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.

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."

Creativity and growth

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1298959-is-the-uk-too-posh-to-push-for-growth

Refreshing to hear Tony Greenham of the New Economic Foundation in this discussion on BBC Radio 4s Today programme this morning separaing out GDP growth from the growth we actually want. I wish he'd had more time. Mariana Mazzucato had the lion's share, it seemed to me, but spoke about standard economic stuff without challenging the assumption that increase in GDP is unequivocally good.

Tony pointed out that crime and the destruction of rainforests contribute to GDP, he opined. I would disagree with him that growth in jobs is desirable. It's interesting that he should have that in his list alongside sustainability and equality.

Libertarianism vs an RBE

http://managainstthestate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/2nd-post-to-ben-mcleish.html

Ben McLeish of the Zeitgeist Movement and Graham Wright, author of the above blog, are having an interesting debate on the merits (or not) of an RBE cf the libertarian Austrian Economics model.

There are surprising points of agreement, which make me wonder whether AE isn't closer to an RBE than the current economic system.

But I have lighted on Wright's response to a comment on his blog, here separtaed into individual points with my thoughts:

•  "Economics is the study of the logical consequences of human action". Maybe. As many know, economics is more literally something like household management, and I prefer that as a definition or starting point.
  
• "Political philosophy is about devising a set of principles for ownership (i.e. who has ultimate decision-making jurisdiction over which resources)". In an RBE there is no need for ownership, only access. As to decision-making, decisions would be arrived at by applying the scientific method.
• "economics can teach what consequences we can expect from different ownership principles being used in societies". Maybe it can, but in an RBE we are not interested in "ownership models".
• " Economics is the body of knowledge that can tell us whether resources will be used more efficiently for satisfying human desire [in one or another system]". In economics the word 'want' covers what would commonly be distinguished as 'need' and if 'desire' is used in the same sense as 'want' it has the same problem as far as I am concerned.

What is the overarching aim of a system for operating planet earth (which is what economics should be about)? Ownership isn't a first principle. You own something so that you can exclusive and unlimited access it - thus access underlies ownership and it is what an RBE seeks to optimise.

Somewhere in their discussion, McLeish differentiates 'good' growth from 'bad' growth and Wright asks him to explain/clarify. I don't know if he has done so, but Robert Kennedy's critique of GDP/GNP will serve (see http://www2.mccombs.utexas.edu/faculty/michael.brandl/main%20page%20items/Kennedy%20on%20GNP.htm):

"Our gross national product ... counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. .... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

So, we are looking for growth in the good things Kennedy lists here. I'm sure that's a close enough description of 'good growth' for McLeish.

As appealing as quality of life and/or happiness are as indicators, they are tricky to enumerate. If you are healthy and happy you will presumably live longer. Maybe life length is a good enough proxy for 'good growth'. That said, if people live longer there will be more of us on the planet. Maybe populatiin is the simplest proxy for good growth? Obviously, there is a limit to how many people the planet can sustain. If our resource efficiency is optimal, we will be sustaining as much population as those resources can allow.

Jobs and growth

Text of letter submitted to Barking & Dagenham Post, for publication:

"

Like many politicians, Barking’s MP Margaret Hodge repeats the jobs and growth fable. In her MP’s column (BD Post, 23 May) she hints at jobs in defence and Aerospace. British Aerospace makes an impressive fighter jet – if we could sell more of these we could create more jobs. The best thing to do would be to sell them to all sides in any conflict as this should help extend the conflict, increase demand for the planes and create more jobs. Perhaps we could also make and sell land mines - if we don’t already - as there’s a lucrative market in devices to find and neutralise them as well, which we could expand into. The destruction wrought by war is excellent for economic growth, as it creates the need for lots of construction work, not least for hospitals to treat the wounded combatants and innocents. Our own involvement in any conflict will also increase the threat (real or perceived) of attacks on our country. This will generate lots of work for the security services and industry, armed forces and police.

This extreme example of the very serious failings of growth in GDP as a goal for our planet’s economy  may seem sarcastic, but it’s very real. “Growth” sounds positive, but lift up the bonnet and examine more closely what growth in GDP actually entails and it quickly loses its attraction.

An increasing number of people – though apparently not politicians - are realising the truth that we live on a finite planet, so growth cannot continue for ever, and advocating  as the economic goal for ‘spaceship earth’ the well-being of the creatures on this planet, especially humans. First and foremost this requires the meeting of the biological needs of people on the planet – nutrition and water, shelter and such basics that a large number of our fellow human beings want for.  I think the ‘spaceship earth’ metaphor is a good one. On a spaceship you would look to conserve resources and co-operate to ensure the success of the mission. You would mininimise the amount of work needed to fulfil the mission, especially the work done by people (by use of automation). In our homes we broadly welcome the labour saving brought by technology, yet our politicians cry out for more jobs, meaning , more work to do  except  for the public sector, where they say they want greater efficiency, which pretty much entails fewer jobs.)

The future for our species is the use of science and technology to increase human well-being directly, within the finite resources available. Jobs and growth have nothing to do with this."

Good old earthquakes and tsunamis

Sorry to be flippant about such natural disasters, but I have been provoked. Sean O'Grady has pointed out, in The Independent newspaper, that "the longer-term boost to spending from reconstruction and development can even help an economy". It's true, GDP will be helped, but an ounce of common sense show this up for how warped and stupid this claim that natural disasters have advantages is.

Are we so blinded by the need to increase GDP, that we cannot see that this paradox does not have to exist? The destruction of property is not a good thing and in no way should it be mistaken for growth in any positive way. OK, with it being a natural disaster, we could sustain an argument that the damage should be excluded from GDP/growth calculations, but if it were counted, in the negative direction, then all the warning systems, earth quake and tsunami proofing and general avoidance of destruction would limit the negative effect of the natural disasters on our sane GDP calculation.

Economic growth

The new series of In Business on BBC Radio 4 started this week with an analysis of Economic growth, entitled "Growing Pains. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w228b I found it balanced, and was pleased that even those who defended it said that it wasn't an end in itself - something our politicians need to learn.

I think it is plausible that human ingenuity will grow infinitely, but some commentators doubt that it can grow quickly enough to tackle our planet's imminent problems by itself. it is plainly true that we have a finite limit on our physical resources - we are in a resource based economy in the general sense even if past economists have wrongly predicted when we would reach them. I think we need to start preparing for the inevitability now.

Economic growth sounds OK, or even good. That's part of the problem. It is technically an increase in Gross Domestic Product (or maybe Gross National Product - the difference isn't important in this context), yet it can include the productive value of clearing up after environmental disasters, or dealing with disease break outs. (Obviously dealing with them is a good thing to do in individual cases, but we don't want any more, just to get economic growth. What we in fact want is growth in healthiness, amongst other things).
And it's all very well scoffing at at attempts to measure happiness, but we do actually want to be happier, so why not try?

Some proponents of economic growth on the radio programme claimed that life expectancy has improved because of economic growth. Whether or not that is true, or whether its a cum ergo ergo propter hoc argument is not really the point. The increase in life expectancy is the thing being aimed for and what we should keep our sights on.

Let's get good at killing people and good at stopping ourselves too

BBC TV's technology programme 'Click' admiringly showed a new gadget that can detect the newer type of land mine that's made of plastic to avoid detection by metal detectors. Admittedly this is clever gadge, but here we have human ingenuity (and technological ingenuity, very possibly) working against itself - one working out how to kill people and the other working out how to stop them. Still, this all makes work and money and counts as GDP, so that's OK, I suppose? I wonder whether the same company manages to make and sell both the mines and the detectors

No - it's complete lunacy. It makes discussing public sector back-office staff look like a waste of energy. Let's take a serious look at ourselves as a race here. We put our finest minds and engineers to work perfecting the art of killing their fellow human beings, and call it 'economic growth' when they sell more of their pernicious weapons.

Decouple work from the need to access the necessities of life and people can immediately stop working both on weapons and the means of neutralising or countering weapons, and do something socially constructive or if not nothing.

Three reasons to scrap GDP

It's easy to hear the words "economic growth" and think it sounds good, but it's the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This article

http://www.condoroptions.com/index.php/more-to-life/three-reasons-to-scrap-gdp/

Has a nice three point critique.

This quote from Robert F Kennedy is used to crystallise the argument:

"The gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. GNP (a slightly different but related measure) includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm, and missiles and nuclear warheads… it does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Defenders of it say "that GDP was never intended to be a catch-all measurement for quality of life or the overall success of a country. But that’s precisely what it has become."