Missing from the mainstream: the biophysical basis of production and the public economy (original) (raw)
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“The Economy as an Energy System,” Review of Radical Political Economics 41,2 (Winter 2009).
1989
This paper works out some of the basic properties of an economy where energy is the driving force behind all economic actvities. The economy now consists of streams of energy conversions that direct energy to the production of goods and services. The focus on energy generates a variety of insights. It yields a new taxonomy of economies and economic activities; allows a better grasp of the tasks performed by labor and capital; raises the prospect of examining growth as the speeding up of machines; and identifies greater use of energy as an important source of growth. In addition, we use these results to explain the near stagnation in living standards in agrarian economies in the millennia before 1800, and the dramatic acceleration in growth since that date.
IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, 2009
A ACCESS TO ABUNDANT CLEAN energy and access to water are probably two of the major challenges that humanity will face in the future. Societies are having trouble creating the conditions for adequate energy supply to take place and defi ning public policy to address the problem.
Energy Use by Gross Sectors Conclusion Purpose of this Exercise In the book On the Preservation of Species (POS), on my homepage, and in some of my essays, I have made the assertion that the energy consumed by an American-type, Capitalist-style, quasi-market economy in simply dividing up the pie is wasted and is not affordable in the shadow of Peak Oil. Whereas, Capitalism enriches a small fraction of the population, it more or less impoverishes most of the rest of the population, even those who favor Capitalism-presumably because they keep hoping that they will be one of the lucky ones who become rich even though their chances of doing so are negligible. The poor in a rich imperialist country like the United States consume more real wealth than the poor in a Third World country, therefore their exploiters can keep them quiet with constant reminders as to how much better off they are than people elsewhere. They do consume much more than poor people elsewhere, however most of the excess wealth enjoyed by America's poor is consumed in unpleasant lifestyles replete with long trips and frequent commutes in an uncomfortable and unsafe automobile that belches noxious fumes that endanger everyone, including rich drivers of expensive cars who chalk it up to the unavoidable cost of poverty. Incidentally, the lavish lifestyle of all Americans, even the poor, excites the righteous indignation of people, even rich people, in poor nations whose sole recourse is what journalists refer to as terrorism. Of course, the War on Terror is not intended to address this problem, but rather to control tightly the portion of the population in the rich nation who might notice this deception and conceivably wish to attempt a remedy of their own. The two most important aspects of employment, according to the conventional wisdom, are (i) the amount of effort put into it and (ii) the wages received. Thus, employment is viewed on the left and on the right as a useful adjunct to a good life. This has catastrophic effects for the environment. Clearly, the consumption of high-grade energy (especially fossil fuels) is directly proportional to employment: first, because of energy consumed on the job and, second, because of the increased consumption of employed persons (and their dependents) over what they might have consumed were they not employed. Moreover, energy consumption leads to greater environmental destruction due to feverish activity, waste products, population growth, and much more. (See http://dematerialism.net/ Chapter 7a.html.) A much more useful view of employment is almost never taken, namely, that the two most important aspects of employment are (i) the cost to the environment and (ii) the usefulness to the world of the products, e.g., food, clothing, shelter, health care, central heating and cooling, a few simple luxuries to take the misery https://www.dematerialism.net/ne.htm (1 of 11)6/9/2020 11:54:55 PM
Biophysical Economics as a New Economic Paradigm
International Journal of Public Administration, 2019
Global civilization is experiencing social and economic turmoil. Human are experiencing deterioration of environment and uncontrollable declines in GDP. Traditional economic theory has been continuously advancing yet seems unable to predict these crises or provide adequate public policies to address them. A biophysical version of economic theory uses mass and energy flows as well as environmental constraints to describe the delivery of goods and services. Ongoing development in biophysical economic theory may provide some new guidance. In this review paper, Authors analyze the progression of historical economic arguments, explore their assumptions and their development and compare them to the currently developing biophysical economics framework which, instead of focusing on investment, debt, and growth, focuses on sustainable energy and mass flows to deliver goods and services to civilization.
Profit and the Pursuit of Energy
1983
With the energy market undergoing a profound transition, this book examines some of the risks and rewards, the incentives and disincentives at work shaping the search for and the production and utilization of oil and other energy sources. Some of the trade-offs, inequities, and bureaucratic insanities (and occasional inspirations) that drive and retard rational energy developments and energy transition are explored. In particular, concern is with trying to understand some of the factors shaping the evolving balance between market forces and government regulation. Unlike many who study the world energy market, the authors in this book do not emphasize the question of what constitutes the best guess on the future distribution of supply and demand for specific fuels for specific nations or regions. The collection tries to shift the focus away from crystal-ball gazing and, instead, explore how and why major public and private participants in the energy market make their choices about en...
The public economy: understanding government as a producer. A reformation of public economics
In mainstream economics scripting, government is either bumbler or villain. Cast as market fixer, intervenor, enforcer or redistributor, the state cannot but act inefficiently or, worse, illegitimately. Public goods and collective action are called " problems, " the commons a " tragedy. " Even today's so-called " public economics, " as represented by the " public choice " school, is decidedly anti-public. It was not always thus. More than a century ago, economists theorized the state as a framework of collective agency for public purpose and understood government as a producer meeting collective needs. A cogent concept of " the public economy " guided this nascent field of public economics, long since lost to historic upheavals and repression by proponents of market-centric rational choice theory. This paper rejects today's orthodoxy and its artful, but artificial, construct that subverts the ability of the public economic system to produce on behalf of the polity. I call instead for the embrace of a new public economics that returns to lost roots while breaking new ground by taking into account the biophysical imperatives of production. The model offered here takes a systems perspective (as did Quesnay and early 18 th-century Physiocrats); recognizes a public economy with distinctive purpose and drivers (as did the " German Public Economics " theorist Gerhard Colm in the 1920's); and focuses on government as a producer (as did Paul Studenski in the 1930s-50s). Finally, it draws on two centuries of physics and on 21 st century systems ecology in recognizing biophysical imperatives inherent to production. Developing and promoting a cogent theory of the public economy system is vital to the effective operation and, ultimately, the survival of the governmental systems by which democratic nation-states function today. The simplistic type-casting of government, the " market-failure " rationalization for state action, the invalid imposition of market axioms and assumptions on the public domain, the disregard of public purpose must all be rejected. It is time for a Reformation of public economics.