Now, today global population is, more or less, 8 billions. In 1850, to put a pin in the argument, that number was, more or less, 1.2 billions. For the USofA, those numbers are 330 and 23 millions, more or less. By 1850, white folks had invaded the entirety of what became the lower 48; all of which was usurped from Natives and Mexicans and a few French. Propelled by Westward Expansion and Monroe Doctrine, both offered as reason (excuse?) for exploiting whatever resources might be found West of the original 13, econ growth naturally was deemed synonomous with population growth. After all, most of the West was mostly subsistence farming, and thence animal husbandry, which demanded more labor hands to make stuff. Make babies!
The Industrial Revolution which ensued drove losing subsistence farmers to cities, both as pull from factory work and push from failing farming. Even as urbanisation continued at increasing pace (today, 83% live in metropoli; they ain't be too many shithole county citizens yet they demand that only they should run the USofA), the notion of econ growth from population growth never lost its appeal.
That's starting to change, if not here in the USofA, than elsewhere.
It's days as today that convince me, once again, that the Editors of the NYT have a cynical sense of humor. As I've mentioned before, I take my Times in the Dead Trees Version, which makes it possible to see this humor on display. Today brings yet another example. The front page of the Business section has two related, or conflicting depending on one's side of the fence, reports. One from China and the continuing implosion of its residential real estate sector. The other from Japan on a new-ish thesis for solving the population/resource/growth conundrum. Given the Editors' sense of humor, the reports conclude right next to each other inside.
So, Regular Reader will not be surprised that both reports, taken together, lead to the solution expounded here: there's no reason why econ growth has to be tied to population growth. Since it is acknowleged that each human embodies infinite demand for goods and services (there's no such a ting as Too Much!), then economies can continue to expand GDP and standard of living without adding to an already taxing burden of bipeds with opposable thumbs. But that requires a systematic, which is to say global, restructuring of econ. Good luck with that.
The problem, of course, is that most of econ in most parts of the globe remains mired in the population-means-econ growth meme. How to ditch that self-destructive tendancy?
The China problem is the immediate canary in the coal mine. While the USofA had a residential real estate driven Great Recession, it was caused by invisible oversight of the real estate financial markets, China's problem is the direct result of government intervention. Fixing that will require Xi's elimination, not the Putin style, necessarily. Both China and India will be forced, either by wiser heads or Mr. Market's Invisible Hand, to accept the sorry reality: they've both tried to implement the 19th century econ growth paradigm far too late when population exceeds natural resource endowments: they ain't be any virgin land of milk and honey left. So sorry.
Xi Donjon is famous for saying that the USofA is full up. To some extent he's right. On the resource side, it's more like: it's all gone. The sub-GED knuckledraggers in the shithole counties don't have a better idea. There was a report recently about the state of USofA's aquifers: you don't miss your water til your well runs dry. Turns out, in some places, draining an aquifer is perfectly legal.
Several states including Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado have rules that allow groundwater to be pumped from some regions until it's gone. Some areas have even set official timelines for how quickly they plan to use up groundwater over the next few decades.Just the sort of sub-GED knuckledraggers that will Make America Great Again.
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