Jevon's Paradox?

Economics Political Theory
41

No amount of mockery is going to make me retract my statements, understand? (Although it doesn’t matter whether you do or not, because what I said will hold regardless.)

And I couldn’t care less. Laugh all you want - it makes no difference to me.

I didn’t ask you to post examples. Come on, you know that already. You could say I’m “really striking out here” an infinite number of times and it would have absolutely no impact on my behavior. So try again.

Nothing you say will get me to back down. Nothing. I’m still here. Try to insult me and intimidate me into shutting up and going away all you want - it will make absolutely no difference. I think the sooner you realize this, the better it will be for you.

If by “small-minded” you mean “not a nihilist”.

Whether you think it’s “pathetic” in no way changes my position on this or any other matter.

Really, you’re going to have to do better than this. I know you have it in you! So come on, what are you waiting for?

So that means you’re not going to try again - that is, you’re going to give up? Why is that? If you try again, then I’d say it might move the discourse along.

I don’t see you trying to work out anything in this thread, except for validation for your pre-established beliefs. And just to be clear, I see you as trying to use the term “heterodoxy” as a shield.

You really could give a shit about what I think, apparently. Otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered responding to me the way you have, and you wouldn’t have felt like I struck a nerve (which apparently you do).

Typically you do take a contrary position - apparently just to do so and see what happens. Not only that, but as soon as you’re cornered, you apparently (and implicitly!) change your position to something else. The only reason I can see for you doing that is so you can hopefully get out of being cornered. So you tell me, how is that not trolling?

If by “trolled me” you mean “put my modus operandi out in the open”. Be pissed all you want. Go cry me a river while you’re at it.

Surely if you were being serious about it, you would’ve done a better job than that. How long have you been around here?

What part of “your conclusion does not logically follow from your premises” do you not understand?

42

Alright, the rest of that whole post is nonsense. You think I’m an asshole. Fine. I think you’re an asshole. Fine. Now that that’s cleared up, maybe we can go on:

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
I didn’t ask you to post examples.
[/quote]

Then I don’t know how to be less vague.

OK, you aren’t a nihilist. This means that some method of validation qualifies something as “real” to you. Fine. I don’t share that sentiment. That’s really all there is to it. Just because we disagree on the most fundamental of premises, doesn’t mean I have malicious intentions. This is not a shield, it is just a disagreement on the fundamental nature of experience, it is a heterodox opinion. That is all.

43

Jackson,

I have two responses to you that you have ignored. I posted the second one because I thought you missed the first one. But, after reading this stuff from you, I think you purposely are ignoring me, which I guess is fine. In addition to you ignoring me, you have decided to just curse at Autolykos. I think he is right. I don’t think you are here for honest debate. If you were, you would have responded to me instead of insulting him.

You derailed your own thread.

44

Well whatever, you are entitled to your opinion.

I read your first post, wasn’t a whole lot there for me to respond to. Kindof fell into the whole “technology worship” comment I posted soon thereafter, and after looking back at the old pages, I did miss like half a dozen posts from last night.

EmperorNero was a real good one, specifically (response to follow!)

As to your premises, yes you are right. There is no way to know what will happen. Although I question the worth of mere survival (using our synthetic meat and “city-conditioning”) if we have trashed the planet. If you are so inclined take a look back at some of the more cogent (they are admittedly rare) moments of Autolykos’ and I’s (?) discussion, and maybe you can get a better feel for what I mean.

Yeah, I started swearing at Autolykos, but how would you react if you were falsely accused of something ad nauseum? I try to be civil, but I have to get it back, too.

45

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Because that whole “the earth is finite” thing is a fallacy.
[/quote]

Species extinction?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
We can add substances to the group of “resources”, therefore the set of resources in not finite.
[/quote]

Table of elements?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Also, growth isn’t really infinite. Birth rates are already below stability in plenty of rich countries. Also, maintaining the same economic growth rate requires designating greater and greater shares of GDP to R&D, because of the falling utility of R&D.
[/quote]

Fair enough, but doesn’t capitalism require growth to exist?

46

It’s not technology worship. Humans invent things to solve problems. As humans solve current problems, new ones arise. I don’t really buy into predicting what our problems will be in 100 years from now when there isn’t a way to predict the future. Consider these two articles:

Evidence That Oil Fields Renew Themselves

Geochemist Says Oil FieldsMay Be Refilled Naturally

From the second article:

Maybe the proponents of this theory are right, and maybe they are wrong. But they are attempting to figure out why oil is being replenished in many oil fields. So, I reject the notion that we will necessarily run out of energy sources. It’s possible I am wrong, but experts in energy do not know either. I prefer to not panic and predict doom.

But you don’t know if the planet will be trashed. And if synthetic meat and city-conditioning were technologically cheap, I would find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be a way to make the planet not “trashed”.

Also, don’t forget nuclear energy too. Less oil would be consumed if the government legalized creating more nuclear energy plants in America. There are alternatives. They already exist. The government makes it hard or impossible for these alternatives to be developed.

As Hashem pointed out, and I did too, but if humanity can’t solve the problem, then it will perish. I understand that you mocked him for this statement, but it’s a great point. If people can’t solve problems, especially this one, then it doesn’t matter, because we’ll all be dead. There’s not much left to discuss if people can’t solve problems.

47

No. Growth is a result of capitalism. It does not require growth.

48

Isn’t this the reason why there is economics–scarcity?

49

Exactly. One of the functions of capitalism is to ration and prevent the utter and absolute depeletion of scarce resources via the price mechanism. When an economic good becomes increasingly scarce, its price rises high enough that it forces further rationing of that good (pushes more and more marginal users out of this market), which stimulates exploration into alternative (substitute) lines of production long before that point (ie.: resource extinction) is reached.

That being said, I can’t think of a single case of the market allowing an energy, mineral or non-animal resource to be used up to the point of actual resource extinction. (In the case of over-fishing and such, I imagine that that’s a tragedy of the commons/government issue rather than a strike against capitalism per se).

50

It could also induce further investment in the production of that good (Maybe your point and mine could work together by saying that the market is horizontally shortened and vertically lengthened–maybe I’m totally missing the mark). If price is going up, marginal productivity (all else equal) will too and using production factors for the use of those goods will become comparatively cheaper as prospective returns increase (consider the various historical claims in year XXXX that run something along the lines of ‘we will run out of oil in year XXXY.’ Year XXXY comes along and, what do you know, we have billions more barrels of oil on reserve in year XXXY than we did in year XXXX [this is an example Sowell uses in Basic Economics]; this is because it was cheaper in year XXXX to use oil reserves than to drill [which costs billions whether oil is struck or not] and the doomsyear prediction was based on XXXX prices and not XXXY-n prices which fundamentally affects capital structures and investments).

I’m suddenly curious to know how one can harness fish power as a source of energy …

Joking aside–yeah–as costs of production increase it would spur exploration into alternate resources. Isn’t this responsible for the decline of use of whale oil in favor of coal, electricity, and oil (JD Rockefeller-- caring about the whales before it was cool)?

51

Absolutely (although that ‘all else equal’ can get sketchy in this case).

Not that this was what I was getting at, but ever hear of “Finetics”? Just googled it after your question and guess what?

52

I agree, but empirical assumptions can change the results though–what if physical output declines for some reason? Then the change in marginal productivity is more ambiguous. Meh.

Good. Good.

53

We aren’t thrashing the planet. The air is getting cleaner, in market economies. Rivers are cleaner, in market economies. Forests are growing, in market economies. Environmental degradation is always a socialist problem. Environmental socialists have it backwards; capitalism protects the environment, asceticism and poverty destroys it.

I don’t know what your argument is here. I was talking about natural resources and their renewability. Species have always gone extinct.

Yes, the table of elements may be finite. That hasn’t much to do with it though, we aren’t talking about chemical elements but substances like oil and natural gas. Even if a particular resource is finite (although it isn’t, but thats more complicated), that doesn’t mean that resources overall are finite. Because “resources” is different stuff over time. I bet you worry little about the availability of hay or firewood, but the people one and a half centuries ago who did would have considered oil a nuisance when they encountered it. In the same way substances that will be a resource in the future, say helium on the moon, aren’t considered resources yet, because there’s no use for them yet. What’s considered a resource depends on technology, and that’s why the notion of a “total amount of resources” that could be “used up” can just kinda be refuted in its entirety.

No, why would it? Monetary communism may require growth so the money printing isn’t visible through price inflation, but I’m against that.

54

Are you sure about that? If so, why?

Why would you want to ignore all of our previous “interaction”?

Posting disjointed examples and making rhetorical statements about them does not constitute an argument. That’s why I struck through the part of your post that I did.

And this is where I call BS. You can claim that nothing qualifies as “real” to you, but your behavior shows otherwise. So as I see it, you’re constantly engaging in a performative contradiction. Apparently you don’t like to hear that, so you retreat into embracing absurdity and making ridiculous statements just to get your critics off your back. Maybe that’s worked with others, but it’s not going to work with me, understand?

I wouldn’t call that malicious, but I would - and do - call it dishonest. Do you see the difference? I don’t think you’re trying to hurt anyone, but you’re not engaging in actual debate.

55

There is no doubt that there exists a positive relationship between the efficiency of a particular method of production and the employment of that method of production. But this does not yield the sort of paradox you’re describing, where efficiency gains actually lead to a more rapid depletion of resources. In fact, the ability to increase both consumption and production through innovation and the division of labor/capital is basically the definition of wealth and the aim of a capitalist economy.

A problem only arises when the consumption of that resources exceeds the efficiency gains made in the production of that resource (in which case factor prices will adjust, and that method of production will no longer be more efficient). In other words, the consumption of that resource may rise in absolute terms, but if it doesn’t rise in relative terms (relative to efficiency gains made in the production of that resource) then this sort of phenomenon will not occur.

So for example: There is a new and more efficient way to produce steel which increases the output of steel per unit of iron. This, according to your theory, will increase the consumption of iron and therefore lead to less steel and iron in the long run. But this, again, will only occur if the rate of consumption exceeds the efficiency gains made in steel, and if there isn’t simultaneous gains in the efficiency of iron production.

[edit]This topic is very complicated and it’s the main issue Hayek deals with in ​The Pure Theory of Capital​. I’d also like to point out the difference between general macroeconomic efficiency gains made throughout all phases of production as a result of an elevated savings rate (lower time preference) with that of various innovations which may or may not yield the same sort of macroeconomic effect.

56

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
Humans invent things to solve problems.
[/quote]

Granted.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
I don’t really buy into predicting what our problems will be in 100 years from now when there isn’t a way to predict the future.
[/quote]

Nor do I. Furthermore, I will likely be dead in 100 years, so I have little concern for how events unfold that far ahead. I am referring to much more acute problems, such as the dust bowl in China, dying reefs, the start of the Atlantic hurricane season in May (two tropical storms so far!), etc.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
But you don’t know if the planet will be trashed.
[/quote]

Hmm, well, my habitat is trashed at least. Where are the runs of Atlantic Salmon and Alewives up the Connecticut River? Why is there a superfund site 10 miles away from my house? Why is there dangerous amounts of coliform bacteria in almost every body of water around my home? Why is there lead in all of the soil? Why is there dioxin in everyone’s breastmilk?

I would bet that many of us could say the same about our homes.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
I would find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be a way to make the planet not “trashed”.
[/quote]

It’s very simple. Don’t trash it. All of these problems have incredibly simple solutions.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
Also, don’t forget nuclear energy too.
[/quote]

LOL, now that’s clean energy!!! Can’t wait to taste the rainbow!

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
There are alternatives. They already exist. The government makes it hard or impossible for these alternatives to be developed.
[/quote]

I’m not arguing that there are alternatives to oil (which was just a random resource example I chose, anyways), I’m asking if ANY alternative can be considered “sustainable” given Jevon’s Paradox.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
If people can’t solve problems, especially this one, then it doesn’t matter, because we’ll all be dead. There’s not much left to discuss if people can’t solve problems.
[/quote]

Well, as I said, the solution is rather simple. We must live in a sustainable manner. That’s really all there is to it. I am unsure that industrial production can ever be a sustainable manner, though.

57

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
No. Growth is a result of capitalism. It does not require growth.
[/quote]

Could you expand on this? I though it was brought about more because of scarcity/surplus/marginal utility.

58

[quoteuser=“Nephilix”]
One of the functions of capitalism is to ration and prevent the utter and absolute depeletion of scarce resources via the price mechanism.
[/quote]

That assumes the price mechanism is nuanced enough to support the web of nutrient flows in ecosystems. What is the price of phytoplankton die-offs? Not a valued product in the least. But, they all go, so too go the bluefins.

How does species extinction not invalidate this argument?

[quoteuser=“Nephilix”]
That being said, I can’t think of a single case of the market allowing an energy, mineral or non-animal resource to be used up to the point of actual resource extinction.
[/quote]

Well, are we talking locally, or globally? This is almost exactly the crux of the issue. Mines get depleted, forests get depleted, etc., and so far the producers have been able to just move on. What happens when there is nowhere else to move to?

59

Anecdotal evidence isn’t really helpful. I might be able to say that murder rates have gone down in some area, but you can always point and say, “Oh look, someone was murdered in my area!” It’s the same with this idea of “trashed”. The US is cleaner than it was 100-150 years ago. I can also point out some anecdotal evidence of my own. The Charles River in Boston used to be so dirty that if you fell into the water, you would have to go to the hospital and get shots. Guess what? The Charles River is cleaner than it used to be, and you can fall in without having to go to the hospital. I’m sorry that your area is “trashed”, but that does not mean that my area is.

Okay, but you kinda cropped my quote there. I said that if we had all these scifi technologies you are talking about, then I would find it hard to believe etc etc etc. Please don’t crop my quotes when it changes the meaning.

Nuclear energy is clean energy. How many nuclear disasters are there in France? There is already a thread on the problem that happened in Japan, and one of the causes was actually government regulation.

Yes. People have already demonstrated that it is the case.

Ok, we are sure that capitalism is sustainable. It’s that or extinction.

60

I mean, what is there to say? Growth does not cause capitalism. Capitalism causes growth. I’m not saying that capitalism is the only cause, just that you were mistaken when you said growth was required for capitalism.