#11 Eco-socialism Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism Green Party of United States www.gp.org/ Green Party’s Ten Key Values www.gp.org/ten_key_values #12 Fully Automated Luxury Communism Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto by Aaron Bastani www.versobooks.com/books/3156-fully-automated-luxury-communism Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani - a manifesto for the future www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/29/fully-automated-luxury-communism-aaron-bastani-review Fully Automated Luxury Communism harpers.org/archive/2019/06/fully-automated-luxury-communism-bastani-conscience-churchland-dry-heart-natalia-ginzburg/ Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto By Aaron Bastani www.societyandspace.org/articles/fully-automated-luxury-communism-a-manifesto-by-aaron-bastani The World Is a Mess. We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism. www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/opinion/fully-automated-luxury-communism.html Automated Luxury Communism? Even when consumer paradise seems near, there’s always more work to be done. www.wsj.com/articles/automated-luxury-communism-11621185487?mod=flipboard Give Us Fully Automated Luxury Communism - A new book proposes we let robots do all the work. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/give-us-fully-automated-luxury-communism/592099/?T10%3A00%3A23& #13 Participatory economics Overview participatoryeconomy.org/the-model/overview/ #14 Permacircular economy wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Perma-Circularity arnsperger-perma-circular.com/ Ecologie intégrale : pour une société permacirculaire www.franceculture.fr/oeuvre/ecologie-integrale-pour-une-societe-permacirculaire #15 Plenitude economy True Wealth - How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy by Juliet B. Schor www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305486/true-wealth-by-juliet-b-schor/ Beyond Business as Usual, We can't simply grow our way out of unemployment. www.thenation.com/article/archive/beyond-business-usual/ #16 Postdevelopment The Development Dictionary, A Guide to Knowledge as Power, Wolfgang Sachs (Anthology Editor) www.bloomsbury.com/us/development-dictionary-9781786997524/ Postdevelopment theory (also post-development or anti-development or development criticism) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdevelopment_theory #17 Social and Solidarity Economy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_economy Worker Co-ops and the Social and Solidarity Economy canadianworker.coop/worker-co-ops-and-the-social-and-solidarity-economy/ Social economy project provides €1.3m to Belgian real estate co-op - The funding helped the co-op secure a new building which will house victims of domestic abuse www.thenews.coop/161284/sector/housing/social-economy-project-provides-e1-3m-to-belgian-real-estate-co-op/ Social and Solidarity Economy plans to face social disadvantages. Welfare cannot be the only solution against inequality: it is necessary to redistribute resources from other sources or, better still, generate new ones and develop other services to dedicate them to reducing social disadvantages. oncubanews.com/en/cuba/economy/cuban-economy/social-and-solidarity-economy-plans-to-face-social-disadvantages/ A Charter for the Social Solidarity Economy www.resilience.org/stories/2019-08-01/a-charter-for-the-social-solidarity-economy/ How SEIZE is bringing the social and solidarity economy to Concordia The business incubator was approved for funding during the November CSU by-election thelinknewspaper.ca/article/how-seize-is-bringing-the-social-and-solidarity-economy-to-concordia Keolis has set the goal of tripling the share of alternative drive bus kilometres by 2030. 2021 revenues were up 3.7% www.sustainable-bus.com/news/keolis-results-2021/ The Art Worlds We Want: Solidarity Art Economies nonprofitquarterly.org/the-art-worlds-we-want-solidarity-art-economies/ Social and Solidarity Economy Network anticipates ‘more disruption’ in ’21 newsismybusiness.com/social-and-solidarity-economy-network-anticipates-more-disruption-in-21/ Research to Build Resilient Social Economy Ecosystems in Europe. Under the broad umbrella of “the social economy,” research has a major role to play in helping us better understand the strengths and weaknesses of multiple forms of social entrepreneurship. ssir.org/articles/entry/research_to_build_resilient_social_economy_ecosystems_in_europe Introduction: The Challenge of Scaling Up Social and Solidarity Economy by Peter Utting www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/social-and-solidarity-economy-beyond-the-fringe/introduction-the-challenge-of-scaling-up-social-and-solidarity-economy #18 Steady-state economics Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy steadystate.org/discover/definition-of-steady-state-economy/ A steady-state economy, Herman Daly, 1st April 2008 theecologist.org/2008/apr/01/steady-state-economy The “Selling” of Degrowth. Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late? fpif.org/the-selling-of-degrowth/ Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224 Economic growth is destroying the planet - here’s an alternative rabble.ca/columnists/economic-growth-is-destroying-the-planet-heres-an-alternative/ Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World, His Life and Ideas By Peter A. Victor www.routledge.com/Herman-Dalys-Economics-for-a-Full-World-His-Life-and-Ideas/Victor/p/book/9780367556952#:~:text=%22A%20profound%20and%20captivating%20account,scale%20and%20entropy%20rule%20supreme.%22 #19 Trekonomics [THIS IS MORE OF AN UTOPIAN DREAM] Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek by Manu Saadia www.goodreads.com/book/show/27040338-trekonomics?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=S4CIOTrh25&rank=1 The "Trekonomics" of why the crew of the Starship Enterprise doesn't get paid www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/covid-consequences-immigration-interrupted-and-who-gets-canada-s-first-vaccines-1.5746377/the-trekonomics-of-why-the-crew-of-the-starship-enterprise-doesn-t-get-paid-1.5746383 Science fiction can help predict the future-whether it will be utopian interplanetary communities or ruthless colonial societies. As humans look toward building new worlds in space, a question looms: Will we drag our problems with us? atmos.earth/the-expanse-space-colonization-kendra-pierre-louis/ What the economics of Star Trek can teach us about the real world www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/07/what-the-economics-of-star-trek-can-teach-us-about-the-real-world/ The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society www.wired.com/2016/05/geeks-guide-star-trek-economics/ Smith, Marx, and... Picard?: Star Trek and Our Economic Future. "In every revolution, there's one man with a vision." - Captain James T. Kirk www.startrek.com/news/smith-marx-and-picard-star-trek-and-our-economic-future See also other alternatives: Solar Communism www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/cop-21-paris-climate-change-global-warming-fossil-fuels/ Transition town en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_town transitionnetwork.org/ Collapsology: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapsology Wellbeing Economy: weall.org/ The New Economics: A Manifesto by Steve Keen www.goodreads.com/book/show/59640898-the-new-economics Solidarity Economics solidarityeconomics.org/ Library Socialism (yes, it's a real thing) boingboing.net/2019/11/24/usufruct-complementarity-irred.html
May i Ask,didnt Romania under ceausescu become a modern fully industrialized country with free healthcare,free education and housing and a job for all and paid parental leave?
We haven't had capitalism since coming off the gold standard. Central banking bailouts on the backs of the working class via currency dillution is Marxism! Thete are no bailouts in capitalism. When you run out of capital you go bust and liquidate yout assets to stronger hands.
Inclusive Democracy by Takis Foutopolis? The problem with a lot of the proposals is they are not systems but a set of values and or desires like don't destroy the environment. We need to define a system and its institutions that results in the values we desire (freedom, equality, solidarity, sustainability...) with a highly probable analysis of why it will deliver those values and it wouldn't hurt to also have a critique of why the current system (capitalism, markets) is failing at delivering those values. Then discussions can happen to compare alternative "systems".
I recommend checking out a book published in 1950 called *The Social Costs of Private Enterprise* by K William Kapp. It was written in response to the renewed interest in Liberal economics (neoliberals like Hayek). It was later retitled *The Social Costs of Business Enterprise.*
Damn, the only alternative I was aware of were worker co-ops. I had no ideea there were these many potential economic systems. I really hope we'll make movements towards these in the future. De asemenea ma bucur sa vad un economist socialist roman :)
Thank you Cristiander. Yes, there is progress but we need to push harder. Mă gândesc să fac un canal în romană dar mai întâi încerc să îl cresc pe acesta. UA-cam nu mă ajută deloc. Nu arată video urile la vieweri noi.
@@VladBunea da, e o strategie bună. Keep up the good work tho. Your videos are very informative. I'll see if I can post your stuff on reddit, since that's how I found you
Worker Coops can be created and run democraticly today. You only need to buy it as you buy any other business. Workers can unionize and pool together enough money to buy the business they work in and re-eorganize it as a worker Coops, but why has this not been done more than it is? It would have been the norm if it actually was profitable.
His definition of capitalism excludes the more relevant factors that allow the capitalist systems to outperform all others. All economic well-being beyond just survival requires specialization, trade, and markets to work. Capitalism (not crony government capitalism like we are evolving) has failure mechanisms that allow progress. If Nordstroms doesn't make its customers happy, it will cease to exist. If the DMV screws up everything those bureaucrats will just get good retirements.
Thank you. I've been thinking for months about why I haven't heard about some futuristic economic idea that could benefit people more than capitalism. I listened to a few podcasts/lectures on my search about how capitalism has failed but never could find any alternatives. I appreciate your collection of bright ideas. The fact is. Capitalism simply doesn't work if we plan to keep our civilization going millions of years into the future.
@@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993 how can you be so certain of that? some of these are very modest. capitalism is clearly not working, so we need to be willing to try alternatives
@@asdfghyter A Cause That I Am Most Definitely Down For. The S.S.A.C Cause ( meaning ) Scientifically, Systematically Abolishing Capitalism I am 37 years old by the way, Black American male.
Why can't we go millions of years into the future with capitalism? if this is a matter of finite resources on earth, we go into other planets and stars and done. It's necessary for the improvement of human life to explore more and more resources and these resources are infinite because the universe is.
Hey Vlad I was wondering if you could talk about what is called “The Great Gatsby Curve”. it is a study back in 2010 which talks about income inequality, wealth inequality, and its relationship to social and economic mobility.
Hi Ryan, I'm aware of the The Great Gatsby Curve. I am working on a long essay on inequality where I draw on data from wid.world/, ecological economists, and philosophical sources. It might take a few weeks because I am an one man operation: writing, filming, editing etc.
If you Ban people from being able to go out into the world; buy raw material, make and sell a product, and re-invest money to make more of that product... you end up putting so much power into a centralised power system; that if the system fails or makes a mistake (cough* kills all the sparrows and causes famine) you end up with too 'few' alternative products. You can argue that 'no centralisation' is required but someone somewhere writes the rules, then someone somewhere compels others to follow those rules (by threat of force)... otherwise people would still be able to accrue capital and make things. I can only see a mixture of elements from different systems working long term. Not total replacement.
Ideally these would be purely voluntary associations. Maybe it's not illegal to own and trade goods, but it may be socially unacceptable. Or perhaps survival dictates cooperation through some sort of systemic disaster.
@@CarrotConsumer Sure but someone still needs to decide who to allocate resources to; in order to create which products/services. The point is having some kind of planning system AND something like a freemarket (with capital being allocated by people voting with their wallets)... is MUCH safer than eliminating one or the other. Both from a disaster avoidance point of view (as a back up if the planning system makes a fatal error), and an innovation one (markets and planning often innovate hand in hand).
@frankddt A Cause That I Am Most Definitely Down For. The S.S.A.C Cause ( meaning ) Scientifically, Systematically Abolishing Capitalism I am 37 years old by the way, Black American male.
The only reason that I have ever found to desire power over others is to block anyone else from claiming that power. 😁 Even at that, it's only a temporary measure, a "holding action," because the system is CLEARLY effed-up if it's leaving that much power lying around, able to be taken up by someone like me. The system must be revised, or replaced.
Distributism: about distributing private property amongst the largest reasonable number of people in a somwhat regualated market economy, cooperativism is closely related to this model
All of then were quite flimsy or flawed imo.. I'd suggest a better idea now but I doubt anyone would be allowed to see it.. atm. You will all see it though.
FALC will ONLY work if all NEED based goods and services are accessible in equitable portions to all humans first! NO want based goods until this is perfected while protecting our plant and animal life!
Solution: Egalitarian Equitarian Utopian Socialism ( primary objective is to sustain all life, improve life, maximize self actualization without money or desire for power )!
@@ohdude6643yes unfortunately we are beings that can never be satisfied for a long time any system suggested to remove capitalism is unrealistic on the grounds of thinking we can all be under the same mindset and spiritual teachings which is unkikely
We don’t like the fact that there exists suffering in the world? Let’s just build a utopia and put it in the name of our new system! Why did I never think of that?
All of those things are against the natural order of humanity we are hierarchical, inherently, not equal imperfect, and non-democratic this kind of system would fall apart the second you tried it, because you would need extremely horrible actions to take place in order to get there, and all of the atrocities he would have to commit would destroy society before you could even get there
Great video! Of the ones you present, I like the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) primarily because you can incorporate almost all of the others under its umbrella. I do like the use of worker cooperatives, employee owned companies, egalitarianism, inclusion, and decentralized community decision-making and addressing environmental matters as well--which would likely be executed locally. Some matters may have to be addressed above the local levels and it is helpful to have a functioning model which can work with local units to accomplish larger goals.
Oops. You missed a big one. Parallel economics. It justifies Carbon Quantitative Easing and is critical to our continuing existence. Important in the proposed system is the concept of “optimal growth” which is informed by biophysical economics (and thermodynamically balanced). See The Ministry for the Future for the science fiction popularized version.
"Important in the proposed system is the concept of “optimal growth” " We're already overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~70% per year. Unless we end that overshoot, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable (those are just the laws of nature). So ANY model has to work with a transition to an economy that is 50% the size of the current economy and stops growing.
Good talk. Thanks for raising the topic. I am familiar with PROUT, (Progressive Utilization Theory) by Indian philosopher PR Sarkar. A blend of socialism for infrastructure and large efforts, cooperatives of various kinds for medium sized operations, and “mom and pop” type capitalism on a local level. Below excerpted from Wikipedia. Prout advocates a three-tiered approach to industrial organization. Key industries and public utilities would operate on a no profit - no loss basis as these are resources held on trust for the public. Decentralized industry run by cooperatives would provide people's minimum necessities and other amenities of life. The majority of economic transactions would be through producers' and consumers' cooperatives.[12] Incentives for people serving society would be funded via surpluses.[12] A small business sector would also operate providing goods and services on a more individualized basis. At the political level, Prout discourages nationalism, though nation-states would form a world government[12][13] in the form of a confederation. There would be a world constitution and a bill of rights for human being,[12] and for ensuring the biological diversity and security of animals and plants. Locally governed self-sufficient socio-economic units or zones would support a decentralized economy.
thank you so much for this video, you are a true modern hero for inspiring people through knowledge. I really want to discover more about these revolutionary ideas, thank you again, keep going
I wish you could have covered yanis varoufakis's system he presents in "another now" - I don't know enough of the details of his system, but it would have been good to see it contrasted against these others. Maybe it warrants it's own video?
I read "Another Now" but I did not know what to make of it, what to call Yanis's "system". Quantum-post-capitalism democratic wellbeing? I am now waiting for Yanis to embrace degrowth. It is only a matter of time.😀
@@VladBunea yeah- i wouldn't even know what to name it either. Still, maybe there's a video's worth of content in it? I hear he has a book on technofeudalism coming out in the fall- maybe closer to then?
Yanis is not the first to come up with the idea of technofeudalism, btw. I've seen it first in French here Cédric Durand, Technoféodalisme. Critique de l’économie numérique, 2020, La Découverte, Paris
"There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a “third” ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or an above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity."
I didnt understand; 1. When you break the triad capital =my savings savings = skill skill=ownership ownership =power at basic level. So does it mean individual rights are dissolved? And transfered to a committee with minimal understanding than me in regeneration of the above. 2. Isn't this inefficiency going to build up and eventually explode any system as is the law of nature? 3. Cant capitalism be augmented to solve this issues like environmental problems. eg Using esg and sse. Thanks in advance.
There is no “law of nature”. That is an illusion. Capitalism cannot be “upgraded” because it has the growth imperative. We need a completely new system of incentives. Individual rights will be extended not reduced.
(inglish grammar is not fully comprehended by me)Hi! I wached the viseon and while i was doing it, i understood that the ideal economy MUST include all of these ideas and most inmportant one, unfortunately, was missing here. The most important idea is an answer to the question: How we can get there? Luckaly I am deweloping a practical metod, a sistem that will make the world you discribed in this wideo, the reality of our lives. Since i was deweloping my system from ground zero, I didn'n new that the idias i came up ,while building my system, were already parshaly deweloped with all of these autors. Your wideo made me wery hapy becouse I understood that I am on the right direction, and the teoretic part of my tecnological model(of how we can make these idias the realyti of our lives) is olmost fully deweloped. Thank you! Seeyou in World Without War.
Degrowth is a great idea for all the reasons you stated. I've noticed that a great many anti-capitalists still cling to Marxism, ML, communism, etc. I feel like these ideologies are kind of obsolete but I struggle to articulate exactly why when engaging them. Would be a great topic to tackle in a video, winning over people who are already somewhat amenable would be a great place to start for Degrowth movement!
Maybe because capitalist society is dominated by bourgeois ideas? Is it because the bourgeois media kindly instills the idea that the main and only alternative to capitalism is obsolete? Hmm, coincidence?
Is there an economic Model who functions like the old Greek democracy? As far as i know politicians were alotted randomly from the general public for a fixed term of i Believe 1 year. This way it was guarenteed that the most plural and diverse people had the power, concentration of power was prevented. I think the Problem today stems from the fact that decision Holders are often from the same Group of people, who Naturally want to accummulate power.
I think the defining feature of capitalism is that it motivates people to contribute and allows people to choose how they want to do so allowing people to leverage their strengths and allowing us all to benefit. It also allows people to do things that most people find useless like youtubers.
"I think the defining feature of capitalism is that it motivates people to contribute and allows people to choose how they want to do so allowing people to leverage their strengths and allowing us all to benefit." For it's entire history, capitalism has made a small minority very rich by looting from and exploiting the majority--as well as steadily destroying the ecosystems (and climate) that all life on Earth depends on.
@karlwheatley1244 I barely make 6 figures and my quality of life is better than the kings of history. Same is true for most Americans. Capitalism had raised the quality of life for almost everyone on the planet. Global poverty has been diminished to the extent that the only way you can expect to live in true poverty is to find somewhere without capitalism. Every implementation of communism and socialism has led to starvation and misery. Meanwhile most people in developed capitalist countries can only experience misery comparing themselves to people who bring great change or value to the world. Real concerns like safety, food and shelter are only a concern for those who choose not to put in minimal effort to do so. People travel across the world to get here for happiness. While people in this country won't move to the suburbs to get what they want.
@@CodeBonYT Thanks for your reply. "Capitalism had raised the quality of life for almost everyone on the planet." Hmm, I have a couple of thoughts on that. First, capitalists sell us all sorts of things by exaggerating their benefits and downplaying their flaws, but perhaps their most profitable sales job of all time was selling us on the false notion that capitalism and capitalism alone was possible for the improvements in living standards we enjoyed. Unfortunately, that's nonsense or propaganda. The amazing standards of living you and I now enjoy were only made possible by combining the power of good government, science, capitalism, and fossil fuels. Without any of those four, we would easily be living like people did in the late 1800s. Second, for its entire history, capitalism has always made some people and nations rich by exploiting and looting from others, and looting from the planet in ways that are currently pushing us toward ecological and societal collapse. From the land enclosures of Europe to stealing entire land masses from indigenous people, enslaving Africans for centuries, the richer countries using their power to force poorer and weaker countries to trade with than based on exploitative terms, to warming the planet and plundering the Earth's treasure, it's always been an unjust and unsustainable system. So yeah, I'm one of the lucky ones living in the American empire by people and places that got exploited are not so lucky. "Global poverty has been diminished to the extent that the only way you can expect to live in true poverty is to find somewhere without capitalism." If we use the American poverty line for an individual, 6.5 billion people, or roughly 82% of the global population now live in poverty. If we recognize that people in so-called developing nations often live in larger family units and use the U.S. poverty line for a family of six, then roughly 5.5 billion people, or 65% of the world still lives in poverty. Critically, and even acknowledging that you and I work hard, our outsize wealth was only made possible by centuries of looting and exploitation (often savage exploitation) of people in poorer countries. With help from science, good government, and especially energy-dense fossil fuels, industrialized capitalism helped throw some of us a lavish party for 150 years, but it did so by exploiting other people and the planet. In the end, it is a self-terminating system that flies in the face of the laws of nature. Take care.
@@karlwheatley1244the problem with capitalism is that you can use it to define anything especially today you can use it suggest it's bad qualities and qualify it as such only for example here you mention looting but looting another country is not capitalism
@@iannamboga7995 Capitalism is inherently a looting mechanism--it always has been and always will be. For example, research has shown that if you subtract from the valuation of industries the ecological destruction they have caused, there are none that would still be profitable. Net wealth isn't created--one type of wealth is destroyed to create another, while exploiting lots of less fortunate and powerful people in the process.
What happens with ownership of means of production and capital? Neither of the 19 solutions clarifies it. They all make some hints at it but no clear position on what happens with it. I just finished writing a book, political fiction, that talks about transfer of ownership of means of production and capital from employers to employees within existing political system and creating of a system that will move away from capitalism as we know it today, that is, make a first step towards "Trekonomics". I didn't publish it, yet bc I don't know how to make it accessible to be read by more people. If anyone is interested in reading it I'd be very happy to email it to. Or, if anyone has any ideas how to help me bring it out, please let me know.
I talk about that in this video How to Convert a Public Corporation into a Worker Democracy ua-cam.com/video/n-_zw-e5Dt8/v-deo.html …and others. I’d like to read your book. Please send it to me to vladbunea at gmail dot com.
The real danger is forced equality and equity. How do people think they would achieve the separate economic system they favor? How to destroy / replace the current system that is NOT Capitalism by a long shot since the regulations / government influence and force makes it non-Capitalistic and close to a Fascist economic system.
Degrowth is correct in its assessment that less dependence on resources is required, but it fails in equating economic growth with growth in resource consumption. Economic growth is measured in terms of currency, as a proxy for utility. If something is made with less material inputs, it can still have higher utility than an alternative using more inputs. "Phones" are a good example, in that they are more useful, more energy efficient, and more expensive than their desktop computer predecessors, yet consume fewer material inputs. Another example is services, which in some cases consume no inputs other than the food the provider consumes, the majority of which is a fixed overhead cost which cannot be reduced. "Keeping the lights on" is not optional for living creatures. Capitalism is benefited by reduction of inputs and simultaneous increase in utility, so it is self-incentivizing in that regard, but since humans are resistant to change, it requires some additional incentive. That is where government's function as an allocator of resources is indispensable. What I hope people get from this enumeration of "alternatives" is that we don't have to choose one of them to the exclusion of others. What we already have, and always will have, is a hybrid of many formalized systems. The task is not to eliminate entire principles, such as individual property rights, but to devise effective constraints to prevent the excesses of any one economic scheme. We simultaneously observe excesses of capitalism and excesses of socialism, for example, so it seems clear to me that checks and balances are superior to any sort of purism. Failure to compromise usually leads to failure to manage.
"Degrowth is correct in its assessment that less dependence on resources is required, but it fails in equating economic growth with growth in resource consumption. Economic growth is measured in terms of currency, as a proxy for utility." Given that there is almost a perfect 100% correlation between the size and growth in the global economy and the size and growth of global use of materials and energy, the de-growthers are correct in equating GDP with material use, energy use, and thus higher levels of ecological destruction.
@@karlwheatley1244 I'm not saying that they aren't correlated, I'm saying that the correlation isn't mandatory, and that it's possible to enjoy life just as fully for less material input. If you are focused exclusively on the currency-valued GDP, you can totally miss reductions in per-capita resource consumption, when they occur. And since energy is the primary input, we are already making progress via renewables and energy efficiency. It's not enough, and it's not fast enough, but it is moving in the right direction.
@@crawkn Thanks for your reply. "it's possible to enjoy life just as fully for less material input." I agree with that, and I think most people in countries like America would be happier if they could break their addiction to stuff and live with less, but focus on quality experiences. Having said that, most people go the opposite direction--the moment they get more money they buy more stuff. "I'm saying that the correlation isn't mandatory, " If you're saying that raising global GDP on the one hand doesn't have to go along with increasing energy use, material throughput, and ecological damage on the other hand, no one has proved that is possible. And if I buy less stuff, GDP is decreased compared to if I buy more stuff. "If you are focused exclusively on the currency-valued GDP, you can totally miss reductions in per-capita resource consumption, when they occur." Globally, at any level of technological sophistication, higher GDP always means more resource consumption. "And since energy is the primary input..." No, materials are a critical input for all goods and services, including the energy sector. I think a society who lives in cities and suburbs often forgets how things are made. For the typical object, about 50 times more material than the volume of the finished products is mined or used in the manufacture of that object. "It's not enough, and it's not fast enough, but it is moving in the right direction." We're both hoping for the same thing here, but most people just don't understand that there is almost a 100% direct correlation between material use and GDP. For energy, there's about a 1.1% gain in efficiency per year, so we can generate the same amount of GDP with a tiny bit less energy this year than last year. But there's no substantial de-coupling globally. Also, within a capitalist economy, due to Jevons Paradox, efficiency gains usually lead to greater total use of energy, meaning gains in efficiency actually lead to more total energy use and more ecological destruction. Critically, we are currently overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~70% per year, so unless we shrink the global economy 50% and keep it's size smaller forever, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable. Only developing nations have sustainable per person ecological footprints, and the typical American needs to shrink their footprint around 80%: That requires much simpler lives, very low meat/beef diets, more use of mass transportation, etc. Take care.
@@karlwheatley1244 I'm not going to try to answer every point you made, because that would be redundant. I'm not saying that we can have continued economic growth _the same way consumerism is currently done_ while reducing inputs. I'm saying that the paradigm needs to change, and people need to learn how to get more enriching experiences (many of which cost money), and own fewer, more efficient and simultaneously more valuable things. Energy is the primary input for things because we use it to do all of the work to mine, refine, move, and manufacture. Without energy, the stuff stays where it is. If the energy isn't from fossil fuels, it's not polluting, and it doesn't cost more energy just to get the energy. This is a fundamental difference. Continued economic growth is _currently_ tethered to pathological possession-oriented consumerism, but it is possible to decouple the two phenomena. The proof that it is possible is that there are people already living such a lifestyle, yet they still earn and spend money. Money can and in the future will be spent on lower material footprint lifestyles. Perhaps most significantly, this paradigm shift will definitely not be brought about by telling people they must be financially poorer, which is what must happen for GDP to shrink. Even if it is truly the best thing for them, they aren't going to accept it.
@@crawkn Thanks for the thoughtful response. "Energy is the primary input for things because we use it to do all of the work to mine, refine, move, and manufacture. Without energy, the stuff stays where it is." You can't pick one or the other: Both energy and materials are important, because without materials, there isn't any stuff, and even the energy sector is very materials dependent. "Continued economic growth is currently tethered to pathological possession-oriented consumerism, but it is possible to decouple the two phenomena." Unfortunately, there's no evidence that it is possible to achieve de-coupling of global economic growth from increases in energy use OR material throughput. None. If everyone starts buying much less stuff next year, the global economy would shrink. Critically, and as I tried to explain, because were are already in ecological overshoot and because economic growth is tightly tied to higher energy use, greater material throughput, and more ecological destruction, we have to learn to live with a non-growing economy. You and I agree that transitioning to renewable energy is essential, and that will shrink our ecological footprint dramatically, but if we then kept growing the economy, we'd be right back in overshoot. There's no such thing as "green energy": Wind turbines and solar panels and batteries have their own harmful ecological impacts. "Perhaps most significantly, this paradigm shift will definitely not be brought about by telling people they must be financially poorer." Three thoughts: In wealthy countries and globally, vast economic inequality is the central driver of social dysfunctions, political dysfunction, and exploitation, so the rich people and countries DO need to be made poorer--there's no other way to save both ecosystems and societies. For example, families too poor to do anything else will keep burning wood or garbage to cook on. Second, because income is tightly tied to higher levels of ecological destruction, if people aren't poorer, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable, unless you are going to tightly regulate total consumption of goods and services. Third, in less unequal societies, it's possible to have greater economic security and better health and happiness with less money. The idea that growing the size of the economy was the royal road to a better world was always a deadly trap that was leading us toward collapse. Take care.
This would have been useful if you provided practical examples. Which I think is why most alternatives never work, they are just impossible to apply outside the realm of theory.
In my opinion all these rely on the assumption that humans will behave accordingly which is at best ideal. Unfortunately capitalism answers tye question we all have inside us i have this but what can i do to get more and that can be both a bad and good thing depending on how the intention is acted upon. We neeed to find ways of solving the waste it causes tho. If we are equal then no one is different but if we are all different (which is human beings) then we cant be equal unfortunately Plus most of these exist somewhere in some fashion vis a vis capitalism which shows you how it adapts to whatever people want it to be
any alternative system that wishes to defeat capitalism has to maintain or expand the rate of technological growth and quality of life. We have to expand into other planets and other stars and harvest resources from them in order to forever expand our lifestyle.
#RegulateTheRich - Yes, fixing upper income limit cap to regulate the rich is the way forward, to achieve an #NoRichNoPoor EQUITABLE society. No one should earn more than 10 times the national average income. A one world #CooperativeSocialism is the way to go to eliminate corruption, nepotism, unemployment and poverty. No better solution exists to achieve #CommonProsperity..
I agree that a classless society would be great, however I see two flaws in your solution. A, you must "regulate" an income cap, which implies someone has some control of someone else in order to regulate. Therefore, creating a hierarchy of power, thus opening up your system to corruption in the form of abusing the power to cap income. Secondly, said system doesn't quell the infinite demand our society holds to maintain itself at this quality. Regulating the 1% is good but won't solve a massive problem of capitalism that is the 99% who consume at levels that are unsustainable and exist on such a grand scale population wise, that its unsustainable environmentally and economically to feed each and every person
The 1% consume as much as the bottom 50%. It’s very unequal. We don’t need hierarchies of power to regulate the rich. We can have a non governmental independent organization built on dynamic governance (decentralized decision making) - sometimes called sociocracy - to regulate maximum income.
Rather than a sudden cutoff at the income limit, an approach curve of ever-increasing resistance like relatively with the speed of light, would make sense. And since most people already can’t handle the math that is required on tax day, the taxation needs to be automatically calculated. We would all love to have that yearly month of our lives back, to do something meaningful instead of shuffling our financial paperwork.
The problem is INCOME. Billionaires don't have an income. That's why they don't pay income tax.they do not work at a job for a paycheck. They have assets that they borrow against. There is no tax on debt. They use debt as money. You can't legislate income equality. You would have to totally change the tax system as it stands. Tax the rich is just something politicians say to get your vote. You want to raise income tax on Billionaires to 90%? OK. What's 90% of zero? You won't get any money out of them. You have to understand how the money game is played at advanced levels before you can change it.
The basic components of production are: land, labour, capital. That is land and captial are distinctions. This is the defnition of capital as used by the original economic theorists. Karl Marx wrote, "Das Kapital" and used the word as though it was anything that can be bought by money. It misunderstnds the whole theory of economics. All Marxism as basically about misundertood words. Finid out what the word capital actually means and it will solve most of your problems.
"he basic components of production are: land, labour, capital." You left out energy which has been THE major force allowing for the massive expansion of the global economy and the human population. Without the added energy from fossil fuels, 2023 would look a lot more like 1873 than we care to admit. Of course we must break the FF habit now.
@@karlwheatley1244 I believe you mean oil. That's part of land. There are many books you can read to learn about this. The most authoritative would be those by Adam Smith such as the wealth of nations. The best written would be progress and poverty by Henry George. Many modern books such as basic economics by Thomas Sowell will cover the same points and may be easier to read because of their reference to present time examples.
@@DaronRyanAustralia Uhhh, it's pretty obvious you are using three categories to discuss the same thing that I am using four categories to discuss, so suggesting I read this or that book on economics is inappropriate. Also, neo-classical economics was based on the delusion that the Earth is separate from ecosystems and that the Earth has infinite raw materials and infinite capacity to absorb our wastes, so that whole paradigm of economics has to be thrown out the window and replaced with some form of ecological economics that recognizes that the world has four economies or systems of providing for our needs and that the private sector economy is a totally dependent subsystem of the Earth economy. Unfortunately, our industrialized capitalist consumerist economy is currently destroying the Earth economy that all life on Earth (including our whole civilization) is totally dependent on. Thus, we have to replace industrialized capitalism with an economic systems based on the laws of nature, or worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable. As for how many categories to use when discussing the factors in production, I will respectfully repeat that making energy its own category is critical, especially since sunlight is not land, and neither is wind. Take care.
I think it is a mistake to focus on capitalism, communism, socialism or any other 'ism'. The fault is not with the economic system but with the lack of democracy. China and Russia are nasty dictatorships. If they had real democracy, they would probably work despite whatever level of communism they have. America is loosing her democracy with voting suppression, voting denial, gerrymandering and her crazy voting system of delegates. As such she is likely to fail. Was there ever a system of communism with democracy. Sure. The Kibutzim (plural of Kibutz) system was fiercely democratic and it worked a treat. The main function of a democracy is to vote the rascals out before they get too attached to their seats and to give them a period in the wilderness to consider their faults. Any system will work reasonably well as long as it is truly democratic.
@@philv2529 My apologies, I had a feeling it was lyrics from a song but I was in a snarky mood, and let's face it we are all in this capitalist mess together so we may as well enjoy the ride even as this runaway train of capitalism crashes.
I'm born to lose autistic. I have been to Russia, E. Germany, the DPRK, China, Mongolia. Communism may not be perfect but neither is capitalism. I lived in China for 4 yrs. I like degrowth, our declining population is good for the planet and shouldn't be seen as a crisis.
This video is silly - capitalism only means extending property rights to the consumer goods market, the labor market, and the capital market. If you agree with having these three markets, then you are a capitalist. If you want to get rid of any of these markets, you need to explain how, and this video didn't do that in many cases.
No mention of accounting, depreciation, planned obsolescence. We could have made accounting mandatory in high schools in the 1950s. The nitwit economists do not talk about the depreciation of durable consumer goods. Of course planned obsolescence means those consumer goods depreciate faster than necessary. We are trapped in this economic power game. Intellectuals will argue about your various proposals forever. See: The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood Adam Smith wrote, "read, write and account" multiple times in Wealth of Nations. He used the word 'education' Eighty Times. Economists do not include the depreciation of durable consumer goods in their Net Domestic Product equation. In fact they hardly mention NDP. It's a Big Lie!
One thing one can learn from life is, ultimately all ideologies, thoughts and innovations thrive only under a liberal, capitalist democracy. People confuse capitalism with liberal, capitalist democracies, but the later is quite different than the former. Take the example of the USA, it's more free social services than any other country in the world, yet it's not a socialist country. China, a country with ruthless, Victorian capitalist system, with fake social services, is considered a socialist country. Why do people try to find alternatives to Western, liberal, capitalist democracies?! Is it because such systems almost eliminated poverty? Eliminated child mortality? Made medicine and healthcare technologies that allow humans to live longer? Like in one of Seinfeld's episode, George doesn't like to take a taxi, Jerry's surprised and asks, what don't you like about it, the speed, the comfort, the convenience?!
No. Society cannot function without hierarchies. It was very deceptive to put that there without actually stating why those communities could successfully live in egalitarianism.
Vlad, degrowth is for the uninspired bored petty bourgeois post modernists. Those educated enough, plenty of household wealth, food in the fridge, warm in winter, cool in summer and idle with much spare time. They have time to think themselves humanitarian. Try selling degrowth to your average South East Asian, African or middle eastern leader! I don’t think you will be rushed for the link to your degrowth manifesto.
I’ve heard this before many times. It’s the most common objection to degrowth: try to convince the South, try to convince the working class. [By the way can we please use the verb “convince” or “persuade” instead of “sell”? I’m not asking for money in exchange for the degrowth idea]. So, I would tell the South: degrowth means ending your exploitation by the North for your cheap labor, cheap energy, cheap land, so you can GROW too until you meet the North within planetary boundaries. Do you think they’ll like that? I will tell the working class: degrowth is less working hours for the same pay, less power for the ruling class and more power for you, more income and wealth distribution etc etc. Do you think they will like that? So, degrowth is not bourgeois. Please read more about it.
@@VladBunea Vlad you are dreaming. You have heard it all before because it is most likely true that degrowth as you envision it will compound the plight of the least fortunate. People want prosperity, education, health, sanitation, safety. None of that will be achieved through cutting them off from the sources of income and wealth. Here’s a question, where is your program of cutting people off from material advantages had desired outcomes? I’m guessing it’s not Cuba is it?
@@patricksee10 I heard it before because it's one of the most ignorant critiques. Did I not say above that the South needs to GROW, that the working class will get MORE? I repeat it because you ignored it. Degrowth is about MORE prosperity for ALL humans, and less prosperity and debauchery for the ruling class. I will repeat this over and over until everyone gets it. Cuba happens to be close to the degrowth material targets, I repeat, material, not political, not democratic. We cut off the elite from overconsumption not the vast majority of humans. We need to talk about material limits to our lifestyles, on average.
@@VladBunea Your chosen socialist oligarchs will arrange an army to impose egalitarianism on the greedy to smash overconsumption so the the needy may prosper on the surpluses that will be apparent, that’s it in short is it Vlad? You have an instructive case study in South Africa right now.
You don't know what you are talking about. Who said anything about socialist oligarchs? Degrowth is about radical democracy. Do your reading. Degrowth wants nothing less than full democracy in corporations: managers and executives hired and fired by workers, wages decided by all employees, democratically, maximum wages gaps decided democratically, etc etc. I hope you know how democracy works, do you?
Oh. Your definition of capitalism limps on both feet. I inherently dislike these definitions because they are based on class struggle. By their very nature, I completely disregard the democratic process. "Degrowth" is a terrible idea to me. Resignation to human nature, the desire to move forward. As such, it doesn't hold up - even if Europe were to move to this system, in time it would be overwhelmed by states that chose to continue with a market economy. Capitalism has problems - but at the same time it has solutions. Most of the problems I hear in videos like this revolve around externalities. In the case of negative externalities, all we have to do is get them into the costs of firms. The market mechanism takes care of the rest. The selfishness that drives capitalism will take care of the development of new technologies that lead to increased technology that eliminates pollution production and finds a way to grow in that environment. And if not, it will stagnate - after all, growth is given surprisingly little attention in economics. Most of the attention is devoted to trying to find and describe the equilibrium state. It's worse with activities like household care, care for the disabled, etc. That is, activities that benefit society less and more. But we just sort of intuitively know that if we all start doing household care full time, it won't work very well here. I probably can't think of any other idea than some form of basic income. --- A few notes: 1. most solutions rely on vaguely replacing the motive to maximize utility with a change in the value ladder and an emphasis on the desire to help others. This is naive and tried several times (Robert Owen, Kibbutz Israel). For this to work, a society must have a strong shared ideology that it believes in and that defines the value ladder. Coincidentally, we have dismantled religion and replaced it with... nothing. 2. Looking to the past is fine, but if you look, all previous systems were relatively small communities where everyone knew everyone. In that case, altruism and trying to contribute to the whole can work to some degree - because everyone sees your work, you care about your reputation, and you also see the result of your actions. It's just that in a big system this fails. 3. Anarchism as an alternative is a funny idea. Do you know what would happen if we abolished all laws? Certainly none of what you expect. You'd get capitalism. Again. Just in a less evolutionary form, and corporations would take over the role of the state. 4. A system without a social hierarchy... it's fine that it existed in some tribes. Has anyone been able to implement it at the level of even a smaller state? At the same time, let me guess - but all of these societies had some form of strong religion that was the natural definition of their moral setup. And didn't these societies have shamans, priests...? 5. Many of the problems we have are not about market economics (or "capitalism" to you), but about democracy. The fact that we have powerful corporations here is often about regulation that creates barriers to entry. Typically trying to build something takes easily 5 years or more. During that time you have to have land and run with the paperwork. Logically, then only a large entity can do it. If some of the barriers are removed and if we get negative externalities into the costs of private entities, they would adjust their behavior accordingly. For example, it would no longer pay to ship goods halfway around the world, but it would be more profitable to produce them locally. etc. 6. In some part of the video it was mentioned that during the coronavirus we did nothing and lived just fine. We did, but it was at the expense of the future (national debt, monetary expansion = inflation). 7. Similar positions are usually held by people who are above average smart and realize themselves on the higher rungs of the pyramid of needs. And then they consider it natural that other people have the same. But they don't. I'm afraid that's what most utopian theories run into - they're created by people with good hearts, but who refuse to accept that most of society isn't like them. And no - it's not about education. 8. The thesis that economic growth = pollution is probably true to some extent, it's just that pollution is only a problem from a certain level that exceeds nature's regenerative limits. And as I wrote - in my opinion we can achieve this state most easily with capitalism with some regulation. BUT if I disregard this objection. Then the suggestion of limiting the number of hours worked strikes me as quite fine. It would come with a few question marks - how would the work of entrepreneurs be handled. My guess is that it would be addressed by a regulation that would be for employees only. Only then you would have to think about trying to circumvent the rules (in our country it's called the shvarc system, English knows it as "False self-employment"). Also, the risk of work being outsourced elsewhere would have to be addressed. But all this is relatively solvable. But for it to work, several problems would have to be solved. We are creating an artificial housing problem in the west. Again, this is largely not about market economics, but about regulation that limits building. If this market were deregulated so as not to limit supply. And at the same time (paradoxically) introduce regulation that would take housing out of speculation, the cost of living for individuals would drop significantly. For the record, speculation is not a problem in itself (it has a rationale that helps allocation). It's just that in the west we have a policy of low interest rates, free movement of capital, limiting the supply of housing (construction). This creates a situation where housing will always be more expensive in the future than it is today. In which case it is a dream investment asset. To solve this would be... complicated. Unfortunately, it will create a problem elsewhere, but it will be less painful for us than the current situation. Today's situation is undermining birth rates below sustainable levels, and that's a death sentence for any economic system.
Externalities in to the cost? A barrel of oil= 5000 dollaros? Cant afford anything? Whats the cost of nature and the lives that live there? There are no externalities, we are all and eveything connected.
What climate crisis? Are you getting funded to say this stuff? It is well known whenever you hear climate change being mentioned casually in a video or documentary it means the documentary is funded. The simple reason is... when you hear a word over and over the mind internalise it and make it its own opinion that the person will defend with passion. The more simple the idea the easier to implement.
The fact that everything around the world is decided with the idea that the capitalist profit motive top of mind is responsible for any and all achievements is as false as anything else we have learned in history due to lies.z The idea that capitalism tweaked could be capitalism fair is an idea that will be destroyed by the nature of capitalism itself.
So basically you want everyone to be poor. None of this seems to allow air conditioning. A decent standard of living would be my grandparents living on a plains homestead in a sod house. It was very sustainable. 11:32 You put the poor as living at subsistence. I assume that means only basic cable and a used car. Please don’t come to the USA.
#11 Eco-socialism
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism
Green Party of United States
www.gp.org/
Green Party’s Ten Key Values
www.gp.org/ten_key_values
#12 Fully Automated Luxury Communism
Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto by Aaron Bastani
www.versobooks.com/books/3156-fully-automated-luxury-communism
Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani - a manifesto for the future
www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/29/fully-automated-luxury-communism-aaron-bastani-review
Fully Automated Luxury Communism
harpers.org/archive/2019/06/fully-automated-luxury-communism-bastani-conscience-churchland-dry-heart-natalia-ginzburg/
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto By Aaron Bastani
www.societyandspace.org/articles/fully-automated-luxury-communism-a-manifesto-by-aaron-bastani
The World Is a Mess. We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism.
www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/opinion/fully-automated-luxury-communism.html
Automated Luxury Communism?
Even when consumer paradise seems near, there’s always more work to be done.
www.wsj.com/articles/automated-luxury-communism-11621185487?mod=flipboard
Give Us Fully Automated Luxury Communism - A new book proposes we let robots do all the work.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/give-us-fully-automated-luxury-communism/592099/?T10%3A00%3A23&
#13 Participatory economics
Overview
participatoryeconomy.org/the-model/overview/
#14 Permacircular economy
wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Perma-Circularity
arnsperger-perma-circular.com/
Ecologie intégrale : pour une société permacirculaire
www.franceculture.fr/oeuvre/ecologie-integrale-pour-une-societe-permacirculaire
#15 Plenitude economy
True Wealth - How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy by Juliet B. Schor
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305486/true-wealth-by-juliet-b-schor/
Beyond Business as Usual, We can't simply grow our way out of unemployment.
www.thenation.com/article/archive/beyond-business-usual/
#16 Postdevelopment
The Development Dictionary, A Guide to Knowledge as Power, Wolfgang Sachs (Anthology Editor)
www.bloomsbury.com/us/development-dictionary-9781786997524/
Postdevelopment theory (also post-development or anti-development or development criticism)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdevelopment_theory
#17 Social and Solidarity Economy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_economy
Worker Co-ops and the Social and Solidarity Economy
canadianworker.coop/worker-co-ops-and-the-social-and-solidarity-economy/
Social economy project provides €1.3m to Belgian real estate co-op - The funding helped the co-op secure a new building which will house victims of domestic abuse
www.thenews.coop/161284/sector/housing/social-economy-project-provides-e1-3m-to-belgian-real-estate-co-op/
Social and Solidarity Economy plans to face social disadvantages. Welfare cannot be the only solution against inequality: it is necessary to redistribute resources from other sources or, better still, generate new ones and develop other services to dedicate them to reducing social disadvantages.
oncubanews.com/en/cuba/economy/cuban-economy/social-and-solidarity-economy-plans-to-face-social-disadvantages/
A Charter for the Social Solidarity Economy
www.resilience.org/stories/2019-08-01/a-charter-for-the-social-solidarity-economy/
How SEIZE is bringing the social and solidarity economy to Concordia
The business incubator was approved for funding during the November CSU by-election
thelinknewspaper.ca/article/how-seize-is-bringing-the-social-and-solidarity-economy-to-concordia
Keolis has set the goal of tripling the share of alternative drive bus kilometres by 2030. 2021 revenues were up 3.7%
www.sustainable-bus.com/news/keolis-results-2021/
The Art Worlds We Want: Solidarity Art Economies
nonprofitquarterly.org/the-art-worlds-we-want-solidarity-art-economies/
Social and Solidarity Economy Network anticipates ‘more disruption’ in ’21
newsismybusiness.com/social-and-solidarity-economy-network-anticipates-more-disruption-in-21/
Research to Build Resilient Social Economy Ecosystems in Europe. Under the broad umbrella of “the social economy,” research has a major role to play in helping us better understand the strengths and weaknesses of multiple forms of social entrepreneurship.
ssir.org/articles/entry/research_to_build_resilient_social_economy_ecosystems_in_europe
Introduction: The Challenge of Scaling Up Social and Solidarity Economy by Peter Utting
www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/social-and-solidarity-economy-beyond-the-fringe/introduction-the-challenge-of-scaling-up-social-and-solidarity-economy
#18 Steady-state economics
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
steadystate.org/discover/definition-of-steady-state-economy/
A steady-state economy, Herman Daly, 1st April 2008
theecologist.org/2008/apr/01/steady-state-economy
The “Selling” of Degrowth. Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late?
fpif.org/the-selling-of-degrowth/
Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it
theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224
Economic growth is destroying the planet - here’s an alternative
rabble.ca/columnists/economic-growth-is-destroying-the-planet-heres-an-alternative/
Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World, His Life and Ideas By Peter A. Victor
www.routledge.com/Herman-Dalys-Economics-for-a-Full-World-His-Life-and-Ideas/Victor/p/book/9780367556952#:~:text=%22A%20profound%20and%20captivating%20account,scale%20and%20entropy%20rule%20supreme.%22
#19 Trekonomics [THIS IS MORE OF AN UTOPIAN DREAM]
Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek by Manu Saadia
www.goodreads.com/book/show/27040338-trekonomics?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=S4CIOTrh25&rank=1
The "Trekonomics" of why the crew of the Starship Enterprise doesn't get paid
www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/covid-consequences-immigration-interrupted-and-who-gets-canada-s-first-vaccines-1.5746377/the-trekonomics-of-why-the-crew-of-the-starship-enterprise-doesn-t-get-paid-1.5746383
Science fiction can help predict the future-whether it will be utopian interplanetary communities or ruthless colonial societies. As humans look toward building new worlds in space, a question looms: Will we drag our problems with us?
atmos.earth/the-expanse-space-colonization-kendra-pierre-louis/
What the economics of Star Trek can teach us about the real world
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/07/what-the-economics-of-star-trek-can-teach-us-about-the-real-world/
The Economic Lessons of Star Trek’s Money-Free Society
www.wired.com/2016/05/geeks-guide-star-trek-economics/
Smith, Marx, and... Picard?: Star Trek and Our Economic Future. "In every revolution, there's one man with a vision." - Captain James T. Kirk
www.startrek.com/news/smith-marx-and-picard-star-trek-and-our-economic-future
See also other alternatives:
Solar Communism
www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/cop-21-paris-climate-change-global-warming-fossil-fuels/
Transition town
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_town
transitionnetwork.org/
Collapsology:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapsology
Wellbeing Economy:
weall.org/
The New Economics: A Manifesto by Steve Keen
www.goodreads.com/book/show/59640898-the-new-economics
Solidarity Economics
solidarityeconomics.org/
Library Socialism (yes, it's a real thing)
boingboing.net/2019/11/24/usufruct-complementarity-irred.html
May i Ask,didnt Romania under ceausescu become a modern fully industrialized country with free healthcare,free education and housing and a job for all and paid parental leave?
We haven't had capitalism since coming off the gold standard. Central banking bailouts on the backs of the working class via currency dillution is Marxism!
Thete are no bailouts in capitalism. When you run out of capital you go bust and liquidate yout assets to stronger hands.
Inclusive Democracy by Takis Fotopoulos
Where's #9 and #10?
Inclusive Democracy by Takis Foutopolis? The problem with a lot of the proposals is they are not systems but a set of values and or desires like don't destroy the environment. We need to define a system and its institutions that results in the values we desire (freedom, equality, solidarity, sustainability...) with a highly probable analysis of why it will deliver those values and it wouldn't hurt to also have a critique of why the current system (capitalism, markets) is failing at delivering those values. Then discussions can happen to compare alternative "systems".
I recommend checking out a book published in 1950 called *The Social Costs of Private Enterprise* by K William Kapp. It was written in response to the renewed interest in Liberal economics (neoliberals like Hayek). It was later retitled *The Social Costs of Business Enterprise.*
Damn, the only alternative I was aware of were worker co-ops. I had no ideea there were these many potential economic systems. I really hope we'll make movements towards these in the future.
De asemenea ma bucur sa vad un economist socialist roman :)
Thank you Cristiander. Yes, there is progress but we need to push harder. Mă gândesc să fac un canal în romană dar mai întâi încerc să îl cresc pe acesta. UA-cam nu mă ajută deloc. Nu arată video urile la vieweri noi.
@@VladBunea da, e o strategie bună.
Keep up the good work tho. Your videos are very informative. I'll see if I can post your stuff on reddit, since that's how I found you
Worker Coops can be created and run democraticly today.
You only need to buy it as you buy any other business.
Workers can unionize and pool together enough money to buy the business they work in and re-eorganize it as a worker Coops, but why has this not been done more than it is?
It would have been the norm if it actually was profitable.
You didn’t even know about socialism
yeah i've seen a lot of videos about co ops when i searched "alternatives" lol
His definition of capitalism excludes the more relevant factors that allow the capitalist systems to outperform all others. All economic well-being beyond just survival requires specialization, trade, and markets to work. Capitalism (not crony government capitalism like we are evolving) has failure mechanisms that allow progress. If Nordstroms doesn't make its customers happy, it will cease to exist. If the DMV screws up everything those bureaucrats will just get good retirements.
So true.
except for some reason the entertainment corpos have decided to forcefully produce woke garbage with no attention to quality😂
@@sakmadik69420because promoting wokeness is actually profitable
Thank you. I've been thinking for months about why I haven't heard about some futuristic economic idea that could benefit people more than capitalism.
I listened to a few podcasts/lectures on my search about how capitalism has failed but never could find any alternatives.
I appreciate your collection of bright ideas. The fact is. Capitalism simply doesn't work if we plan to keep our civilization going millions of years into the future.
None is feasible
@@mikolowiskamikolowiska4993 how can you be so certain of that? some of these are very modest. capitalism is clearly not working, so we need to be willing to try alternatives
@@asdfghyter
A Cause That I Am Most Definitely
Down For.
The S.S.A.C Cause ( meaning )
Scientifically, Systematically
Abolishing Capitalism
I am 37 years old
by the way,
Black American male.
Why can't we go millions of years into the future with capitalism? if this is a matter of finite resources on earth, we go into other planets and stars and done. It's necessary for the improvement of human life to explore more and more resources and these resources are infinite because the universe is.
Hey Vlad I was wondering if you could talk about what is called “The Great Gatsby Curve”. it is a study back in 2010 which talks about income inequality, wealth inequality, and its relationship to social and economic mobility.
Hi Ryan, I'm aware of the The Great Gatsby Curve. I am working on a long essay on inequality where I draw on data from wid.world/, ecological economists, and philosophical sources. It might take a few weeks because I am an one man operation: writing, filming, editing etc.
If you Ban people from being able to go out into the world; buy raw material, make and sell a product, and re-invest
money to make more of that product... you end up putting so much power into a centralised power system; that if the system fails or makes a mistake (cough* kills all the sparrows and causes famine) you end up with too 'few' alternative products.
You can argue that 'no centralisation' is required but someone somewhere writes the rules, then someone somewhere compels others to follow those rules (by threat of force)... otherwise people would still be able to accrue capital and make things.
I can only see a mixture of elements from different systems working long term. Not total replacement.
Only capitalism works
Ideally these would be purely voluntary associations. Maybe it's not illegal to own and trade goods, but it may be socially unacceptable. Or perhaps survival dictates cooperation through some sort of systemic disaster.
@@CarrotConsumer Sure but someone still needs to decide who to allocate resources to; in order to create which products/services. The point is having some kind of planning system AND something like a freemarket (with capital being allocated by people voting with their wallets)... is MUCH safer than eliminating one or the other. Both from a disaster avoidance point of view (as a back up if the planning system makes a fatal error), and an innovation one (markets and planning often innovate hand in hand).
Amazing video, we as humanity should recognize that capitalism isn't the system to live happily
@frankddt
A Cause That I Am Most Definitely
Down For.
The S.S.A.C Cause ( meaning )
Scientifically, Systematically
Abolishing Capitalism
I am 37 years old
by the way,
Black American male.
The only reason that I have ever found to desire power over others is to block anyone else from claiming that power. 😁
Even at that, it's only a temporary measure, a "holding action," because the system is CLEARLY effed-up if it's leaving that much power lying around, able to be taken up by someone like me. The system must be revised, or replaced.
I learned a lot. Thanks for helping
Distributism: about distributing private property amongst the largest reasonable number of people in a somwhat regualated market economy, cooperativism is closely related to this model
Whose going to produce all this distributed stuff for free.
thank you! even while being an anarchist, i wasnt aware that there were so many economic perspectives, even explicitely anticapitalist ones
All of then were quite flimsy or flawed imo.. I'd suggest a better idea now but I doubt anyone would be allowed to see it.. atm.
You will all see it though.
It was an incredibly informative video ! Thanks !
Thanks for the very well documented list of the alternatives Vlad! Personally I prefer FALC. 👾
FALC will ONLY work if all NEED based goods and services are accessible in equitable portions to all humans first! NO want based goods until this is perfected while protecting our plant and animal life!
Good choice! It's the catchiest.
Good work. What about Copiosis. I think the reward system (net benefit reward) will naturally bring out the best ideas
I have been looking for this. Thx
Solution: Egalitarian Equitarian Utopian Socialism ( primary objective is to sustain all life, improve life, maximize self actualization without money or desire for power )!
That requires almost an spiritual revolution, which unfortunately doesn't look like it will happen.
Would this be like how the Amish set up their communities?
@@ohdude6643yes unfortunately we are beings that can never be satisfied for a long time any system suggested to remove capitalism is unrealistic on the grounds of thinking we can all be under the same mindset and spiritual teachings which is unkikely
We don’t like the fact that there exists suffering in the world? Let’s just build a utopia and put it in the name of our new system! Why did I never think of that?
All of those things are against the natural order of humanity we are hierarchical, inherently, not equal imperfect, and non-democratic this kind of system would fall apart the second you tried it, because you would need extremely horrible actions to take place in order to get there, and all of the atrocities he would have to commit would destroy society before you could even get there
Great video! Of the ones you present, I like the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) primarily because you can incorporate almost all of the others under its umbrella. I do like the use of worker cooperatives, employee owned companies, egalitarianism, inclusion, and decentralized community decision-making and addressing environmental matters as well--which would likely be executed locally. Some matters may have to be addressed above the local levels and it is helpful to have a functioning model which can work with local units to accomplish larger goals.
Oops. You missed a big one. Parallel economics. It justifies Carbon Quantitative Easing and is critical to our continuing existence. Important in the proposed system is the concept of “optimal growth” which is informed by biophysical economics (and thermodynamically balanced). See The Ministry for the Future for the science fiction popularized version.
Actually, this is MY top 19. I selected from about 80+ ideas. What is "optimal growth"? Degrowth is also informed by biophysical economics.
"Important in the proposed system is the concept of “optimal growth” " We're already overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~70% per year. Unless we end that overshoot, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable (those are just the laws of nature). So ANY model has to work with a transition to an economy that is 50% the size of the current economy and stops growing.
Good talk. Thanks for raising the topic. I am familiar with PROUT, (Progressive Utilization Theory) by Indian philosopher PR Sarkar. A blend of socialism for infrastructure and large efforts, cooperatives of various kinds for medium sized operations, and “mom and pop” type capitalism on a local level.
Below excerpted from Wikipedia.
Prout advocates a three-tiered approach to industrial organization. Key industries and public utilities would operate on a no profit - no loss basis as these are resources held on trust for the public. Decentralized industry run by cooperatives would provide people's minimum necessities and other amenities of life. The majority of economic transactions would be through producers' and consumers' cooperatives.[12] Incentives for people serving society would be funded via surpluses.[12] A small business sector would also operate providing goods and services on a more individualized basis.
At the political level, Prout discourages nationalism, though nation-states would form a world government[12][13] in the form of a confederation. There would be a world constitution and a bill of rights for human being,[12] and for ensuring the biological diversity and security of animals and plants. Locally governed self-sufficient socio-economic units or zones would support a decentralized economy.
thank you so much for this video, you are a true modern hero for inspiring people through knowledge. I really want to discover more about these revolutionary ideas, thank you again, keep going
I wish you could have covered yanis varoufakis's system he presents in "another now" - I don't know enough of the details of his system, but it would have been good to see it contrasted against these others. Maybe it warrants it's own video?
I read "Another Now" but I did not know what to make of it, what to call Yanis's "system". Quantum-post-capitalism democratic wellbeing? I am now waiting for Yanis to embrace degrowth. It is only a matter of time.😀
@@VladBunea yeah- i wouldn't even know what to name it either. Still, maybe there's a video's worth of content in it? I hear he has a book on technofeudalism coming out in the fall- maybe closer to then?
Yanis is not the first to come up with the idea of technofeudalism, btw. I've seen it first in French here Cédric Durand, Technoféodalisme. Critique de l’économie numérique, 2020, La Découverte, Paris
Thank you for this great video, Vlad!
Finally someone who has at least some reaserach done the younger once always make me feel like they want a rebellion but don't know "what then"?
"There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a “third” ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or an above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity."
Grear🎉. Keep going
Fantastic selection, very informative, a cure for capitalist realism
I didnt understand;
1. When you break the triad capital =my savings savings = skill skill=ownership ownership =power at basic level. So does it mean individual rights are dissolved? And transfered to a committee with minimal understanding than me in regeneration of the above.
2. Isn't this inefficiency going to build up and eventually explode any system as is the law of nature?
3. Cant capitalism be augmented to solve this issues like environmental problems. eg Using esg and sse.
Thanks in advance.
There is no “law of nature”. That is an illusion. Capitalism cannot be “upgraded” because it has the growth imperative. We need a completely new system of incentives. Individual rights will be extended not reduced.
(inglish grammar is not fully comprehended by me)Hi! I wached the viseon and while i was doing it, i understood that the ideal economy MUST include all of these ideas and most inmportant one, unfortunately, was missing here. The most important idea is an answer to the question: How we can get there? Luckaly I am deweloping a practical metod, a sistem that will make the world you discribed in this wideo, the reality of our lives. Since i was deweloping my system from ground zero, I didn'n new that the idias i came up ,while building my system, were already parshaly deweloped with all of these autors. Your wideo made me wery hapy becouse I understood that I am on the right direction, and the teoretic part of my tecnological model(of how we can make these idias the realyti of our lives) is olmost fully deweloped. Thank you! Seeyou in World Without War.
Degrowth is a great idea for all the reasons you stated. I've noticed that a great many anti-capitalists still cling to Marxism, ML, communism, etc. I feel like these ideologies are kind of obsolete but I struggle to articulate exactly why when engaging them. Would be a great topic to tackle in a video, winning over people who are already somewhat amenable would be a great place to start for Degrowth movement!
Oh god no. Degrowth is the most evil ideology I can think of. Even Hitler and the Nazis pale in comparison.
Care to elaborate what is “evil” about degrowth? Prosperity for all? Freedom for all? More democracy? More shared wealth? Is this evil to you?
Maybe because capitalist society is dominated by bourgeois ideas? Is it because the bourgeois media kindly instills the idea that the main and only alternative to capitalism is obsolete? Hmm, coincidence?
@@VladBuneaThese are all promises and stated outcomes, not the policies or actual outcomes that will come out of this.
It's simple. You can't expect equal output from a system with unequal inputs.
Is there an economic Model who functions like the old Greek democracy? As far as i know politicians were alotted randomly from the general public for a fixed term of i Believe 1 year. This way it was guarenteed that the most plural and diverse people had the power, concentration of power was prevented. I think the Problem today stems from the fact that decision Holders are often from the same Group of people, who Naturally want to accummulate power.
Yup. What you've got now. But most are too lazy to do their job and vote with proper information
Seems like you also like minarchism with limited government that offers no control to wealthy individuals.
That sounds about right. Btw, I made a video about maximum wealth.
There can be no supra-class or extra-class GOVERNMENT apparatus...
I think the defining feature of capitalism is that it motivates people to contribute and allows people to choose how they want to do so allowing people to leverage their strengths and allowing us all to benefit. It also allows people to do things that most people find useless like youtubers.
"I think the defining feature of capitalism is that it motivates people to contribute and allows people to choose how they want to do so allowing people to leverage their strengths and allowing us all to benefit." For it's entire history, capitalism has made a small minority very rich by looting from and exploiting the majority--as well as steadily destroying the ecosystems (and climate) that all life on Earth depends on.
@karlwheatley1244 I barely make 6 figures and my quality of life is better than the kings of history. Same is true for most Americans. Capitalism had raised the quality of life for almost everyone on the planet. Global poverty has been diminished to the extent that the only way you can expect to live in true poverty is to find somewhere without capitalism. Every implementation of communism and socialism has led to starvation and misery. Meanwhile most people in developed capitalist countries can only experience misery comparing themselves to people who bring great change or value to the world. Real concerns like safety, food and shelter are only a concern for those who choose not to put in minimal effort to do so. People travel across the world to get here for happiness. While people in this country won't move to the suburbs to get what they want.
@@CodeBonYT Thanks for your reply. "Capitalism had raised the quality of life for almost everyone on the planet." Hmm, I have a couple of thoughts on that.
First, capitalists sell us all sorts of things by exaggerating their benefits and downplaying their flaws, but perhaps their most profitable sales job of all time was selling us on the false notion that capitalism and capitalism alone was possible for the improvements in living standards we enjoyed. Unfortunately, that's nonsense or propaganda. The amazing standards of living you and I now enjoy were only made possible by combining the power of good government, science, capitalism, and fossil fuels. Without any of those four, we would easily be living like people did in the late 1800s.
Second, for its entire history, capitalism has always made some people and nations rich by exploiting and looting from others, and looting from the planet in ways that are currently pushing us toward ecological and societal collapse. From the land enclosures of Europe to stealing entire land masses from indigenous people, enslaving Africans for centuries, the richer countries using their power to force poorer and weaker countries to trade with than based on exploitative terms, to warming the planet and plundering the Earth's treasure, it's always been an unjust and unsustainable system. So yeah, I'm one of the lucky ones living in the American empire by people and places that got exploited are not so lucky.
"Global poverty has been diminished to the extent that the only way you can expect to live in true poverty is to find somewhere without capitalism." If we use the American poverty line for an individual, 6.5 billion people, or roughly 82% of the global population now live in poverty. If we recognize that people in so-called developing nations often live in larger family units and use the U.S. poverty line for a family of six, then roughly 5.5 billion people, or 65% of the world still lives in poverty. Critically, and even acknowledging that you and I work hard, our outsize wealth was only made possible by centuries of looting and exploitation (often savage exploitation) of people in poorer countries.
With help from science, good government, and especially energy-dense fossil fuels, industrialized capitalism helped throw some of us a lavish party for 150 years, but it did so by exploiting other people and the planet. In the end, it is a self-terminating system that flies in the face of the laws of nature.
Take care.
@@karlwheatley1244the problem with capitalism is that you can use it to define anything especially today you can use it suggest it's bad qualities and qualify it as such only for example here you mention looting but looting another country is not capitalism
@@iannamboga7995 Capitalism is inherently a looting mechanism--it always has been and always will be. For example, research has shown that if you subtract from the valuation of industries the ecological destruction they have caused, there are none that would still be profitable. Net wealth isn't created--one type of wealth is destroyed to create another, while exploiting lots of less fortunate and powerful people in the process.
What happens with ownership of means of production and capital? Neither of the 19 solutions clarifies it. They all make some hints at it but no clear position on what happens with it. I just finished writing a book, political fiction, that talks about transfer of ownership of means of production and capital from employers to employees within existing political system and creating of a system that will move away from capitalism as we know it today, that is, make a first step towards "Trekonomics". I didn't publish it, yet bc I don't know how to make it accessible to be read by more people. If anyone is interested in reading it I'd be very happy to email it to. Or, if anyone has any ideas how to help me bring it out, please let me know.
I talk about that in this video
How to Convert a Public Corporation into a Worker Democracy
ua-cam.com/video/n-_zw-e5Dt8/v-deo.html
…and others. I’d like to read your book. Please send it to me to vladbunea at gmail dot com.
What i want to lnow is how did marxism turn into identity politics?
The real danger is forced equality and equity.
How do people think they would achieve the separate economic system they favor?
How to destroy / replace the current system that is NOT Capitalism by a long shot since the regulations / government influence and force makes it non-Capitalistic and close to a Fascist economic system.
Degrowth is correct in its assessment that less dependence on resources is required, but it fails in equating economic growth with growth in resource consumption. Economic growth is measured in terms of currency, as a proxy for utility. If something is made with less material inputs, it can still have higher utility than an alternative using more inputs. "Phones" are a good example, in that they are more useful, more energy efficient, and more expensive than their desktop computer predecessors, yet consume fewer material inputs.
Another example is services, which in some cases consume no inputs other than the food the provider consumes, the majority of which is a fixed overhead cost which cannot be reduced. "Keeping the lights on" is not optional for living creatures. Capitalism is benefited by reduction of inputs and simultaneous increase in utility, so it is self-incentivizing in that regard, but since humans are resistant to change, it requires some additional incentive. That is where government's function as an allocator of resources is indispensable.
What I hope people get from this enumeration of "alternatives" is that we don't have to choose one of them to the exclusion of others. What we already have, and always will have, is a hybrid of many formalized systems. The task is not to eliminate entire principles, such as individual property rights, but to devise effective constraints to prevent the excesses of any one economic scheme. We simultaneously observe excesses of capitalism and excesses of socialism, for example, so it seems clear to me that checks and balances are superior to any sort of purism. Failure to compromise usually leads to failure to manage.
"Degrowth is correct in its assessment that less dependence on resources is required, but it fails in equating economic growth with growth in resource consumption. Economic growth is measured in terms of currency, as a proxy for utility." Given that there is almost a perfect 100% correlation between the size and growth in the global economy and the size and growth of global use of materials and energy, the de-growthers are correct in equating GDP with material use, energy use, and thus higher levels of ecological destruction.
@@karlwheatley1244 I'm not saying that they aren't correlated, I'm saying that the correlation isn't mandatory, and that it's possible to enjoy life just as fully for less material input. If you are focused exclusively on the currency-valued GDP, you can totally miss reductions in per-capita resource consumption, when they occur. And since energy is the primary input, we are already making progress via renewables and energy efficiency. It's not enough, and it's not fast enough, but it is moving in the right direction.
@@crawkn Thanks for your reply.
"it's possible to enjoy life just as fully for less material input." I agree with that, and I think most people in countries like America would be happier if they could break their addiction to stuff and live with less, but focus on quality experiences. Having said that, most people go the opposite direction--the moment they get more money they buy more stuff.
"I'm saying that the correlation isn't mandatory, " If you're saying that raising global GDP on the one hand doesn't have to go along with increasing energy use, material throughput, and ecological damage on the other hand, no one has proved that is possible. And if I buy less stuff, GDP is decreased compared to if I buy more stuff.
"If you are focused exclusively on the currency-valued GDP, you can totally miss reductions in per-capita resource consumption, when they occur." Globally, at any level of technological sophistication, higher GDP always means more resource consumption.
"And since energy is the primary input..." No, materials are a critical input for all goods and services, including the energy sector. I think a society who lives in cities and suburbs often forgets how things are made. For the typical object, about 50 times more material than the volume of the finished products is mined or used in the manufacture of that object.
"It's not enough, and it's not fast enough, but it is moving in the right direction." We're both hoping for the same thing here, but most people just don't understand that there is almost a 100% direct correlation between material use and GDP. For energy, there's about a 1.1% gain in efficiency per year, so we can generate the same amount of GDP with a tiny bit less energy this year than last year. But there's no substantial de-coupling globally. Also, within a capitalist economy, due to Jevons Paradox, efficiency gains usually lead to greater total use of energy, meaning gains in efficiency actually lead to more total energy use and more ecological destruction.
Critically, we are currently overshooting Earth's sustainable carrying capacity by ~70% per year, so unless we shrink the global economy 50% and keep it's size smaller forever, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable. Only developing nations have sustainable per person ecological footprints, and the typical American needs to shrink their footprint around 80%: That requires much simpler lives, very low meat/beef diets, more use of mass transportation, etc.
Take care.
@@karlwheatley1244 I'm not going to try to answer every point you made, because that would be redundant. I'm not saying that we can have continued economic growth _the same way consumerism is currently done_ while reducing inputs. I'm saying that the paradigm needs to change, and people need to learn how to get more enriching experiences (many of which cost money), and own fewer, more efficient and simultaneously more valuable things. Energy is the primary input for things because we use it to do all of the work to mine, refine, move, and manufacture. Without energy, the stuff stays where it is. If the energy isn't from fossil fuels, it's not polluting, and it doesn't cost more energy just to get the energy. This is a fundamental difference.
Continued economic growth is _currently_ tethered to pathological possession-oriented consumerism, but it is possible to decouple the two phenomena. The proof that it is possible is that there are people already living such a lifestyle, yet they still earn and spend money. Money can and in the future will be spent on lower material footprint lifestyles.
Perhaps most significantly, this paradigm shift will definitely not be brought about by telling people they must be financially poorer, which is what must happen for GDP to shrink. Even if it is truly the best thing for them, they aren't going to accept it.
@@crawkn Thanks for the thoughtful response.
"Energy is the primary input for things because we use it to do all of the work to mine, refine, move, and manufacture. Without energy, the stuff stays where it is." You can't pick one or the other: Both energy and materials are important, because without materials, there isn't any stuff, and even the energy sector is very materials dependent.
"Continued economic growth is currently tethered to pathological possession-oriented consumerism, but it is possible to decouple the two phenomena." Unfortunately, there's no evidence that it is possible to achieve de-coupling of global economic growth from increases in energy use OR material throughput. None.
If everyone starts buying much less stuff next year, the global economy would shrink. Critically, and as I tried to explain, because were are already in ecological overshoot and because economic growth is tightly tied to higher energy use, greater material throughput, and more ecological destruction, we have to learn to live with a non-growing economy.
You and I agree that transitioning to renewable energy is essential, and that will shrink our ecological footprint dramatically, but if we then kept growing the economy, we'd be right back in overshoot. There's no such thing as "green energy": Wind turbines and solar panels and batteries have their own harmful ecological impacts.
"Perhaps most significantly, this paradigm shift will definitely not be brought about by telling people they must be financially poorer." Three thoughts: In wealthy countries and globally, vast economic inequality is the central driver of social dysfunctions, political dysfunction, and exploitation, so the rich people and countries DO need to be made poorer--there's no other way to save both ecosystems and societies. For example, families too poor to do anything else will keep burning wood or garbage to cook on. Second, because income is tightly tied to higher levels of ecological destruction, if people aren't poorer, worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable, unless you are going to tightly regulate total consumption of goods and services. Third, in less unequal societies, it's possible to have greater economic security and better health and happiness with less money. The idea that growing the size of the economy was the royal road to a better world was always a deadly trap that was leading us toward collapse.
Take care.
You have to have 19 alternatives to modern humans & mass urban civilization to go along with those 19 stillborn conjectures.
Starvation, poverty, crime and disease come to mind.
This would have been useful if you provided practical examples. Which I think is why most alternatives never work, they are just impossible to apply outside the realm of theory.
ESG is owned and ran by Larry Fink, the guy from BlackRock. Way to go, fellow socialists 🤪
In my opinion all these rely on the assumption that humans will behave accordingly which is at best ideal. Unfortunately capitalism answers tye question we all have inside us i have this but what can i do to get more and that can be both a bad and good thing depending on how the intention is acted upon. We neeed to find ways of solving the waste it causes tho.
If we are equal then no one is different but if we are all different (which is human beings) then we cant be equal unfortunately
Plus most of these exist somewhere in some fashion vis a vis capitalism which shows you how it adapts to whatever people want it to be
any alternative system that wishes to defeat capitalism has to maintain or expand the rate of technological growth and quality of life. We have to expand into other planets and other stars and harvest resources from them in order to forever expand our lifestyle.
6:00
Producing less equals to more hunger and suffering.
How about corporatism
Corporatism is still capitalism.
#RegulateTheRich - Yes, fixing upper income limit cap to regulate the rich is the way forward, to achieve an #NoRichNoPoor EQUITABLE society. No one should earn more than 10 times the national average income. A one world #CooperativeSocialism is the way to go to eliminate corruption, nepotism, unemployment and poverty. No better solution exists to achieve #CommonProsperity..
Who will set this upper limit if the state is an apparatus of violence in the hands of the ruling class? Idealism...
I agree that a classless society would be great, however I see two flaws in your solution. A, you must "regulate" an income cap, which implies someone has some control of someone else in order to regulate. Therefore, creating a hierarchy of power, thus opening up your system to corruption in the form of abusing the power to cap income. Secondly, said system doesn't quell the infinite demand our society holds to maintain itself at this quality. Regulating the 1% is good but won't solve a massive problem of capitalism that is the 99% who consume at levels that are unsustainable and exist on such a grand scale population wise, that its unsustainable environmentally and economically to feed each and every person
The 1% consume as much as the bottom 50%. It’s very unequal. We don’t need hierarchies of power to regulate the rich. We can have a non governmental independent organization built on dynamic governance (decentralized decision making) - sometimes called sociocracy - to regulate maximum income.
Rather than a sudden cutoff at the income limit, an approach curve of ever-increasing resistance like relatively with the speed of light, would make sense. And since most people already can’t handle the math that is required on tax day, the taxation needs to be automatically calculated. We would all love to have that yearly month of our lives back, to do something meaningful instead of shuffling our financial paperwork.
The problem is INCOME. Billionaires don't have an income. That's why they don't pay income tax.they do not work at a job for a paycheck. They have assets that they borrow against. There is no tax on debt. They use debt as money. You can't legislate income equality. You would have to totally change the tax system as it stands. Tax the rich is just something politicians say to get your vote. You want to raise income tax on Billionaires to 90%? OK. What's 90% of zero? You won't get any money out of them.
You have to understand how the money game is played at advanced levels before you can change it.
A Cause That I Am Most Definitely
Down For.
The S.S.A.C Cause ( meaning )
Scientifically, Systematically
Abolishing Capitalism
The basic components of production are: land, labour, capital. That is land and captial are distinctions. This is the defnition of capital as used by the original economic theorists. Karl Marx wrote, "Das Kapital" and used the word as though it was anything that can be bought by money. It misunderstnds the whole theory of economics. All Marxism as basically about misundertood words. Finid out what the word capital actually means and it will solve most of your problems.
"he basic components of production are: land, labour, capital." You left out energy which has been THE major force allowing for the massive expansion of the global economy and the human population. Without the added energy from fossil fuels, 2023 would look a lot more like 1873 than we care to admit. Of course we must break the FF habit now.
@@karlwheatley1244 I believe you mean oil. That's part of land. There are many books you can read to learn about this. The most authoritative would be those by Adam Smith such as the wealth of nations. The best written would be progress and poverty by Henry George. Many modern books such as basic economics by Thomas Sowell will cover the same points and may be easier to read because of their reference to present time examples.
@@DaronRyanAustralia Uhhh, it's pretty obvious you are using three categories to discuss the same thing that I am using four categories to discuss, so suggesting I read this or that book on economics is inappropriate. Also, neo-classical economics was based on the delusion that the Earth is separate from ecosystems and that the Earth has infinite raw materials and infinite capacity to absorb our wastes, so that whole paradigm of economics has to be thrown out the window and replaced with some form of ecological economics that recognizes that the world has four economies or systems of providing for our needs and that the private sector economy is a totally dependent subsystem of the Earth economy. Unfortunately, our industrialized capitalist consumerist economy is currently destroying the Earth economy that all life on Earth (including our whole civilization) is totally dependent on.
Thus, we have to replace industrialized capitalism with an economic systems based on the laws of nature, or worsening ecological and societal breakdown is inevitable.
As for how many categories to use when discussing the factors in production, I will respectfully repeat that making energy its own category is critical, especially since
sunlight is not land, and neither is wind.
Take care.
Capitalism is the conversion of land into private property...everything else arises from and around that 1 principle.
Where is Corporatism ?
Please don't assume my species.
Really good video, thank you.
underrated comment!
Any economy not based on ecology is doomed to failure
Ecology without socialism is just gardening
I think it is a mistake to focus on capitalism, communism, socialism or any other 'ism'. The fault is not with the economic system but with the lack of democracy. China and Russia are nasty dictatorships. If they had real democracy, they would probably work despite whatever level of communism they have. America is loosing her democracy with voting suppression, voting denial, gerrymandering and her crazy voting system of delegates. As such she is likely to fail. Was there ever a system of communism with democracy. Sure. The Kibutzim (plural of Kibutz) system was fiercely democratic and it worked a treat. The main function of a democracy is to vote the rascals out before they get too attached to their seats and to give them a period in the wilderness to consider their faults. Any system will work reasonably well as long as it is truly democratic.
The End
Prehistoric Ukraine "RUTHENIA"😂 is a better name that Ukraine "frontier" don't you think? 🤭
What do you call 99 billionaires chained to the bottom of the ocean? A great start
If you got girl problems I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a billionaire ain't one.
@@philv2529 spoken like a true servant of a capitalist system that owns you
@@jeffwhite2511 dude it's a joke from a rap song except I replaced bitch with billionaire
@@philv2529 My apologies, I had a feeling it was lyrics from a song but I was in a snarky mood, and let's face it we are all in this capitalist mess together so we may as well enjoy the ride even as this runaway train of capitalism crashes.
I'm born to lose autistic. I have been to Russia, E. Germany, the DPRK, China, Mongolia. Communism may not be perfect but neither is capitalism. I lived in China for 4 yrs. I like degrowth, our declining population is good for the planet and shouldn't be seen as a crisis.
capitalism spreads division
This video is silly - capitalism only means extending property rights to the consumer goods market, the labor market, and the capital market. If you agree with having these three markets, then you are a capitalist. If you want to get rid of any of these markets, you need to explain how, and this video didn't do that in many cases.
None of them could ever work.
Many of them already do.
@@VladBunea where?
On Earth. Check the links in description.
He is thinking of systems that need training wheels, compassion, and lack of competition to survive. So no real system at all.
No mention of accounting, depreciation, planned obsolescence.
We could have made accounting mandatory in high schools in the 1950s. The nitwit economists do not talk about the depreciation of durable consumer goods. Of course planned obsolescence means those consumer goods depreciate faster than necessary. We are trapped in this economic power game. Intellectuals will argue about your various proposals forever.
See:
The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood
Adam Smith wrote, "read, write and account" multiple times in Wealth of Nations. He used the word 'education' Eighty Times.
Economists do not include the depreciation of durable consumer goods in their Net Domestic Product equation. In fact they hardly mention NDP.
It's a Big Lie!
One thing one can learn from life is, ultimately all ideologies, thoughts and innovations thrive only under a liberal, capitalist democracy. People confuse capitalism with liberal, capitalist democracies, but the later is quite different than the former. Take the example of the USA, it's more free social services than any other country in the world, yet it's not a socialist country. China, a country with ruthless, Victorian capitalist system, with fake social services, is considered a socialist country.
Why do people try to find alternatives to Western, liberal, capitalist democracies?! Is it because such systems almost eliminated poverty? Eliminated child mortality? Made medicine and healthcare technologies that allow humans to live longer?
Like in one of Seinfeld's episode, George doesn't like to take a taxi, Jerry's surprised and asks, what don't you like about it, the speed, the comfort, the convenience?!
Solution is islamic economic..
No. Society cannot function without hierarchies. It was very deceptive to put that there without actually stating why those communities could successfully live in egalitarianism.
Yes it can. See a lot of examples in the book “The Dawn of Everything” by Graeber and Wengrow.
Never say never
anti-natalism is one solution.
There is no alternative to individual liberty.
You are conflating corporatism and capitalism.
Those are not the same.
Vlad, degrowth is for the uninspired bored petty bourgeois post modernists. Those educated enough, plenty of household wealth, food in the fridge, warm in winter, cool in summer and idle with much spare time. They have time to think themselves humanitarian.
Try selling degrowth to your average South East Asian, African or middle eastern leader! I don’t think you will be rushed for the link to your degrowth manifesto.
I’ve heard this before many times. It’s the most common objection to degrowth: try to convince the South, try to convince the working class. [By the way can we please use the verb “convince” or “persuade” instead of “sell”? I’m not asking for money in exchange for the degrowth idea]. So, I would tell the South: degrowth means ending your exploitation by the North for your cheap labor, cheap energy, cheap land, so you can GROW too until you meet the North within planetary boundaries. Do you think they’ll like that? I will tell the working class: degrowth is less working hours for the same pay, less power for the ruling class and more power for you, more income and wealth distribution etc etc. Do you think they will like that? So, degrowth is not bourgeois. Please read more about it.
@@VladBunea Vlad you are dreaming. You have heard it all before because it is most likely true that degrowth as you envision it will compound the plight of the least fortunate. People want prosperity, education, health, sanitation, safety. None of that will be achieved through cutting them off from the sources of income and wealth.
Here’s a question, where is your program of cutting people off from material advantages had desired outcomes? I’m guessing it’s not Cuba is it?
@@patricksee10 I heard it before because it's one of the most ignorant critiques. Did I not say above that the South needs to GROW, that the working class will get MORE? I repeat it because you ignored it. Degrowth is about MORE prosperity for ALL humans, and less prosperity and debauchery for the ruling class. I will repeat this over and over until everyone gets it.
Cuba happens to be close to the degrowth material targets, I repeat, material, not political, not democratic.
We cut off the elite from overconsumption not the vast majority of humans. We need to talk about material limits to our lifestyles, on average.
@@VladBunea Your chosen socialist oligarchs will arrange an army to impose egalitarianism on the greedy to smash overconsumption so the the needy may prosper on the surpluses that will be apparent, that’s it in short is it Vlad? You have an instructive case study in South Africa right now.
You don't know what you are talking about. Who said anything about socialist oligarchs? Degrowth is about radical democracy. Do your reading. Degrowth wants nothing less than full democracy in corporations: managers and executives hired and fired by workers, wages decided by all employees, democratically, maximum wages gaps decided democratically, etc etc. I hope you know how democracy works, do you?
Oh. Your definition of capitalism limps on both feet. I inherently dislike these definitions because they are based on class struggle. By their very nature, I completely disregard the democratic process.
"Degrowth" is a terrible idea to me. Resignation to human nature, the desire to move forward. As such, it doesn't hold up - even if Europe were to move to this system, in time it would be overwhelmed by states that chose to continue with a market economy.
Capitalism has problems - but at the same time it has solutions. Most of the problems I hear in videos like this revolve around externalities.
In the case of negative externalities, all we have to do is get them into the costs of firms. The market mechanism takes care of the rest. The selfishness that drives capitalism will take care of the development of new technologies that lead to increased technology that eliminates pollution production and finds a way to grow in that environment.
And if not, it will stagnate - after all, growth is given surprisingly little attention in economics. Most of the attention is devoted to trying to find and describe the equilibrium state.
It's worse with activities like household care, care for the disabled, etc. That is, activities that benefit society less and more. But we just sort of intuitively know that if we all start doing household care full time, it won't work very well here. I probably can't think of any other idea than some form of basic income.
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A few notes:
1. most solutions rely on vaguely replacing the motive to maximize utility with a change in the value ladder and an emphasis on the desire to help others. This is naive and tried several times (Robert Owen, Kibbutz Israel). For this to work, a society must have a strong shared ideology that it believes in and that defines the value ladder. Coincidentally, we have dismantled religion and replaced it with... nothing.
2. Looking to the past is fine, but if you look, all previous systems were relatively small communities where everyone knew everyone. In that case, altruism and trying to contribute to the whole can work to some degree - because everyone sees your work, you care about your reputation, and you also see the result of your actions. It's just that in a big system this fails.
3. Anarchism as an alternative is a funny idea. Do you know what would happen if we abolished all laws? Certainly none of what you expect. You'd get capitalism. Again. Just in a less evolutionary form, and corporations would take over the role of the state.
4. A system without a social hierarchy... it's fine that it existed in some tribes. Has anyone been able to implement it at the level of even a smaller state? At the same time, let me guess - but all of these societies had some form of strong religion that was the natural definition of their moral setup. And didn't these societies have shamans, priests...?
5. Many of the problems we have are not about market economics (or "capitalism" to you), but about democracy. The fact that we have powerful corporations here is often about regulation that creates barriers to entry. Typically trying to build something takes easily 5 years or more. During that time you have to have land and run with the paperwork. Logically, then only a large entity can do it. If some of the barriers are removed and if we get negative externalities into the costs of private entities, they would adjust their behavior accordingly. For example, it would no longer pay to ship goods halfway around the world, but it would be more profitable to produce them locally. etc.
6. In some part of the video it was mentioned that during the coronavirus we did nothing and lived just fine. We did, but it was at the expense of the future (national debt, monetary expansion = inflation).
7. Similar positions are usually held by people who are above average smart and realize themselves on the higher rungs of the pyramid of needs. And then they consider it natural that other people have the same. But they don't. I'm afraid that's what most utopian theories run into - they're created by people with good hearts, but who refuse to accept that most of society isn't like them. And no - it's not about education.
8. The thesis that economic growth = pollution is probably true to some extent, it's just that pollution is only a problem from a certain level that exceeds nature's regenerative limits. And as I wrote - in my opinion we can achieve this state most easily with capitalism with some regulation.
BUT if I disregard this objection. Then the suggestion of limiting the number of hours worked strikes me as quite fine. It would come with a few question marks - how would the work of entrepreneurs be handled. My guess is that it would be addressed by a regulation that would be for employees only. Only then you would have to think about trying to circumvent the rules (in our country it's called the shvarc system, English knows it as "False self-employment"). Also, the risk of work being outsourced elsewhere would have to be addressed. But all this is relatively solvable.
But for it to work, several problems would have to be solved. We are creating an artificial housing problem in the west. Again, this is largely not about market economics, but about regulation that limits building. If this market were deregulated so as not to limit supply. And at the same time (paradoxically) introduce regulation that would take housing out of speculation, the cost of living for individuals would drop significantly.
For the record, speculation is not a problem in itself (it has a rationale that helps allocation). It's just that in the west we have a policy of low interest rates, free movement of capital, limiting the supply of housing (construction). This creates a situation where housing will always be more expensive in the future than it is today. In which case it is a dream investment asset. To solve this would be... complicated. Unfortunately, it will create a problem elsewhere, but it will be less painful for us than the current situation.
Today's situation is undermining birth rates below sustainable levels, and that's a death sentence for any economic system.
Externalities in to the cost? A barrel of oil= 5000 dollaros? Cant afford anything? Whats the cost of nature and the lives that live there? There are no externalities, we are all and eveything connected.
What climate crisis?
Are you getting funded to say this stuff?
It is well known whenever you hear climate change being mentioned casually in a video or documentary it means the documentary is funded.
The simple reason is... when you hear a word over and over the mind internalise it and make it its own opinion that the person will defend with passion.
The more simple the idea the easier to implement.
The fact that everything around the world is decided with the idea that the capitalist profit motive top of mind is responsible for any and all achievements is as false as anything else we have learned in history due to lies.z
The idea that capitalism tweaked could be capitalism fair is an idea that will be destroyed by the nature of capitalism itself.
What do you mean? It's a proven fact.
I know I am burning up greater than usual here in the Caribbean. Please speak for yourself. You ever see that, "This is fine" meme. Yeah.
Very clear that he has absolutely no idea how businesses function.
You hacks always confuse Corporatism with Capitalism. Y'all also forget the main thing...
Aint no one gonna take my private property
Lol. Delusion of grandeur.
So basically you want everyone to be poor. None of this seems to allow air conditioning. A decent standard of living would be my grandparents living on a plains homestead in a sod house. It was very sustainable.
11:32 You put the poor as living at subsistence. I assume that means only basic cable and a used car.
Please don’t come to the USA.