questin for me is do we aim to have a sustainable population over time, or at any one time.
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Will you take a punt?
I was conversing with a climate change sceptic today. His thesis was that the whole global warming thing is just another attempt to make money.
I can understand his cynicism. Unless we verify scientific research ourselves, how can we ever absolutely know to what extent it is purely objective, and how much of it arises from the fact that scientists have to eat and to eat the have to make money.
Yes - the oil companies may be on board with the climate change consensus to make money, but making money is what our current system idolises. It makes it very diffiicult to judge whether someone is being objective, given the temptation.
If man made climate change is really happening, and if it is catastrophic, and it is not too late to do something, then, logically, we have no choice but to act if we want to save humanity and the consquences of inaction are dire.
The consequences of action are not dire, At best we will be wasting time/effort in a misguided attempt save ourselves for something that it is not in fact a threat.
In a simple truth table it looks like this:
Four possibilities. We cannot change whether man made climate change is true or false. We can only change whether we act on it or not. If we act on it, we save ourseles from it. If we don't, we gamble on whther it is true or not.
I can understand his cynicism. Unless we verify scientific research ourselves, how can we ever absolutely know to what extent it is purely objective, and how much of it arises from the fact that scientists have to eat and to eat the have to make money.
Yes - the oil companies may be on board with the climate change consensus to make money, but making money is what our current system idolises. It makes it very diffiicult to judge whether someone is being objective, given the temptation.
If man made climate change is really happening, and if it is catastrophic, and it is not too late to do something, then, logically, we have no choice but to act if we want to save humanity and the consquences of inaction are dire.
The consequences of action are not dire, At best we will be wasting time/effort in a misguided attempt save ourselves for something that it is not in fact a threat.
In a simple truth table it looks like this:
| TRUE | FALSE | |
| ACT | OK | OK |
| DON'T ACT | !!!!!! | OK |
Four possibilities. We cannot change whether man made climate change is true or false. We can only change whether we act on it or not. If we act on it, we save ourseles from it. If we don't, we gamble on whther it is true or not.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
Manfred Max Neef
There's a playlist of videos of progressive economist Max Neef here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOsw2To4GRY&list=PLFC602C39EF0B310C
It is worthy of your time. I found a transcript here
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/22/chilean_economist_manfred_max_neef_us
from which I want to extract a nugget:
"The principles ,... of an economics which should be[,] are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.
One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy [sic]
Two, development is about people and not about objects.
Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.
Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.
Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.
And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life"
and in the interview, Max Neef clarifies / expands on two terms used:
"Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations."
"Growth is a quantitative accumulation. Development is the liberation of creative possibilities. Every living system in nature grows up to a certain point and stops growing. You are not growing anymore, nor he nor me. But we continue developing ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t be dialoguing here now. So development has no limits. Growth has limits."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOsw2To4GRY&list=PLFC602C39EF0B310C
It is worthy of your time. I found a transcript here
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/22/chilean_economist_manfred_max_neef_us
from which I want to extract a nugget:
"The principles ,... of an economics which should be[,] are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.
One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy [sic]
Two, development is about people and not about objects.
Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.
Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.
Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.
And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life"
and in the interview, Max Neef clarifies / expands on two terms used:
"Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations."
"Growth is a quantitative accumulation. Development is the liberation of creative possibilities. Every living system in nature grows up to a certain point and stops growing. You are not growing anymore, nor he nor me. But we continue developing ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t be dialoguing here now. So development has no limits. Growth has limits."
Monday, 15 July 2013
BBC compliant in "economic growth" lie
The BBC just broadcast a TV news item on the reducing rate of economic growth - a widely deployed euphemism for increase in GDP - in China. The preamble stated as fact that getting economic growth is a worldwide problem. Thus the whole item was based on the false premise that an increase in GDP is entirely desirable.
The New Scientist reported on the Genuine Progress Indicator - a measurement that removes negative elemts from GDP. As the article puts it:
"[GDP as a] measure of prosperity fails to account for social factors and environmental costs. Oil spills and crime, for example, increase GDP because money must be spent on clean-up and replacement of lost goods, yet few would claim that they increase the general well-being of a state."
The New Scientist reported on the Genuine Progress Indicator - a measurement that removes negative elemts from GDP. As the article puts it:
"[GDP as a] measure of prosperity fails to account for social factors and environmental costs. Oil spills and crime, for example, increase GDP because money must be spent on clean-up and replacement of lost goods, yet few would claim that they increase the general well-being of a state."
Housing ladder
A BBC news item I just saw on TV lamented the lack of affordable housing, particularly in London & the Southeast, but it still used the term "housing ladder". According to our crackpot system, housing has to be lower in price so that people can afford it, but once you've nought somewhere, the price is expected to go up - the housing ladder - as your "investment" pays off.
It's so self contradictory as to be laughable. Apart from anything else, your house is falling down - entropy - so how can it be increasing in value over time. OK you can improve an maintain it, to help it hold its true value, or lose it less quickly, but most house price rise is simply inflationary.
It's so self contradictory as to be laughable. Apart from anything else, your house is falling down - entropy - so how can it be increasing in value over time. OK you can improve an maintain it, to help it hold its true value, or lose it less quickly, but most house price rise is simply inflationary.
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Smoking kills but let's not abolish it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jul/12/plain-cigarette-packaging-anger-ministers
I heard a BBC Radio 4 news item along similar lines. The quote that stands out:
"plain packaging legislation could cost jobs in manufacturing and in retail".
Yes - if people stop smoking fewer cigarettes will be sold and fewer cigarettes sold and smoked means fewer jobs in the related industries. Also, fewer cigarettes sold means less GDP.
Thus jobs and GDP are placed above health and human life in the "ecomoronic" system we operate in.
I heard a BBC Radio 4 news item along similar lines. The quote that stands out:
"plain packaging legislation could cost jobs in manufacturing and in retail".
Yes - if people stop smoking fewer cigarettes will be sold and fewer cigarettes sold and smoked means fewer jobs in the related industries. Also, fewer cigarettes sold means less GDP.
Thus jobs and GDP are placed above health and human life in the "ecomoronic" system we operate in.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Workers' Self-directed Enterprises
Some paths through the transition from our current economic lunacy to a sane and sustainable Resource Based Economy would entail refrorms to the world of work.
One possibility is the WSDE which you can read more about at http://www.democracyatwork.info/. WSDE's have overtones of Co-operatives, but are not completely similar. The Mondragon Corporation is a large international company built on this model.
I picked up these snippets from an interview of soneone from http://www.extraenvironmentalist.com/. I didn't hear all of it, hence this partly digested blog entry; even so I wanted to denote the information.
One possibility is the WSDE which you can read more about at http://www.democracyatwork.info/. WSDE's have overtones of Co-operatives, but are not completely similar. The Mondragon Corporation is a large international company built on this model.
I picked up these snippets from an interview of soneone from http://www.extraenvironmentalist.com/. I didn't hear all of it, hence this partly digested blog entry; even so I wanted to denote the information.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Margaret Thatcher
Whilst one is not supposed to speak ill of the dead, it is also traditional to review someone's life when it ends. I thought I'd write on what other commentators have said about the late Mrs Thatcher.
She was a conviction politician - a person with convictions. This contrasts her with the archetypal grey suits. Admittedly someone being clear about what they belive in and following it up can be attractive but the benefits of following one's convictions rather depends on the effect they have on other people.
For me Thatcher's massive blind spot - to be kind, lie if not - was her claim that people fending for themselves as individuals is best and somehow universally applicable. She herself had considerable ability, and apparently worked hard too. But there are people who work hard and yet don't enjoy great success, and vice versa. Thatcher was content to jibe at those who used buses as being unsuccessful, but the subtext of unsuccessful was 'not hard working. It is a monumental fallacy to equate lack of success with lack of effort, and one that politicians try to disguise by constantly drawing attention to the feckless.
If she was right that it was unsustainable to support industry through taxes when it couldn't stand on its own two feet, and she may have been at least to some extent, she was nevertheless wrong to maintain that those deprived of their livelihoods when the industries closed would thrive if only they lived out her credo of hard work.
Her battle with the unions exhibited the fallacy further still. It is demonstrably untrue that hard work by itself will bring a fair share of the planet's resources to the worker, and history shows over and over again that the poor were downtrodden. The only power they really had was the power to withdraw their labour (the opposite of working hard) a power that can only be effectively exercised collectively, hence unions. It may be argued that unions had acquired too much power, but this has to be set alongside the power exercised by the rich and powerful in their own interest.
She won three general elections convincingly. This makes her good at being a politician, but again it is only what she did for other people that can be to her real credit, or debit.
And success as defined by our monetary economic system is relative. Not everyone can be a financier. Some people have to borrow money for the financier to be successful. Businesses need customers. As successful bookie wil offer good enough odds to draw in enough money from unsuccessful punters to pay out those who win bets and to keep a profit for him/herself. Success requires failure.Competition requires that there be losers as well as winners.
Thatcher's apparent inability or refusal to understand that not everyone can be successful is what I will remember her for.
She was a conviction politician - a person with convictions. This contrasts her with the archetypal grey suits. Admittedly someone being clear about what they belive in and following it up can be attractive but the benefits of following one's convictions rather depends on the effect they have on other people.
For me Thatcher's massive blind spot - to be kind, lie if not - was her claim that people fending for themselves as individuals is best and somehow universally applicable. She herself had considerable ability, and apparently worked hard too. But there are people who work hard and yet don't enjoy great success, and vice versa. Thatcher was content to jibe at those who used buses as being unsuccessful, but the subtext of unsuccessful was 'not hard working. It is a monumental fallacy to equate lack of success with lack of effort, and one that politicians try to disguise by constantly drawing attention to the feckless.
If she was right that it was unsustainable to support industry through taxes when it couldn't stand on its own two feet, and she may have been at least to some extent, she was nevertheless wrong to maintain that those deprived of their livelihoods when the industries closed would thrive if only they lived out her credo of hard work.
Her battle with the unions exhibited the fallacy further still. It is demonstrably untrue that hard work by itself will bring a fair share of the planet's resources to the worker, and history shows over and over again that the poor were downtrodden. The only power they really had was the power to withdraw their labour (the opposite of working hard) a power that can only be effectively exercised collectively, hence unions. It may be argued that unions had acquired too much power, but this has to be set alongside the power exercised by the rich and powerful in their own interest.
She won three general elections convincingly. This makes her good at being a politician, but again it is only what she did for other people that can be to her real credit, or debit.
And success as defined by our monetary economic system is relative. Not everyone can be a financier. Some people have to borrow money for the financier to be successful. Businesses need customers. As successful bookie wil offer good enough odds to draw in enough money from unsuccessful punters to pay out those who win bets and to keep a profit for him/herself. Success requires failure.Competition requires that there be losers as well as winners.
Thatcher's apparent inability or refusal to understand that not everyone can be successful is what I will remember her for.
Working hard
On the day that Margaret Thatcher died, I happened to be in Dulwich with a couple of hours to kill. Looking at the large houses and drives, and fancy shops, I reflected upon the idea of rewards for hard work that Thatcher preached, not unlike politicians before or since, though she was probably best known for it.
When we were children, my father worked 5 1/2 days a week to support his family. No-one can say he didn't work hard, and he was by no means the only one. Did we live in a large house in Dulwich? No, in fact my parents sold their east London 2 bedroomed terraced house with outside toilet to the council and rented it back.
It is clear from the number of people who work hard and have very little that life's rewards are not allocated simply on the basis of hard work.
One element of the allocation "calculation" may be innate ability. Those most talented can accrue the greatest reward. This innate talent is bot something they worked for, yet the system rewards them for having it. The system, though, does not seem to allow even subsistence level of reward as everyone's birthright, as we know from the starving millions, many of whom may have remarkable talents that will never benefit anyone if the person given the talents never has an opportunity to use them, or worse still simply dies.
Those who have the most resources at their disposal must be held most responsible for those that have the least. Hard work alone is unlikely to gain you the privelege we see in the rich and powerful.
When we were children, my father worked 5 1/2 days a week to support his family. No-one can say he didn't work hard, and he was by no means the only one. Did we live in a large house in Dulwich? No, in fact my parents sold their east London 2 bedroomed terraced house with outside toilet to the council and rented it back.
It is clear from the number of people who work hard and have very little that life's rewards are not allocated simply on the basis of hard work.
One element of the allocation "calculation" may be innate ability. Those most talented can accrue the greatest reward. This innate talent is bot something they worked for, yet the system rewards them for having it. The system, though, does not seem to allow even subsistence level of reward as everyone's birthright, as we know from the starving millions, many of whom may have remarkable talents that will never benefit anyone if the person given the talents never has an opportunity to use them, or worse still simply dies.
Those who have the most resources at their disposal must be held most responsible for those that have the least. Hard work alone is unlikely to gain you the privelege we see in the rich and powerful.
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