# Subsistence based vs growth based economy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314 "2018-04-12T21:20:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/61 "2018-04-14T19:46:36Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’m not so sure of that. It’s no accident that the societies the OP hates have declining populations, while those living in a subsistence economy still have increasing populations. Send the populations that the OP hates back to subsistence level, and the those currently living in a subsistence economy no longer have increasing populations. Their increasing populations depend, to a large degree, on the horrible stuff produced in the societies the OP hates (food, fertilizer, birth control, medical supplies, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/62 "2018-04-14T20:59:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You’re in the right forum for witnessing. That’s all this is, of course. > > “I’ve got a great deal for a utopia!” What does it look like?" “It looks great.” “How do we get there?” “By saying that it’s utopia.” How do you know if it will work?" "It’s utopia, isn’t it? “Why should I buy into your utopia when I can come up with my own?” “There’s only one utopia!” > > Witnessing is never going to work around these parts, but circular witnessing, man, that’s guaranteed fail. > > The least you could do to prove a modicum of sincerity is answer some of the questions that people ask. > > **Here’s a question you’re carefully avoiding. "What do you do with your life that corresponds to the world you advocate?**" I do what I can atm to live in accordance with my values. I obviously do not care about trendy consumer goods, or acquiring the latest consumer gadgets. I do not watch TV. I do not play video games. I purchase almost all my clothing at thrift stores. I do not consume any Hollywood produced entertainment. I have replaced my smart phone with a dumb one. I drive an inexpensive used vehicle. I’d rather not have a car at all, but it’s almost a necessity for me right now. I eat a simple, strict vegetarian diet. I will never, ever procreate, and think that others should do the same. I don’t invest any time or energy into following pro sports. In the future, when I have more freedom, I will live even more in line with my values. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/63 "2018-04-14T22:33:36Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > I do what I can atm to live in accordance with my values. I obviously do not care about trendy consumer goods, or acquiring the latest consumer gadgets. I do not watch TV. I do not play video games. I purchase almost all my clothing at thrift stores. I do not consume any Hollywood produced entertainment. I have replaced my smart phone with a dumb one. I drive an inexpensive used vehicle. I’d rather not have a car at all, but it’s almost a necessity for me right now. I eat a simple, strict vegetarian diet. I will never, ever procreate, and think that others should do the same. I don’t invest any time or energy into following pro sports. > In the future, when I have more freedom, I will live even more in line with my values. Thank you for answering a direct question. I’m glad that you are attempting to live up to your ideals. I also need to point out that your self-abnegation is not the same thing as living in the world you advocate for others. Fun is not an evil to be avoided: it is a necessary part of the human condition. A vegetarian diet has much to recommend it, but unless you are growing it yourself on your subsistence farm it still requires the worldwide production, distribution, and sales infrastructure that animal foods do. If a car is a necessity for you, then you are culpable in the entire system that requires cars. I will assume that you have a job, but that too is antithetical to the system your OP proposed. I will further assume that you rent or own a home, rather than built it yourself. I assume you went to school and not just to learn farming. I don’t have to assume you post on an internet message board: think about how that fits into your assertions. I don’t know your health situation, but I know mine. That alone is a gigantic hole in your simplified world model. I want the most sophisticated health care, pharmaceuticals, and palliative care our modern society can provide. I get most of my clothes from thrift stores and I’ve been actively recycling since before you were born. But none of that means anything when I go to the hospital. Your OP and most of your responses here have been inchoate rants. An argument exists for some simplification in western society. No such argument exists for subsistence living. I won’t do it and I’ll bet the iPhone I don’t have that you won’t either. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/64 "2018-04-14T22:51:33Z")
We all need to follow this woman’s adherence to those ideals. Anything less doesn’t cut it. > [@](#): > > The 28-year-old LeFleur lives in Henderson, Louisiana, and grew up hunting and fishing around the bayou. Her father taught her not to waste anything from an animal. [Louisiana Woman Creates Frog Bikini (And It's Ribbiting) | HuffPost Weird News](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fabiana-lefleur-frog-bikini_us_5acf71d8e4b0d4931c8af7ea) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/65 "2018-04-14T22:58:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > We all need to follow this woman’s adherence to those ideals. Anything less doesn’t cut it. > > [Louisiana Woman Creates Frog Bikini (And It's Ribbiting) | HuffPost Weird News](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fabiana-lefleur-frog-bikini_us_5acf71d8e4b0d4931c8af7ea) Even in that case, what keeps me from going over and taking what she has, rather than getting it myself? It’s useful having a surplus production to give to people who have the sole job of preventing crime. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/66 "2018-04-14T23:32:48Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > … In the future, when I have more freedom, I will live even more in line with my values. I’m curious what you mean by this and how you plan to acquire more freedom. If I had to guess, it would be that you plan to perform a surplus of work and acquire some additional financial security, but that would seem anti-thetical to your ideals, so I’d prefer to hear from you what you mean by this. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/67 "2018-04-15T00:33:08Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > I will never, ever procreate, and think that others should do the same. You would condemn humanity to die after the current generation? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2018, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/68 "2018-04-15T03:31:00Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > You would condemn humanity to die after the current generation? I told you he was witnessing. The essence of witnessing is the terror that some people are not thinking the way you do. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2018, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314/69 "2018-04-15T04:29:21Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > This is absolutely, totally, completely, 100%, and in every other way true. > > The problem with discussing it, however, is that it is not at core an economic problem. It is an _evolutionary_ problem. Animals will breed to the limits of the carrying capacity of their environment. We as a species are in the unique position that we have expanded the carrying capacity of our environment, in order to support ourselves, far beyond its original constraints. In doing so, we have set up quite by accident a highly interdependent, and potentially very fragile, global economic system. Our system is not something that any individual consciously designed. It is at core an accidental (some might say “emergent”) byproduct of gazillions of interacting individual decisions. > > Markets are not a matter of design, but of emergent order. No one needs to know exactly how a market actually works, in order for a market to work. > > That makes even the mere matter of _discussing them honestly_ a hugely tricky feat. I see essentially zero possibility of actually finding a collective solution, when even the mere act of discussion is difficult to the point of near impossibility. We face much simpler short-term economic problems, with what strikes me as “obvious” (from my perspective) solutions, but we don’t collectively choose those solutions because however “obvious” they seem to me (rightly or wrongly), they are not collectively obvious in a way that can lead to coordinated action. And the long-term problem you’re talking about? That’s at least another order of magnitude more difficult a problem. > > It’s worth talking about. Yes. Absolutely. But I don’t know that we _can_ talk about it, don’t know that we’re even _capable_ of talking about it in a rational fashion. One reason why it’s hard to talk about is that economic opinions have become part of people’s social identity to the extent that talking about a change or variation of economic systems is felt like an attack on the person themselves. There are people who are very unwilling to hear “Capitalism is a great element of a unified econoomic policy that also includes government planning and social action” because this is different to “Capitalism is perfect in every way, and our economic system should consist of capitalism with capitalism icing, and extra capitalism on top” and in their minds (and that of other people like - say - the OP) the only other possible position is “Capitalism is the root of all evil and must be destroyed immediately” I take issue also with the people who say that increasing population and resource consumption are necessary for a market-based economy too. We might feel like increasing population is necessary because we’ve always lived in a world that does in fact have increasing population, and we know how that works. But in essence all you need for markets to work are: [ul] [li]Someone wants something they don’t yet have[/li][li]Someone is able to work to provide something people don’t yet have[/li][li]There’s a mechanism to get these people together to form agreements[/li][/ul] And “something” can be anything - it can be an intangible, it can be instruction in a skill, it can be some sort of social or intellectual “good” (in the market sense). It doesn’t actually have to consume (much) physical resources. So one way to transition to post-scarcity without suffering a Malthusian crisis would be if people value physical stuff less, and intangibles more. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/subsistence-based-vs-growth-based-economy/812314.md?page=3)