Daly, Herman (editor). Toward a Steady-State Economy. Freeman. San Francisco 1973. pp 149-174

1. THE STEADY-STATE ECONOMY: TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF Biophysical EQUILIBRIUM AND MORAL GROWTH - Daly Daly, Herman (editor).Toward a Steady-State Economy. Freeman. San Francisco 1973. pp 149-174 Ben Kreisman; Ecological Economics

2. GROWTHMANIA • Fragmentation of knowledge and people by excessive specialization • Disequilibrium between the human economy and the natural ecosystem • Congestion and pollution of our spatial dimension of existence • Congestion and pollution of our temporal dimension of existence with the resulting state of harried drivenness

3. GROWTH IS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING • grow more to provide more employment for the poor • invest and grow to bolster aggregate demand • grow by raising productivity so more goods will be chased by the same number of dollars and prices will fall • grow to become rich enough to afford the costs of cleaning up and of discovering new resources and technologies • grow to be strong and have both guns and butter • poverty • unemployment • inflation • pollution and depletion • war

4. THE STEADY-STATE • “…defined as an economy which the total population and the total stock of physical wealth are maintained constant at some desired levels by a ‘minimal’ rate of maintenance throughput” • At what levels should the stocks of wealth and people be maintained constant? • What is the optimal level of maintenance throughput for a given level of stocks? • What is the optimal time horizon or accounting period over which population and wealth are required to be constant? • What is the optimal rate of transition from the growing economy to the steady-state economy?

5. Social institutions of control (3) • maintaining constant populations • maintaining constant stock of physical wealth • governing distribution • guiding design principle for social institutions • provide the necessary control with a minimum sacrifice to personal freedom • provide macrostability, allowing for microvariability • combine macrostatic with microdynamic

6. Social institutions of control (3) 2. maintaining constant stock of physical wealth • control aggregate depletion rather than control pollution • legal rights to deplete auctioned off • population /economic growth increase demand = higher prices and less consumption 3. governing distribution • Set limits for the maximum and minimum amount of wealth and income • supports concept of property rights, but only under the assumption that everyone owns some property • would legitimize free-market system 1. maintaining constant populations • Kenneth Boulding plan for birth certificates • initial allocation is equal across the market • compensation for people suffering from infertility • rich can purchase more credits, but ultimately decrease per capita income

7. On moral growth • Based on the assumption of static morality, logic and necessity are not sufficient to bring social change • “…progress chiefly depends on the extent to which the strongest and not merely the highest forces of human nature can be utilized” – Alfred Marshall

8. Morality of the steady-state • ‘wholeness’ • If ‘truth’ is whole, then current knowledge is so far from the truth that knowledge is not worth obtaining “…unless physical, social and moral dimensions of our knowledge are integrated in a unified paradigm offering a vision of wholeness, no solutions to our problems are likely.” • Sermon on the Mount: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own evil be sufficient for the day” • Karl Marx’s materialism and objection to the alienation of man from nature; • recognized that nature is the ‘inorganic body if man’ and not just a pile of neutral stuff to be dominated

9. “…to advance the steady-state economy, with stabilized population and consumption, as a policy goal with widespread public support.” • CASSE top 15 policies for achieving a steady-state economy • Adopt macro-economic policy goal – a steady-state economy • Maintain exemplary network of conservation areas sufficient in size to support ecosystem services • Stabilize population • Gradually reset existing fiscal, monetary and trade policy levers from growth towards steady-state • Limit the range of inequality in income and wealth • Develop a commons sector to accompany the public/private sectors; assign property rights for commonly held resources • Employ cap-and-trade auctions in commons sector for allocating resources • Establish for flexible working day/week/year • Overhaul banking regulations; elimination of fractional reserve banking so monetary systems move away from debt structure that requires economic growth • Adjust zoning policies to limit sprawl and promote energy conservation • Continue to monitor GDP as a a measure of the size of the economy; use other measures for welfare • Prevent unconstrained capital mobility • Work towards full utilization of costs in prices • Institute policies that move away from globalization and towards localization (conservation) • Limit advertising to prevent unnecessary demand steadystate.org