Articles: Economics for a Round Earth – the book
Production?
Structuring, or realising, wealth into goods and services is currently called production or output, as though wealth were being created. In fact, this structuring or realisation is part of the process of throughput of wealth.
The use of goods and services, now called consumption in the sense of being opposite to “production”, is really a subsequent process in the throughput chain whereby wealth is degraded into waste matter and heat whence it may be renewed. … Read more
Notes on Evolution Not Revolution
First, it will be noted that things that common sense tells us are always good, such as efficient government or nuclear disarmament, or always bad, such as strikes or cartels, may actually be bed sometimes and good other times depending on the circumstances. … Read more
Ends and Means
Good Trends, Not Good Conditions
It is not the intention in this blog to establish a perfect world of perfect conditions. Such a thing has been imagined and described by many in the past, but it must always remain an abstract possibility in the indefinite future. … Read more
Foreword
When dealing with economics, we are confronted by a large array of interdependent static and dynamic variables. A change in one effects changes in all, which in turn affect the variable first changed, through its interdependence with the rest.
Cybernetics is perhaps most appropriate for the treatment of economic matters. … Read more
When the Boom comes
During the 1970′s and 1980′s governments and people generally in the more perfluent nations were waiting for an economic “upturn” or “recovery” to reduce what had become chronic high unemployment. The underlying assumption was that the high throughput-increase rates, the so-called “economic growth” rates of the 1950′s and 1960′s, were normal and that the more sluggish throughput-increase (TI) rates of latter years were an abnormal phenomenon that could be expected to speed up in time through this or that brilliant policy initiative or going back to the early economics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; or by eliminating (depending on your point of view) businessmen, unions, migrants, taxes, civil servants, or computers; or just by waiting. … Read more
Review of 1988 edition of Economics for a Round Earth
” . . a most useful work in enhancing my comprehension of the interaction between the discourses of economics and environmental conservation.” Continue reading
Conclusion
It has not been the aim of these posts to provide detailed remedies for every current problem in or related to economics.
It has only been my purpose to outline a more practical and realistic relationship between the human economy and the world we live in, one which favours life over death, progress and enhancement over degeneration. … Read more
Expenditure on Weapons
Huge sums are spent by governments on weapons and troops, particularly in certain countries. There are two remedies for this drain on government expenditure, one long-term and one short-term.
The long-term answer lies in the evolution of the world community towards political and economic unity – that is unity in the cooperative rather than in the monolithic sense. … Read more
Budget Balancing Methods – Cost or Gain?
Measures to reduce expenditure and increase revenue raising by governments will often be seen in current economic terms as “costs” to the nation. But if seen in the light of the ideas put forward in the post about “Costs – What Really Costs Us and What Doesn’t?” they are economic gains. … Read more
The Problem of Government Debt
A major problem for economies around the world is government debt. This matter has been mentioned in other posts. Many governments have been running a deficit on their annual budget for years. It is not universally realised that these deficits are cumulative. … Read more