Economy vs. ecology in capitalism

[KrazyHorse]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Growth occurs due to a number of reasons, including:

1) Capital deepening
2) Growth of labour force
3) Decline in unemployment
4) Increase in number of hours worked
5) Increase in "quality" of workforce (e.g. education, experience)
6) Multifactor productivity gains

There is nothing that tells me that the sum of all these HAS to be > 0 or else catastrophe occurs.

Things are better with growth BECAUSE THERE IS GROWTH (we make more stuff than we did before).

Stable capitalist societies have this far delivered growth most of the time. Thank God. There's nothing that says that they have to constantly do so. Or that a steady state capitalist society is impossible. Growth is delivered due to CIRCUMSTANCES, not by external design as a prerequisite for capitalism.

[Unimatrix11]

See, THAT was a decent answer! I am totally happy with it. I may in fact learn something from it - thank you.

EDIT:

Can we talk then?

(Please note, that none of the following questions is meant to be provocative - i´d just like to hear your opinion on them)

So, let´s assume, that we are approaching (or already have crossed) the limit of ressource and energy consumption and waste-sink-capacities - i take it, that you think, that capitalism is absolutely able to adept to that situation, and would, if needed, go to a steady-state economy. How so? By forces of the ´invisible hand´, or would interference from outside, say eco-taxes, internalization of costs or something else, be needed? In other words: If you were an almost allmighty politician (assuming there would be somthing like that), and believed (take this as another assumption) that our ecological ´footprint´ (basically the sum of what was mentioned above) was to big soon or already - what would your politics look like? Roughly, please. Please, if you find the time, also eloborate a little on the chances of implementing such a policy under real world conditions.

You said, that the economy wants (rather than ´has to´ - i am willing to concede this point for sake of discussion for now) to grow. I wonder, if you agree with my estimanition, that a raise in eco-efficiency could not keep up with a constant economic growth for an infinite period of time. If you do, how would you ´force´ the economy not to follow that want to grow? Or would it, in your opinion, stop growing all on its own, before its too late?

Cause, you see, my concern is not to attack capitalism per se - my concern is the environment.

[Unimatrix11]

Okay - anyone else?

I mean this topic should hold some relevance to everyone, right?

Remember, i am just asking for opinions, not proof. I wont bash anyone, if he/she will say something, i dont agree with or brings up points, that i would state to be utterly false (though, obviously, i cant gurantee that someone else will).

[FrostyBoy]

KH may know a lot of stuff, but he'd make a **** teacher.

[KrazyHorse]

Ahem.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185172