The US is Politically to the Right of [Other] Democracies

You're viewing a single thread.

231 comments

Don’t forget that scarcity is literally the goal of many people trying to make sure we avoid climate change.
It’s not my view, but many many people are talking about “reducing consumption” for humanity. They never come out and acknowledge that their economy-shrinking tactics are making life miserable for poor people, but they’d have to be blind not to understand it.
- You're talking about a completely different kind of scarcity.
  The artificial scarcity we're talking about is things like monopolistic industry restricting the theoretical max output of a good solely for profit (i.e. throwing out perfectly good food/product to make way for new, but not necessarily better stock, making farmers re-buy seeds every year through utility patents, making defective-by-design products to require the purchasing of new goods over repairing old ones, intellectual property rights restricting who can manufacture and build upon technologies and ideas, etc)
  The "scarcity," or rather, reduced material use and consumption being promoted by environmentalists is completely different. We should sell and use the stock we already have before we create entirely new products, while claiming the old ones are now irrelevant. We should still sell fruits and vegetables that aren't as aesthetically pleasing, instead of throwing them away. We shouldn't buy products solely designed to temporarily relieve us of the effects of the Hedonic Treadmill, instead focusing on building a society where consumption is not the primary means of self-worth and growth.
  None of this means you don't eat, don't have clothes to wear, don't have a roof over your head, don't have transportation to get around, or don't have luxuries. It just means that those same actions are done using less, and getting more, not for the sole sake of profit, but for the sake of the planet, and the individual themselves.
  Artificial scarcity is production that goes straight to landfills, ideas that are restricted from free use, artificially expensive goods, and an inefficient allocation of goods and services in an economy.
  Reduced consumption is a reduction of waste, fair pricing, and longer-lasting goods that don't just serve to provide recurring revenue to a corporation's shareholders.
  
  The artificial scarcity we're talking about is things like monopolistic industry restricting the theoretical max output of a good solely for profit
  Yeah monopolies are really bad. Which industries do you believe are monopolized right now?
  
  I mean, it's a pretty long list 😅 Pretty much every industry has major players that engage in monopolistic practices, whether it be software and hardware companies like Apple, Google, or Microsoft controlling operating system and hardware distribution and production in a manner that effectively creates a duopoly for both the smartphone and PC market, or grocery store chains like Kroger buying up all the smaller brands, then using that to jack up prices.
  I did bring up a specific case in my prior post that I think is a good example though, and that's utility patents on seeds to restrict their re-use, primarily done by companies like Bayer (which has bought up and killed off many seed brands over the years to form a near-monopoly on the industry, with only a few other major players) essentially requires that farmers can only use their seeds a certain amount of times before they're legally obligated to re-purchase new ones. (even though the old seeds still work perfectly fine)
  Not only does this mean you have to pay more money for produce (and the goods made from it) because farmers have to raise prices to cover costs, but it also means that the theoretical max capacity for food production is limited by how many new seeds farmers can afford to purchase year after year, and the fact that they can't gift them to anyone else to help spread agricultural practices to new farmers.
  We have antitrust laws, many are already advocating for them to be used against these monopolies, yet the government does nothing to stop them.
  It's disappointing, to say the least.
- There are many, many different ways in which the economy could be shrunk. Many have the downside which you mention; making life miserable. But also many, other ways avoid this problem. A few examples how this could look like:
  reduce consumption of the super rich
  reduce production of trash products like plastic toys or single use vapes
  remove laws which enforce waste, such as minimum parking spots
  in urban design: prioritize mass transit, biking and walking over motorized individual transportation
  When discussing these things, we should never forget that too little, too late action will certainly lead to what you wanted to avoid; making life miserable for poor people.
  
  reduce consumption of the super rich - interesting idea. sci fi at this point. all the consumption-reduction is hitting the poor so far
  reduce production of trash products like plastic toys or single use vapes - eliminating those jobs, removing choice from people over what they use
  remove laws which enforce waste, such as minimum parking spots - agree, zoning in general means enormous deviation from market equilibrium, meaning tons of economic value wasted
  in urban design: prioritize mass transit, biking and walking over motorized individual transportation - as usual, ignores the time cost to people. Time is people’s most limited resource. Taking away people’s time makes them poorer
- Ideally what we'd do is shift from polluting to non-polluting forms of consumption - such as by switching from coal and natural gas to renewables. Some would claim this is "economy shrinking" because we'd be pushing people away from one and towards the other by artificial means like taxes and subsidies.
  But what these arguments fail to recognize is that we're already doing that. We can't pretend that the government has nothing to do with setting incentives when it lets coal plants pollute for free, and also gives them free police and military protection to stop any citizens or foreign countries that may be on the less beneficial end of that pollution from doing anything about it. So in essence discouraging and eventually ending the burning of fossil fuels is putting an end to the tax we all already pay in the form of bad health outcomes and lost current and future land value from pollution.

231 comments