"This is why, despite the economies of the global north recovering since the financial crash of 2008, people’s lives are getting worse: the money is rushing to the top, not the bottom. "
In addition, declining EROEI is in effect reducing the value of what money there is at the bottom. With a world average EROEI now down to 6:1, we are but one step away from a pre-1750 agrarian civilisation, except that we haven't the right infrastructure (eg lots of draught horses) for that.
Thus the reason the NHS is collapsing, potholes are increasing, teenagers getting cancer regularly, is not just Tory perfidity and neo-liberal narcissist ideology, but the increasing cost of energy used to extract and produce the energy we do use.
And you know nothing will be done about it. To quote John Kenneth Galbraith:
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material portion of their privilege.”
So even if your privilege only extends to an 80" TV, Universal Credit and feral children with scrambler bikes, you will defend that to ruin rather than choose to accept a lower standard of living now, that is going to be imposed on you anyway at a later point.
2026 will be an interesting year. The world's economy will collapse (they occur every 18 years), coinciding with warming reaching +2*C above the 1850 baseline. Though this time the banks may too big to save, with world debt now bigger than world GDP.
I think the Chinese model of socialism with Chinese characteristics (placing more emphasis on harmony and quality of life) has lifted millions out of poverty and the wealth created by consuming energy has been shared out.
However, they're burning a lot of coal to restructure into electric and growth even if, unlike the imperial model benefiting the 1% at the expense of the 99%, the wealth is share; it will have the same effect on the planet. Fair or unfair growth will mean we all suffer (unequally between Global North and South) from the climate crisis.
These economies that have created billionaires and ruined the planet will end. It's all created by fossil fuels, which are becoming ever harder to extract and therefore more expensive to extract. At some point, there won't be any economically viable oil to be found. And guess what? All of that nice "clean" renewable energy we're trying to build? It requires massive amounts of fossil fuels. Economic growth is ending one way or another. In fact, it's going to be a complete crash.
Very well written, Rachel. I couldn't stop reading if I'd wanted to. It is so sad what we're doing to ourselves and our home. Thank you for the important work you're doing.
“Economies are merely ways of human organisation, unlimited in their potential diversity, and compromised only by humankind’s lack of integrity and crisis of creativity. “
An alternative: economies are our uniquely human way of being in an artificial world that we make for ourselves, through our technologies, out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, as mutual aid societies for sharing an abundance of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our best lives under the circumstances every day, through networks of connections for enterprise and exchange that are energized by money as a legal instrument that facilitates exchanges between people separated by distances of time, space and social connection, and also the social energy that directs the flow of individual insight and initiative towards some activities, and away from others, to innovate a safe and dignified house for humanity within built environments of Urban, Rural, Curated and Left-Alone landscapes along the creative edge of a constantly changing Human-Nature partnership, choosing new beginnings from time to time, and over time, to fit the changing times, normatively, through Civil Society, predistributively, through Finance, distributively, through Enterprise, and redistributively, through Government.
Money is the social energy that holds our house together. Or tears it apart.
Finance is how society decides where the money can, should and will be made to go, to hold our house together, when the money goes to the right places, to shape the right enterprises in the right way for shaping the right technologies for shaping the right choices for shaping the right economy for shaping a cohesive society and keeping it ongoing, united in shared hope for a dignified future quality of life; or to break it apart when it goes to the wrong places.
Nate Hagens, of the Great Simplification podcast, has numerous times said that the present mode of world economy utterly and completely depends upon "negative economic externalties" -- which are mostly in the form of pollution and destruction of ecosystems and the biosphere. I believe he is quite correct, which means that we'd have to "internalize" those "externalities" to come into right relationship with this living planet, Earth.
One place he said it was in one of his several talks with Daniel Schmachtenberger.:
Daniel Schmachtenberger (00:40:30):
"So we didn't get to yet... We just started to touch on the fact that the economy as we understand it, is
incompatible with the biosphere, that the production of goods and services, that profit is both a
measure of production but also a measure of extraction and externalization, that until the economy
does not have extraction and internalization [This should be externalization - JRM]] as realities within it, then it's accounting is wrong. It's basically just got messed up books because it's unrenewably taking from the balance sheet of natureand it's unrenewably taking assets from the balance sheet of nature and unrenewably putting costs into the balance sheet of nature, not accounting for it in a way that breaks that if you just even get the accounting right, then you start to have an economy that makes sense. But that does require changes that would look nothing like capitalism, socialism or any type of system we've had to date."
Nate Hagens (00:41:27):
"Well, for one reason, because if you to use ecological economics terms, if you internalize all the
externalities, most industries on the planet would be unprofitable. So if you try to close loop this stuff,
who bears the cost of that? Because the closed loop stuff is going to be a lot more costly and so either
the governments bear that cost or consumers bear it with much higher prices or using less stuff and
we're not going to voluntarily on mass choose that."
I'm hoping that we will voluntarily choose that, of course. Because the alternative is a catastrophic collapse not only of the economy but also of the biosphere itself.
I never thought of this before, but we reify a system ('the economy') that is based on objectification (e.g., of nature as resource instead of life source, not to mention beauty, etc) and commodification. So it is Cartesian dualism squared or even cubed. Thus begetting exponential growth. Sigh.... We have to evolve to the point of seeing everything as consciousness, and the main currency being love, begetting an economy based upon caring instead of exploiting. Then there would no longer be any reason for war. You know that is what the non-dualopoly political parties expound (e.g., RFK, Cornell West, and Marianne Williamson). I wish they'd come together as one movement instead of being balkanized by special interest politics. We need a political movement that is based on solidarity instead of growth.
Rachel, this post makes me wonder whether you envision future episodes around commoning? Seems to me there is much practical hope to be found in its logic of stewardship, limits, and cooperation – and its mycelial network of projects. I know a few episodes have touched on it of course, and I've likely missed more.
Climate crisis - I'm unable to observe the actual existence of one in my neck of the woods. There are some minor irregularities in weather patterns, but nothing that would be nowhere near to what one would understand under the term 'crisis'. Anybody sees anything resembling a crisis? I'm all ears!
Limits to growth - much has been said about that; alas, neither the proponents nor the opponents care to elucidate what is meant by growth and limits. Ditto other terms, which are employed liberally without actually defining them, so we'd be kinda on the same page as to what we're talking about.
Great article, Rachel. But surprising to see such an insightful writer as yourself still using sexist language like mankind and man. Please replace with humankind or humanity, or use the plural form.
First, I am not convinced that all 'wealth' has a material basis. That is why I call much of the stock market gains 'phantom wealth.' It is a product of the operation of the financial markets themselves, their manipulation, and the ability of some to regularly generate 'wealth' from that manipulation, irresepective of any material value or gain underlying the equities involved. We must also consider the other layer of power that Marjorie Kelly calls "wealth supremacy." Power breeds more power.
However, it all requires increasing use of energy, and the AI models may just blow it all out of the water much sooner than we expect because of the massive processing required for the continuation of that rapidly growing fad of the technocratic class.
Most find it extremely difficult to acknowledge that money and economics are both human constructions and any 'laws' we may think we observe are if nothing else, historically situational tendencies. That means, of course, that all the obsession with economic growth is a fantasy sustained by the propaganda of the domination culture that drives finance capital, After all, as John Lennon said shortly before he was assassinated, "they have all the money, all the guns."
That domination sustains the myth of economic growth as the measure of 'progress' without reference to equitable distribution or any matter of justice. And that domination is what we must overcome...
The enigma of this is the poor do seem to need economic growth. They need good food, safe housing, energy, education, medicine etc. I don't see any reason why they can't have these things - as long as we are talking about 'clean' energy and 'clean food' and we try to build New Urbanism / Ecocities instead of suburbia. So while I'm happy to call myself a climate activist and New Urbanist - I'm not sure I'm ready to say I'm a degrowther? Yet? Because while I'm sympathetic to many of the aims of Degrowthers - I'm not quite sure what that movement would do to the broader economy and the chances of the poor having what they need.
Not that I'm promoting "infinite growth" either. Once we give everyone everything they need - especially educating little girls to empower the women they grow into - the Demographic Transition kicks in and people start having less babies. If we get the welfare settings right, we could be talking 6 billion by 2100! Now THAT is Degrowth! The economy seems to have some of the tools it needs to adjust to less consumers over the coming generations.
Beautifully written, Rachel. Deeply grateful for your voice in these times.
"This is why, despite the economies of the global north recovering since the financial crash of 2008, people’s lives are getting worse: the money is rushing to the top, not the bottom. "
In addition, declining EROEI is in effect reducing the value of what money there is at the bottom. With a world average EROEI now down to 6:1, we are but one step away from a pre-1750 agrarian civilisation, except that we haven't the right infrastructure (eg lots of draught horses) for that.
Thus the reason the NHS is collapsing, potholes are increasing, teenagers getting cancer regularly, is not just Tory perfidity and neo-liberal narcissist ideology, but the increasing cost of energy used to extract and produce the energy we do use.
And you know nothing will be done about it. To quote John Kenneth Galbraith:
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material portion of their privilege.”
So even if your privilege only extends to an 80" TV, Universal Credit and feral children with scrambler bikes, you will defend that to ruin rather than choose to accept a lower standard of living now, that is going to be imposed on you anyway at a later point.
2026 will be an interesting year. The world's economy will collapse (they occur every 18 years), coinciding with warming reaching +2*C above the 1850 baseline. Though this time the banks may too big to save, with world debt now bigger than world GDP.
Welcome to hell indeed.
I think the Chinese model of socialism with Chinese characteristics (placing more emphasis on harmony and quality of life) has lifted millions out of poverty and the wealth created by consuming energy has been shared out.
However, they're burning a lot of coal to restructure into electric and growth even if, unlike the imperial model benefiting the 1% at the expense of the 99%, the wealth is share; it will have the same effect on the planet. Fair or unfair growth will mean we all suffer (unequally between Global North and South) from the climate crisis.
These economies that have created billionaires and ruined the planet will end. It's all created by fossil fuels, which are becoming ever harder to extract and therefore more expensive to extract. At some point, there won't be any economically viable oil to be found. And guess what? All of that nice "clean" renewable energy we're trying to build? It requires massive amounts of fossil fuels. Economic growth is ending one way or another. In fact, it's going to be a complete crash.
Very well written, Rachel. I couldn't stop reading if I'd wanted to. It is so sad what we're doing to ourselves and our home. Thank you for the important work you're doing.
Nice and true one.
Banging article Rachel, on point and powerful. Thank you
“Economies are merely ways of human organisation, unlimited in their potential diversity, and compromised only by humankind’s lack of integrity and crisis of creativity. “
An alternative: economies are our uniquely human way of being in an artificial world that we make for ourselves, through our technologies, out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, as mutual aid societies for sharing an abundance of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our best lives under the circumstances every day, through networks of connections for enterprise and exchange that are energized by money as a legal instrument that facilitates exchanges between people separated by distances of time, space and social connection, and also the social energy that directs the flow of individual insight and initiative towards some activities, and away from others, to innovate a safe and dignified house for humanity within built environments of Urban, Rural, Curated and Left-Alone landscapes along the creative edge of a constantly changing Human-Nature partnership, choosing new beginnings from time to time, and over time, to fit the changing times, normatively, through Civil Society, predistributively, through Finance, distributively, through Enterprise, and redistributively, through Government.
Money is the social energy that holds our house together. Or tears it apart.
Finance is how society decides where the money can, should and will be made to go, to hold our house together, when the money goes to the right places, to shape the right enterprises in the right way for shaping the right technologies for shaping the right choices for shaping the right economy for shaping a cohesive society and keeping it ongoing, united in shared hope for a dignified future quality of life; or to break it apart when it goes to the wrong places.
How well do we know Finance?
Not well at all.
Nate Hagens, of the Great Simplification podcast, has numerous times said that the present mode of world economy utterly and completely depends upon "negative economic externalties" -- which are mostly in the form of pollution and destruction of ecosystems and the biosphere. I believe he is quite correct, which means that we'd have to "internalize" those "externalities" to come into right relationship with this living planet, Earth.
One place he said it was in one of his several talks with Daniel Schmachtenberger.:
Daniel Schmachtenberger (00:40:30):
"So we didn't get to yet... We just started to touch on the fact that the economy as we understand it, is
incompatible with the biosphere, that the production of goods and services, that profit is both a
measure of production but also a measure of extraction and externalization, that until the economy
does not have extraction and internalization [This should be externalization - JRM]] as realities within it, then it's accounting is wrong. It's basically just got messed up books because it's unrenewably taking from the balance sheet of natureand it's unrenewably taking assets from the balance sheet of nature and unrenewably putting costs into the balance sheet of nature, not accounting for it in a way that breaks that if you just even get the accounting right, then you start to have an economy that makes sense. But that does require changes that would look nothing like capitalism, socialism or any type of system we've had to date."
Nate Hagens (00:41:27):
"Well, for one reason, because if you to use ecological economics terms, if you internalize all the
externalities, most industries on the planet would be unprofitable. So if you try to close loop this stuff,
who bears the cost of that? Because the closed loop stuff is going to be a lot more costly and so either
the governments bear that cost or consumers bear it with much higher prices or using less stuff and
we're not going to voluntarily on mass choose that."
-- Source: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/42-daniel-schmachtenberger
___________
I'm hoping that we will voluntarily choose that, of course. Because the alternative is a catastrophic collapse not only of the economy but also of the biosphere itself.
So, what to do?
I never thought of this before, but we reify a system ('the economy') that is based on objectification (e.g., of nature as resource instead of life source, not to mention beauty, etc) and commodification. So it is Cartesian dualism squared or even cubed. Thus begetting exponential growth. Sigh.... We have to evolve to the point of seeing everything as consciousness, and the main currency being love, begetting an economy based upon caring instead of exploiting. Then there would no longer be any reason for war. You know that is what the non-dualopoly political parties expound (e.g., RFK, Cornell West, and Marianne Williamson). I wish they'd come together as one movement instead of being balkanized by special interest politics. We need a political movement that is based on solidarity instead of growth.
Rachel, this post makes me wonder whether you envision future episodes around commoning? Seems to me there is much practical hope to be found in its logic of stewardship, limits, and cooperation – and its mycelial network of projects. I know a few episodes have touched on it of course, and I've likely missed more.
Climate crisis - I'm unable to observe the actual existence of one in my neck of the woods. There are some minor irregularities in weather patterns, but nothing that would be nowhere near to what one would understand under the term 'crisis'. Anybody sees anything resembling a crisis? I'm all ears!
Limits to growth - much has been said about that; alas, neither the proponents nor the opponents care to elucidate what is meant by growth and limits. Ditto other terms, which are employed liberally without actually defining them, so we'd be kinda on the same page as to what we're talking about.
Great article, Rachel. But surprising to see such an insightful writer as yourself still using sexist language like mankind and man. Please replace with humankind or humanity, or use the plural form.
Well said, Rachel. A few thoughts to add.
First, I am not convinced that all 'wealth' has a material basis. That is why I call much of the stock market gains 'phantom wealth.' It is a product of the operation of the financial markets themselves, their manipulation, and the ability of some to regularly generate 'wealth' from that manipulation, irresepective of any material value or gain underlying the equities involved. We must also consider the other layer of power that Marjorie Kelly calls "wealth supremacy." Power breeds more power.
However, it all requires increasing use of energy, and the AI models may just blow it all out of the water much sooner than we expect because of the massive processing required for the continuation of that rapidly growing fad of the technocratic class.
Most find it extremely difficult to acknowledge that money and economics are both human constructions and any 'laws' we may think we observe are if nothing else, historically situational tendencies. That means, of course, that all the obsession with economic growth is a fantasy sustained by the propaganda of the domination culture that drives finance capital, After all, as John Lennon said shortly before he was assassinated, "they have all the money, all the guns."
That domination sustains the myth of economic growth as the measure of 'progress' without reference to equitable distribution or any matter of justice. And that domination is what we must overcome...
The enigma of this is the poor do seem to need economic growth. They need good food, safe housing, energy, education, medicine etc. I don't see any reason why they can't have these things - as long as we are talking about 'clean' energy and 'clean food' and we try to build New Urbanism / Ecocities instead of suburbia. So while I'm happy to call myself a climate activist and New Urbanist - I'm not sure I'm ready to say I'm a degrowther? Yet? Because while I'm sympathetic to many of the aims of Degrowthers - I'm not quite sure what that movement would do to the broader economy and the chances of the poor having what they need.
Not that I'm promoting "infinite growth" either. Once we give everyone everything they need - especially educating little girls to empower the women they grow into - the Demographic Transition kicks in and people start having less babies. If we get the welfare settings right, we could be talking 6 billion by 2100! Now THAT is Degrowth! The economy seems to have some of the tools it needs to adjust to less consumers over the coming generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy