Sometimes there
are links to an article that is long and difficult just for the hell of
it. Especially if it is one that goes
against the grain of general assumptions and leaves you with the feeling that
you now know less than you did.
The one
flagged below is about productive capacity in the UK
Except it
does not appear to do. If anything it
could be on a gentle downward slope. The
trouble is that all our expectations, increasing government debt and notions
about what improves economic growth have this built in feature of endlessly
improving productivity.
To his
credit the writer, Simon Wren-Lewis, admits it is a puzzle to which he is
struggling to find the answer. Also,
that an infinite number of questions could be begged in search of the
statistics and facts that might lead to an answer.
But what if
we are truly entering an era where the age of more, more, more is no more and
it is all going to be less, less less.
We may well have more population and want to do more for them but the
chances are there is not going to be the energy, the real money or the capacity
to do it.
In short
the economic world we have been living in for the last two to three hundred
years is slowly evaporating in the same way that other human worlds may have
done in the past. In the UK
As the
machines in the sky photograph our world in ever increasing detail one of the
things that is showing up is the vast numbers of one form of human habitation
or another down the centuries that have gone and been forgotten.
Normally,
this blog like to go for a really splendid catastrophe causing chaos. It is torn between geophysical events or the
impact of collapse dynamics on global financial systems. Indeed a nasty bug or two could do the trick
as well.
Others
argue about climate change, whether we shall all roast or freeze. But the terrible thought that the next
cataclysm in human population could be just a gentle decline in resource
availability and consequential reducing productive capacity is something of a
let down.
On the
other hand slow cooking is said to be a lot more tasty.
I think there is certainly a problem when we produce and do so much that seems to be either harmful, useless or of no lasting value.
ReplyDeleteAll this output is counted positively in national statistics if it involves spending money. Value though - we don't measure that and don't know how to.