I recall that Kenneth Boulding said there are two kinds of ethics. There’s a heroic ethic and then there’s an economic ethic.

something something madman something something economist

I'm actually really close to original synthesis on this. It goes something like "capitalism is the most dominant cultural evolution in the history of mankind because it directly rewards innovators at the expense of existing power structures. Existing power structures, however, favor hereditary wealth and power so capitalism must necessarily eat its own." That's what ten years of Graeber, Diamond, Ferguson, history, politics and economics gets you - a belief in what I'll call "evolutionary capitalism." AMA.

Something Boulding and Daly tried to bring back - after Adam Smith ran with it but the Chicago School buried it forever - is the idea that you can't externalize everything that doesn't prove your point. It wouldn't take much to argue that "economics" for the past 70 years has been a misadventure of externalizing everything that doesn't make you money. Leftist economists and ecologists, though, fail to account for the fact that capitalism as practiced from the Renaissance onwards has been absolutely dominant compared to everything else it encounters. Not morally superior, not better for its practitioners, not ethically perfect, but hella more virulent than any other economic or social system. Henry Petroski argues, at many-books length, that necessity isn't the mother of invention, luxury is - if you're hungry you aren't going to sit under the shade tree long enough to invent the deadfall trap. You don't come up with the atlatl until you have the spear, the compound bow doesn't come into play until the recurve bow is found wanting. Without patents the Chamberlin forceps remains a hidden trade secret for 200 years; with patents, the Chamberlin forceps is the starting point for a virtuous innovation explosion.

That's "growth" - "doing more with less" is what an increase in productivity really is. Capitalism incentivizes growth. Period. Full stop. According to Wallerstein, though, we measure "productivity" in a truly stupid way:

1) There are five kinds of income: Subsistence, piecework, work-in-kind, wages and influence

- Subsistence includes gardening at home or assembling Ikea furniture - it's stuff that you would have to pay for but you aren't.

- Piecework is selling shit on Etsy, breaking up cartons of cigarettes to sell on street corners, babysitting for your neighbors, anything you make money at but not regularly.

- Work-in-kind is anything that you would normally be doing except you can't because you're earning wages so someone else is doing it for you.

- Wages are paid employment from a regular employer, either by hour or by item.

- Influence is anything you do that makes you more valuable to your community, family or larger social unit, or that makes your community, family or larger social unit more valuable compared to others.

You'll note that most of those examples are impossible without "growth" - no etsy sales without etsy, no assembling Ikea furniture without Ikea. You'll also notice that economists only measure one of those five - wages from a regular employer. It goes back to Luddism and Engels - if the factory inputs and outputs are the only thing you're measuring you're going to get a really perverse picture of the economy and as a result, a really perverse picture of society. Yet despite that perverse picture, the system that measures it still wins.

"Growth economy" vs. "steady-state economy" is the wrong way to look at it, in my opinion - does the economy offer an opportunity for personal advancement? If so it will attract innovators and entrepreneurs. Does the economy, on the other hand, beat you down and flatten all attempts at striving? Then your economy will stagnate and decline. It is my firm opinion that the history of economics is balancing the needs of parents to make a better life for their kids and the needs of worse off parents to not face the accumulated advantage of dynastic wealth. A zero sum economy where my family does ten percent better and your family does ten percent worse has my family 60% better off in just three generations.

Graeber would argue that just looking at the money is stupid. So would Wallerstein. So would McKibben, for that matter. Hey, New York Times, would you like to take a stab at this?

Let me stick with ultimate ends for a second. What do you think the meaning of life is?

BRILLIANT