Globalization has eradicated great power war, dedev reverses
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A2: Collapse InevitableCollapse of growth and capitalism isn’t inevitable—the system constantly adapts and bounces back—history provesKaletsky, ’11 (Anatole, editor-at-large of The Times of London, where he writes weekly columns on economics, politics, and international relationsand on the governing board of the New York-based Institute for New Economic Theory (INET), a nonprofit created after the 2007-2009 crisis to promote and finance academic research in economics, Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis, p. 2-3, jj) To explain this process of renewal, and identify some of the most important features of the reinvigorated capitalist system, is the ambition of this book. This transformation will take many years to complete, but some of its consequences have become discernible already. And with the benefit of even a few years’ hindsight, it is clear that these consequences will be very different from the nihilistic predictions from both ends of the political spectrum at the height of the crisis. On the Left, anticapitalist ideologues seemed honestly to believe that a few weeks of financial chaos could bring about the disintegration of a politico-economic system that had survived two hundred years of revo lutions, depressions, and world wars. On the Right, free-market zealots insisted that private enterprise would be destroyed by precisely the government interventions that proved necessary to save the system— and as soon as the crisis was over, started to claim that all the trouble could have been avoided if governments had simply allowed the financial systems to collapse. A balanced reassessment of the crisis must challenge both left-wing hysteria and right-wing hubris. Rather than blaming the meltdown of the global financial system on greedy bankers, incompetent regulators, gullible homeowners, or foolish Chinese bureaucrats, this book puts what happened into historical and ideological perspective. It reinterprets the crisis in the context of the economic reforms and geopolitical upheavals that have repeatedly transformed the nature of capitalism since the late eighteenth century, most recently in the Thatcher-Reagan revolution of 1979– 89. The central argument is that capitalism has never been a static system that follows a fixed set of rules, characterized by a permanent division of responsibilities between private enterprise and governments. Contrary to the teachings of modern economic theory, no immutable laws govern the behavior of a capitalist economy. Instead, capitalism is an adaptive social system that mutates and evolves in response to a changing environment. When capitalism is seriously threatened by a systemic crisis, a new version emerges that is better suited to the changing environment and replaces the previously dominant form. Once we recognize that capitalism is not a static set of institutions, but an evolutionary system that reinvents and reinvigorates itself through crises, we can see the events of 2007– 09 in another light: as the catalyst for the fourth systemic transformation of capitalism, comparable to the transformations triggered by the crises of the 1970s, the crises of the 1930s, and the Napoleonic Wars of 1803– 15. Hence the title of this book. Their authors rely on discredited Malthusian predictions—they don’t account for new technology and price mechanisms.Friedman 5 — Benjamin M. Friedman, William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, former Chair of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, 2005 (“Growth and the Environment,” The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Published by Knopf Publishing Group, ISBN 0679448918, p. 377) The Limits of Growth authors made such faulty predictions because they underestimated the power of technological advance, and ignored altogether the role of initially higher prices both in encouraging substitution by users and in stimulating new supplies. 23 The conceptual framework they took as their model was essentially that of Malthus, who nearly two centuries before, living in what was still a predominantly agricultural economy, had focused on the tension between the arithmetic increase of food production and exponential population growth. (The first two chapters of The Limits to Growth were titled “The Nature of Exponential Growth” and “The Limits to Exponential Growth.”) But Malthus had failed to see the implications of the technological revolution that was beginning to take place around him, including advances in agricultural methods as well as new modes of transportation that opened the way to grow food on land previously too far away to be useful.* On the evidence of the three decades since the Club of Rome report appeared, its authors similarly failed to anticipate the power of new technology, or to understand the functioning of the price mechanism. The variables they isolate aren’t insurmountable Rogoff 12-6-11 (Kenneth, professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund the Daily Star, Is modern capitalism sustainable in this current economic climate? http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2011/Dec-06/156118-is-modern-capitalism-sustainable-in-this-current-economic-climate.ashx#axzz1flB2SZz4, jj) I am often asked whether the recent global financial crisis marks the beginning of the end of modern capitalism. It is a curious question, because it seems to presume there is a viable replacement waiting in the wings. The truth of the matter is that, for now at least, the only serious alternatives to today’s dominant Anglo-American paradigm are other forms of capitalism. Continental European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it – except sustainability. China’s Darwinian capitalism, with its fierce competition among export firms, a weak social-safety net, and widespread government intervention, is widely touted as the inevitable heir to Western capitalism, if only because of China’s huge size and consistent outsize growth rate. Yet China’s economic system is continually evolving. Indeed, it is far from clear how far China’s political, economic, and financial structures will continue to transform themselves, and whether China will eventually morph into capitalism’s new exemplar. In any case, China is still encumbered by the usual social, economic, and financial vulnerabilities of a rapidly growing lower-income country. Perhaps the real point is that, in the broad sweep of history, all current forms of capitalism are ultimately transitional. Modern-day capitalism has had an extraordinary run since the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, lifting billions of ordinary people out of abject poverty. Marxism and heavy-handed socialism have disastrous records by comparison. But, as industrialization and technological progress spread to Asia (and now to Africa), someday the struggle for subsistence will no longer be a primary imperative, and contemporary capitalism’s numerous flaws may loom larger. First, even the leading capitalist economies have failed to price public goods such as clean air and water effectively. The failure of efforts to conclude a new global climate-change agreement is symptomatic of the Second, along with great wealth, capitalism has produced extraordinary levels of inequality. The growing gap is partly a simple byproduct of innovation and entrepreneurship. People do not complain about Steve Jobs’s success; his contributions are obvious. But this is not always the case: Great wealth enables groups and individuals to buy political power and influence, which in turn helps to generate even more wealth. Only a few countries – Sweden, for example – have been able to curtail this vicious circle without causing growth to collapse. A third problem is the provision and distribution of medical care, a market that fails to satisfy several of the basic requirements necessary for the price mechanism to produce economic efficiency, beginning with the difficulty that consumers have in assessing the quality of their treatment. The problem will only get worse: health-care costs as a proportion of income are sure to rise as societies get richer and older, possibly exceeding 30 percent of GDP within a few decades. In health care, perhaps more than in any other market, many countries are struggling with the moral dilemma of how to maintain incentives to produce and consume efficiently without producing unacceptably large disparities in access to care. It is ironic that modern capitalist societies engage in public campaigns to urge individuals to be more attentive to their health, while fostering an economic ecosystem that seduces many consumers into an extremely unhealthy diet. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, 34 percent of Americans are obese. Clearly, conventionally measured economic growth – which implies higher consumption – cannot be an end in itself. Fourth, today’s capitalist systems vastly undervalue the welfare of unborn generations. For most of the era since the Industrial Revolution, this has not mattered, as the continuing boon of technological advance has trumped short-sighted policies. By and large, each generation has found itself significantly better off than the last. But, with the world’s population surging above 7 billion, and harbingers of resource constraints becoming ever more apparent, there is no guarantee that this trajectory can be maintained. Financial crises are of course a fifth problem, perhaps the one that has provoked the most soul-searching of late. In the world of finance, continual technological innovation has not conspicuously reduced risks, and might well have magnified them. In principle, none of capitalism’s problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a variety of market-based solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving A2: Collapse Inevitable – Complexity Complexity doesn’t result in collapse Tainter 2009 (Joseph Tainter, professor of environment and society at Utah State University, “Interview with Joseph Tainter on Collapse,” 11/3/09 http://varnelis.net/blog/interview_with_joseph_tainter_on_collapse So as civilizations develop, you conclude, they differentiate—for example, by creating highly specialized social roles—and build greater and greater levels of organization that require higher investment of energy to maintain. Eventually the marginal returns on investment decline and civilizations either figure out how to deal with that situation or collapse. You note that from the perspective of humans as a species and hominadae as a family, complexity is quite unusual. Most of our existence has been in small settlements or nomadic groups that have relatively little differentiation and low levels of complexity. Today we are living in the most complex society that has ever existed, yet we’ve avoided collapse thus far. Why is that? JT: Diminishing returns to complexity are probably inevitable, but collapse doesn’t necessarily follow. Collapses are actually not that common. There are several ways to cope with diminishing returns to complexity. One is to find energy subsidies to pay for the process. That is what we have done with fossil fuels. And it is a big part of why a future crisis in fossil fuels is the most important thing we should be worrying about. Complexity is inevitable and good -- problem solving techniques. Tainter 2006 (Joseph Tainter, professor of environment and society at Utah State University, “Social Complexity and Sustainablility,” Ecological Complexity, http://www.fraw.org.uk/files/economics/tainter_2000.pdf) Thus, the development of complexity is a wonderful dilemmas of human history. Over the past 12,000 years, we have responded to challenges with strategies that cost more labor, time, money, and energy, and that go against our aversion to such costs. We have done this because most of the time complexity works. It is a basic problem-solving tool. Confronted with problems, we often respond by developing more complex technologies, establishing new institutions, adding more specialists or bureaucratic levels to an institution, increasing organization or regulation, or gathering and processing more information. Such increases in complexity work in part because they can be implemented rapidly, and typically build on what was developed before. While we usually prefer not to bear the cost of complexity, our problem solving efforts are powerful complexity generators. All that is needed for growth of complexity is a problem that requires it. Since problems continually arise, there is persistent pressure for complexity to increase. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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