Re: The joy of Democracy

On 23/10/2024 01:27, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2024-10-22, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
 

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:04:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>

I.e., a zero-sum game.

>
But the very concept of “economic growth” is incompatible with the
assumption of economics being a zero-sum game.

 By the classical definition, perhaps.  Not necessarily in the
newfangled sense of some rich guy getting all the marbles.
And, of course, the planet _is_ finite...
 

The problem is that we can in theory  produce marvellous low entropy products like computers, but only at the expense of increasing entropy elsewhere.
That is what I call wealth creation.
Getting paid to go into work and create meaningless bureaucratic rules increases employment, but it also increases entropy with no corresponding lower entropy product.
That is wealth destruction.
And in fact the statement that no growth is possible in a zero sum game is why socialists have a real problem in generating it.
I cant answer for the States but almost to a man the Left in this country are 100% ex public sector workers, or in areas of activity that are largely parasitic. E.g. lawyers.
None of them have any experience of creating wealth, they just got paid regardless.
--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent renewable energy.