You're right. A command economy is very different. I was talking about a market economy. And perhaps by definition a market economy is demand-driven since there are no markets without demand.
-- Russ On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 9:13 PM, <fabio.bosche...@csiro.au> wrote: > I suggested that a basic difference is that ecologies are supply driven > whereas economies are demand driven. > > [Fabio] Hi Russ > > > > I wonder whether this statement refers to economies in general or > specifically to capitalism; not all economic systems humans have devised are > demand-driven. Many claim that capitalism would not exist without > advertisement, which questions how ‘natural’ demand is as a driver. > > > > In my view, the difference between ecology and economics lies in the > constraints; in the ecology these are biophysical, in the economy they seem > to be much closer to human imagination and creativity (for example, many > people buy and sell literally nothing). Many would claim that it is exactly > this mismatch in constraints which will lead us to doom. > > > > Fabio > > > > > > For the most part, ecologies are food chains. Organisms live or not > depending on whether they have enough to eat. > > > > Economies in contrast are demand driven. We are currently in an economic > slump (perhaps you aren't) because there isn't enough demand. Most people > (but not all) depend on demand to enable them to get the resources they need > to survive. For the most part that seems not to be true in ecologies. (I > know there are examples of where an organism depends on demand. The bacteria > example in the post you read is an example.) Most organisms in ecologies > depend primarily on the existence of resources, not demand for their > services. > > > > Also, I'm not talking about long term effects like corrals. Just more or > less steady state systems. This was all prompted by my puzzling about the > nature of our economic system. There was once a joke about California that > there really isn't any productive industry here. We all just take in each > other's laundry to make a living. In some sense there is probably more truth > to that than it seems. Most of us do depend on someone else wanting our > services. > > > > So that's the background to the post you read. I'm always interested in > your comments. > > > -- Russ > > > > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:11 PM, <beth.ful...@csiro.au> wrote: > > G'day, > > If I'm understanding your premise here I'm not sure I agree. > > First flippantly Fabio Boschetti is currently sitting here with me and as > he pointed out, if you just look at advertising you'd be hard pressed to get > beyond pairing and consuming as the selling tools ;) > > More seriously people do things to "get by" and increase their "security" > whether that's economic security, food security, recreational security or > ecosystem service security. All still comes down to "living" or the "future" > (i.e. feeding or pairing in effect). There are plenty of unintended > consequences of the day-to-day activities that go on to have indirect > products others use, but the same is true of ecological communities too - > corals don't build skeletons because that will make a complex 3D habitat > that acts as infrastructure for reef fish, but that's the way it works out. > > After 20 years of ecosystem and now socio-econ-ecological system > modelling/study I really can't say I see a dichotomy in the fundamental > structural pattens across the different components. I do see that economic > systems don't feel their constraints until they are closer to a hysteresis > point, while ecological systems typically feel constraints more quickly, but > functionally there are many many parallels between the two, which is why so > many of the tools are being simultaneously applied to both fields now > (input/output, loop analysis, ABMs etc). > > Cheers > > Beth > > ________________________________________ > From: causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com [ > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [ > russ.abb...@gmail.com] > Sent: Tuesday, 19 October 2010 10:19 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; Alexandre > Lomovtsev; Porter, Edith; Matthew Berryman; Grisogono, Anne-Marie (Anemarija > Degris); Shuger, Debora; Weber, Bob; causality_in_complex_systems > Subject: [Causality in Complex Systems] Re: [FRIAM] Economy vs. ecology, er > > > I think that Jochen is right to look at what is being produced. It's a > fairly commonplace observation by now that living organisms reduce entropy > locally. Someone who is fairly well know wrote as part of a fairly large > book (and I can't remember either the author or the book; it's perhaps 5 > years old) that a good way to decide when something is productive is to see > whether it results in a local decrease in entropy. Most "consumption" is not > productive in that sense; most "work" is. "Recreation" can be either. > > Living organisms, as Jochen said, "produce" themselves. They also produce > other things. Birds build nests. Beavers build dams. Spiders build webs. > Most organisms build some sort of home for themselves. All social organisms > build social networks of various sorts. So it's not just that organisms > build nothing but themselves. > > We, in our advanced economy have become dependent on building things other > than ourselves. That seems to be one of the primary differences. Even though > other organisms build other things, for the most part they spend most of > their energy building themselves -- and their offspring. Also, the things > they build are generally built for themselves -- or at least their social > group. Most of us spend most(?) of our energy building things other than > ourselves. And they are things that we don't use directly, and often not > indirectly. (Although since they are produced for the economy, and we are > part of the economy, perhaps that's not strictly true.) Not only that, we > depend on a demand for the things we build (and I'm using "build" very > broadly to refer to any kind of paid work) to supply us with the means to > get the resources necessary to build ourselves, i.e., to buy food. Other > organisms don't depend on demand to supply their resources. > > Symbiotic species combinations make this even more difficult to analyze. > What about the bacteria in our gut, for example? They depend on the demand > we make of them to help us digest food. And we pay them with nutrients. > Without the demand for their services, e.g., if we die, so do they. > > I think this is a direction worth pursuing. Sorry if this post has been > somewhat ragged. There are a lot of pieces that should be disentangled. > > -- Russ Abbott > ______________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > > Google voice: 424-242-USA0 (last character is zero) > blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ > ______________________________________ > > > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Jochen Fromm <jfr...@t-online.de > <mailto:jfr...@t-online.de>> wrote: > Tory is right, ecologic systems and especially > their inhabitants, the living organisms, look > more complex than companies or corporations. > What I meant was that there seem to be a > fundamental difference in the input-output > relations. > > The output of agents in economic systems is > a product made from the inputs during the > business process. In ecologic systems this is > only comparable to the cognitive part of > organisms, where perceptions are processed to > produce an action. In the "food web" there is > nothing produced except the organisms themselves. > Whenever there is something interesting happening > in nature, it is either supper time or pairing > time. The former is used to sustain the body, > the latter to sustain the species. This is > different from economies, isn't it? > > -J. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Smith > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 12:02 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Economy vs. ecology, er > > The acts that organisms take, merely in the course of living from one day > to the next, tend to be under-emphasized in relation to the acts of > reproducing. But the input-output relations of ecology should correspond > fairly nicely to the input-output relations of the economy, if either were a > well-formed technical theory. In economics, input-output goes under the > names Leontief I/O theory, or closely related von Neumann-Gale growth > theory. I have often wished that either had more of the strictness of > chemical input/output relations -- at least where such are warranted -- but > that is not yet the case, as both fields have been more interested in the > flexibility afforded by innovation than in the constraints that limit the > landscape. > > In terms of what organisms do to each other, whether intentionally or > inadvertently, there are the two names "Niche Construction" and "ecosystem > engineering". The first has a book by Laland, Odling-Smee, and Feldman. > It's a big area, and the book only opens the topic, but it's a start. Many > of the ideas are general enough that they are equally comfortable in the > economy, which is, as you say, part of the global ecosystem. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Group "Causality in Complex Systems". > To post to this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_syst...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > causality_in_complex_systems+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<causality_in_complex_systems%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/Causality_in_Complex_Systems?hl=en?hl=en >
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