capitalism and eternal growth

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perhaps the capitalists here can answer this question, I've never seen it properly answered, or answered at all, for that matter.  capitalism needs growth in order to survive.  this shouldn't be controversial.  from recall about 2% growth is needed to stave off deflation, job loss, and the other nasty stuff. 

yet the Earth is finite, and here we run into a problem, a 'contradiction'.  unless the esteemed capitalist innovation can overcome the first law of thermodynamics, or locate other Earth-like planets to transport people to and extract resources from, we eventually hit a wall of sorts.  the use of nature as an infinite source of raw material and dumping ground for externalized costs is necessarily finite.

when exactly this needs to be addressed could constitute a different conversation, which we can leave off for the time being.

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In the sentence "capitalism needs growth in order to survive" I do not understand the words "capitalism", "needs", and "survive". We are, also, probably, not on the same page as far as the word "growth" is concerned. Care to elablorate?

something ideologically sensitive and the econ. professor suddenly loses half of his vocabulary.  fascinating tactic but I'm not about to get drawn into a pedantic dissection on your territory this early on.  go with your intuition and impression.

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Why do people - especially scientists who dip their toes in social science - always seem to think that we are now living through TEH MOST EXCITING TRANSFORMULATION ERA EVAR!!!111? I? I don't see it personally. This is - except in regards to technology - an incredibly conservative era compared to any time between 1920 (or maybe even the 1890s) and 1979. And I don't see much cultural change on the horizon, growth or not.

David Sprintzen in his http://www.amazon.com/Critique-Western-Philosophy-Social-Theory/dp/1137035633 takes the position that we are in the midst of a fundamental transformation akin to the Protestant Reformation / Scientific Revolution of four and five centuries ago.  he writes

we are participant-observers to the apparent end of the following essential structures of the modern Western world...

-classical science with its Copernican solar system and Newtonian mechanical causality;
-an Earth-centered cosmos;
-traditional monotheistic religions and biblical "History";
-the purposeful, even providential, unfolding of cosmic development and human history;
-the nation state and what was left of economic autonomy;
-the dominance of the "free" market;
-the ability to treat nature as essentially raw material and a substitutable factor of production;
-relatively insular and homogenous societies;
-the doctrine of individualism and the social contract;
-"liberal" democracy and local self-government;
-the mind-body duality and the autonomous self;
-relatively fixed and apparently biologically determined gender and even species identities.


as opposed to being a "scientist dipping his toes in social science", he is more of a social scientist who dips his toes into natural science, and taking the position you described.

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#5 has definitely accelerated in the past 20 years or so.  with the EU central bank installing heads of state and whatnot, international financial institutions dictating policy to first world countries, etc.

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And if the term "Second Scientist Revolution" means anything akin to the idea of the Author then it began when.... with Special Relativity perhaps, which was discovered in 1905... or perhaps with the beginning of Quantum Mechanics... which was in the 1920s i.e. before my grandfather was born.

he's pointing to the latter, which he is aware began in the 1920s and goes into Einstein's distrust of the uncertainty principle.

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"Capitalism" to my mind has neither of those things. I've already posted that Gunder Frank quote which pointed out that the idea of "Capitalism" in Marxism was based on a form of historical determinism in which Capitalism was one stage of historical development - up from Feudalism - that would eventually and inevitably lead to Communism.

as an aside, this is more of a 'vulgar-Marxist' concept taken from a Stalinist catechism than anything else.  it is far from demonstrable that Marx ever argued along these lines, though he suggested them once or twice. 

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"Capitalism" to my mind has neither of those things. I've already posted that Gunder Frank quote which pointed out that the idea of "Capitalism" in Marxism was based on a form of historical determinism in which Capitalism was one stage of historical development - up from Feudalism - that would eventually and inevitably lead to Communism.

as an aside, this is more of a 'vulgar-Marxist' concept taken from a Stalinist catechism than anything else.  it is far from demonstrable that Marx ever argued along these lines, though he suggested them once or twice.  

Ok. Fair enough. I must go back to my Marx then but that thus raises two problems: 1) If Capitalism is a thing that is changeable (i.e. Is not a permanent condition of humanity but a development from human history) then surely it arose out of particular historical and intellectual conditions. If not the 'transition from Feudalism', then what? and 2) If the notions of Capitalism we are arguing about are descendent from the Catechisms of Stalinism, what does they say of our notions?

to go even further, I don't believe Marx ever used the word 'capitalism', preferring instead more specific phrases like 'capitalist mode of production'.  I'm not sure how we even got started on this as if we look at my OP there is nothing particularly marxist about it, and I don't use specifically Marxian categories like surplus-value or exchange-value or etc.

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how is it Marxian derived?  it is not as if the use of word itself is limited to Marxists.  I freely admit that my natural interest in the left has led Marxism to have a disproportionate influence on my modes of thought, but has never before prevented with communication with others on a basic level.

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how is it Marxian derived?  it is not as if the use of word itself is limited to Marxists.  I freely admit that my natural interest in the left has led Marxism to have a disproportionate influence on my modes of thought, but has never before prevented with communication with others on a basic level.

No. Of course it's not limited to Marxists. That's the point. But the idea that 'modes of production' are a key historical structural of which is the current, existing one is referred to as 'Capitalism' is an idea with its origins in Marx (and Hegel too obviously, if you are talking about Historical structuralism).

or going further back, with Smith and Ricardo.  which closes the circle, no?