Accept the limits and learn to be cooperative and regenerative - References and quotes
Philosophy
2021
REFERENCES AND QUOTES
ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONSFigure 2.1, from empty to full world. Need for a change in preanalytic vision (preanalytic cognitive act that provides raw material for analytic effort), a paradigmshift – Schumpeter. “vision is the pattern or shape of the reality in question that the right hemisphere of the brain abstracts from experience and then sends to the lefte hemisphere for analysis.” Omitted from preanalytic vision cannot be recaptured by subsequent analysis – SeeDOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST on preanalytic visionsCOMMON CAUSE – THE CASE FOR WORKING WITH OUR CULTURAL VALUES Correcting vision requires new vision. Schumpeter - changes in vision “may reenter the history of every established science each time somebody teaches us to se things in a light of which the source is not to be found in the facts, methods, and results of the preexisting state of the science”. Kuhn, revolutionary science vs normal science. 23 I MEASURING REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS: 10 PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES UNDERGIRDING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC HEALTH“…vitality requires balance and integration of sizes that combine the best of both worlds, i.e., large and small, resilient and efficient, diverse and focused.” “Today's challenge, therefore, is to build integrated enterprise networks that connect small, medium, and large elements in common-cause and in service to the health of the whole. This challenge is also seen in such diverse fields as politics, healthcare, education, and urban planning.” 18 8. Promote mutually-beneficial relationships and common-cause values. “Fath [44] has shown using network analysis that ecosystems exhibit overall positive levels of mutual benefit when considering the effects of all direct and indirect relations.” “Robust ecosystems display a greater number of mutualistic relations than competitive ones. A healthy economy should also display a greater degree of mutualism.” 21 Summary of regenerative economics, “While innovative ideas and diverse individual enterprise are important to regeneration, economic behavior is also heavily shaped by a host of less traditional factors measured by the Regenerative Economy Principles (REP) above including: Robust cross-scale circulation of money, information, and resources (REP#1); Adequate investment in human, social, physical, economic, and environmental capital (REP #2); Emphasis on building capacities using renewable resources within a circular economy in which wastes become useful byproducts (REP #3, 4, 9) A diverse and balanced economy with small, medium, and large organizations exhibiting a balance of efficiency and redundancy (REP #5, 6, 7); Systemic benefits from the complex interdependence of network interactions (REP #8); Processes for learning effectively as a society in the face of mounting evidence and pressures, including science, government, corporations, and politics (rep #10).” 24 I DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMISTPower of eye and picture in changing world view See THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS Lakoff on metaphors 15219 Paul Samuelson and origin of circular flow 22 Schumpeter and preanalytic vision, Mannheim and worldview, Goffman and framing See FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTY 68, Prosperity on sacred canopy without growth 221, “map is not territory”, Korzybski “All models are wrong, but some are useful”, George Box 24 Have to replace a frame with a new one See COMMON CAUSE – THE CASE FOR WORKING WITH OUR CULTURAL VALUES 44 FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTY 82, visual framing 26 Art of articulating an new goal, help politicians and economists who lacks the imagination and words to envision a better goal for the world. People, even economists, have thought about different goals, e.g Sismondi, Rushkin, Gandhi, Schumacher, Max-Neef, Sen. The doughnut of Raworth 40 what are not included in the models is important, Sterman 60 Economics, not about finding laws but designing. Degenerative linear economy. “And the reason why even the world’s richest countries are still making us all feel the burn is because the last two hundred years of industrial activity have been based upon a linear industrial system whose design is inherently degenerative. The essence of that industrial system is the cradle-to-grave manufacturing supply chain of take, make, use, lose: extract Earth’s minerals, metals, biomass and fossil fuels; manufacture them into products; sell those on to consumers who – probably sooner rather than later will throw them ‘away’.” “But its design is fundamentally flawed because it runs counter to the living world, which thrives by continually recycling life’s building block such as carbon, oxygen, water, nitrogen and phosphorus. Industrial activity has broken these natural cycles apart, depleting nature’s sources and dumping too much waste in her sinks. Extracting oil, coal and gas from under land and sea, burning them, and dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Turning nitrogen and phosphorus into fertilizer, then offloading the effluent – from agricultural run-off and sewage – into lakes and oceans. Uprooting forests to mine metals and minerals which, once packed into consumer gadgets, well be cast onto e-waste dumpsites, with toxic chemicals leaching out into the soil, water and air.” Quotas, tiered pricing and taxes don’t do enough because of problem in setting required level to bring down environmental impacts of the economy. SeeCOLONIALISM IN THE ANTROPOCENE: THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE MONEY-ENERGY-TECHNOLOGY COMPLEX15MYTEN OM MASKINEN: ESSÄER OM MAKT; MODERNITET OCH MILJÖ 63, 64176 Instead work with paradigm/mindset and the goal of the system. SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on setting goals John Tillman Lyle, “Eventually a one-way system destroys the landscape on which it depends. The clock is always running and the flows always approaching the time when they can flow no more. In its very essence, this is a degenerative system, devouring its own sources of sustenance”. Change from degenerative to regenerative design. Responses from business when approaching the limits: 1. do nothing, 2. do what pays. 3. do fair share 177 self-determined fair share rarely does the job and fair share often slips into taking fair share. Competing for limited resources ends up transgressing the limits. 4. Do no harm. “Being less bad is not being good, it is being bad just less so” Aim/goal of doing more good. 5. Be generous, be good and start giving. Kate Raworth, “because only generous design can bring us back below the Doughnut’s ecological ceiling.” SeeTHINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on setting goals Generous regenerative design to get us back within limits. Janine Benyus and biomimicry. Learn from nature. 180 Circular economy can be seen as good start though towards regenerative design. See < THE CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY AND DECOUPLING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH. DECOUPLING DEBUNKED – EVIDENCE AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST GREEN GROWTH AS A SOLE STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY182 Recycling start doing it. 85 % of phones were not recycled. Nothing is 100 % recyclable. Look at Japan, close (98%) but no cigar. Cyclical economy instead of circular economy! SeeTHE ENTROPY LAW AND THE ECONOMIC PROCESS IN RETROSPECT on economic process as entropic, < THE CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY AND DECOUPLING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH, DECOUPLING DEBUNKED – EVIDENCE AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST GREEN GROWTH AS A SOLE STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY Wealth of people, biosphere and knowledge dissipate. 183 Redefine companies living purpose/goal. 193 I THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMERAll physical entities are constrained by nature, consumes material, energy and produces waste. “Any physical, growing system is going to run into some kind of constraint, sooner or later.” Constraint is “a balancing feedback loop that in some way shifts the dominance of the reinforcing loop driving the growth behavior, either by strengthening the outflow of by weakening the inflow:” Growth in constrained environment – the limits to growth archetype. “No real physical system can grow forever.” “In physical, exponentially growing systems, there must be a least on reinforcing loop driving the growth and at least on balancing loop constraining the growth, because no physical system can grow forever in a finite environment” Resource-constrained systems – pollution-constrained systems. 59 The depletion of nonrenewables through growth system. “A quantity growing exponentially toward a constraint or limit reaches that limit in a surprisingly short time”. Little added time to develop alternatives independent of amount of nonrenewable resource. SeePROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH63 Local limits will become global limits for growth. 65 The economic fall will be great after the production peak of an economy based on non-renewables “Unless, perhaps, the economy can learn to operate entirely from renewable resources” Two-stock systems, renewable stock constrained by a renewable stock—a fishing economy, a fishing economy. 66 Corporations trying to weaken feedback loops. 154 Paradigms, “The shared idea in the minds of society, the great big unstated assumptions, constitute that society’s paradigm, or deepest set of beliefs about how the world works.” 162, 163 Examples of paradigmatic assumptions/ideas of our modern culture: money measures something real, growth is good, natures resources are the property of humans. “Paradigms are the sources of systems. From them, from shared social agreements about the nature of reality, come system goals and information flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows, and everything else about systems.” 163 Kuhn and changing paradigms. Transcending paradigms. “your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension”164 I PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTHThe workings of company and problems of profit. Reasons firms seek profit: 1. investment in maintenance and improvements. 2. Pay creditors 3. Return to shareholders. Investment need to improve efficiency or productivity. Cost-minimization is important to companies, “The driver for efficiency is essentially the profit motive: the need to increase the difference between revenues from sales and the costs associated with the so-called factor inputs: capital, labour and material resources.” Cost minimization has a cost. Focus on minimizing labour or material resources depends on their price. Labour productivity is declining, from 4 - 5% 1960 to 0,5 % 2015, SeeTURNING POINT: THE END OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH? on useful work. Increasing labour productivity means “same quantity of goods and services with fewer people, the cycle creates a downward pressure on employment that’s only relieved if output increases.” “Efficiency quite literally drives growth forwards. By reducing labour (and resource) inputs, efficiency brings down the cost of goods over time. This has the effect of stimulating demand and promoting growth. Far from acting to reduce the throughput of goods, technological progress serves to increase production output by reducing factor costs.” Rebound effect. Physical limit to efficiency. 130 Schumpeter, creative destruction and novelty, Capitalist climate of competition of companies. We have to stop the "the structural reliance of the system itself on continued growth." "Quality is sacrificed relentlessly to volume throughput. The throwaway society is not so much a consequence of consumer greed as a structural prerequisite for survival. Novelty has become a conscript to and an agent for economic expansion." Social logic of goods, cathexis. Things as religions. Things as storage of memories and feelings. Pay for social distinction. 134 I SUSTAINABILITY ECONOMICS: WHERE DO WE STAND?How economic textbooks portrayed economic activity as a closed loop. “In contrast to the closed perpetual motion machine described above, the real economy is essentially a large-scale materials processing system, largely powered (for the present) by machines using fossil fuels that were created and stored in the earth's crust hundreds of millions of years ago. Virtually none of the materials consumed by the economy are recycled at present. The basic engine of economic growth in a massproduction manufacturing economy is the positive feedback cycle, shown in Fig. 11. In brief, the impetus to growth arises from the fact that demand for a product tends to increase as (real) prices fall. This phenomenon is called the ‘price elasticity’ of demand. Falling prices, in turn, result from exploiting economies of scale in manufacturing. Thus, firms can reduce costs, cut prices, increase sales and maximize profits (and grow) by increasing the scale of production. So ever greater consumption of resources is, ipso facto, a driver of growth in this paradigm: consumption (leading to investment and technological progress) drives growth, just as growth and technological progress drives consumption.”292To encouragement
Next encouragement