“If infinite growth in a finite system cannot continue, it won’t.”
That we have a thing separate and apart from physics called “economics” is testament to greed prevailing over logic.
This becomes abundantly clear by simply asking the question: Why aren’t the negative externalities from production ever accounted for on a balance sheet? It’s intentional accounting myopia. It’s a direct affront to the physical laws of the universe.
But, poof … economists call it “profit,” when in fact it is a loss.
You read economists like Herman Daly, Steve Keen, and Philip Mirowski these truths just snap into place. Recently finished Mirowski’s “More Heat Than Light — Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics.”
To answer your question about myopia, it's because capitalists have decided the best way to make money is through ownership of something- real estate, IP, company deeds, physical assets, etc.
It doesn't particularly matter if owning the thing is yearly negative for them (ie, Twitter). They'll just keep trying to own as much as they can in order to maximize their profits.
“It is much more difficult to have serious discussions of alternative systems if we work under the illusion that government-granted patent monopolies are somehow the free market.“ @DeanBaker13
@davidaugust What other levers does the Fed have? The problem is caused by Congress not legislating against profit-taking (e.g. by making stock buybacks illegal again), and the FTC is only just now starting to take a close look at monopolies and monopsonies again. The Fed has the one lever they keep pulling.
@drahardja@davidaugust It is a very interesting idea that increasing minimum wage could slow inflation. Our economy is so complicated so I do not know how the dynamics would shake out, but my guess if when workers can afford the essentials and have discretionary funds left to go to the movies or a theme park that would be good for everyone.
listening to the #donut#econ book by Kate Raworth that's been on my list for so long. In the intro, she identifies four economic spheres, the home, the market, the commons, and the state. I think these are too concrete. Math requires the greatest abstraction possible. I have identified three paradigms that could be modeled as complementary currencies. The first is what we've got in #capitalism: ① scarcity-based, incl fiat, cryptocurrency, & rare fungibles like gold.
The third is ③ #emotive and #generative, a currency of reset, rest, and potentiation. Education, the arts, sciences, medical practice, home & family work, and gifting and social work, all can be modeled similarly to enable calculations, budgeting, and planning in terms of the universal need for pleasure, security, connectedness, and wellbeing.
These fields are notoriously poorly served by free market economics. Some entirely ignored, some entirely regulated, and some entirely corrupted.
the #Marketing industry should run entirely on attention and time economics. That's why #advertising is broken, hence the eternal #adblock conflict, the difficulty of #journalism and information work to monetize, and why we are all overloaded all the time. We can't manage it because we don't have a currency with which to model our plans.
