Ken Bagstad wrote
> Reconciling the policy goals of full employment and ecological
> sustainability.
Our definition of "full employment" may be in need of a re-think.
For many decades, going back at least to the 1930's, many economists have
recognized the "Crisis of Overproduction" (actually, Marx made the point 150
years ago, but capitalist economists don't like to acknowledge Marx).
This concept recognizes the fact that industry produces more product than the
consumers can consume. As long as surplus energy is cheap and productivity
increases through innovation, the output per worker increases but consumption
keeps chasing production, even if the population is growing.
B.F. Skinner, in "Walden 2", proposed a society in which people only spend four
hours per day on "productive" work. The remaining time would be spent on
creative and community efforts, or just taking it easy. It's an idealistic
view, but he recognized that people really don't need to work as much as we do
in order to keep society well-supplied with what we need for a good life.
I don't know if there's a good corollary for overproduction in natural
ecosystems, but nutrient-loading or peat accumulation might be close. In each
of these, productivity rates outstrip consumption, causing system
de-stabilization, until a new system state is reached. This is just off the
top of my head, though.
Joe
