Comments on: Energy Intensity http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/06/22/energy-intensity/ Ed Ring's EcoWorld Posts Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:44:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: JamesG http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/06/22/energy-intensity/#comment-90069 JamesG Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:53:53 +0000 http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/?p=342#comment-90069 You seem to see only black and white but most real systems are shades of grey. While the USSR was bad that was hardline communist, not socialist. Have you considered that California is successful precisely because it is more liberal? Consider it! Then consider the economies of Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, UK - all successful with modern social democracies based on a large dose of safety-net socialism. Now look again at the current US economy with it's obsession for consumerism and individualism. Not looking so great is it? Sure it looked fine a few years back but spending other people's money does seem great until its time to pay it all back. When the US recovers from this crisis it'll surely be California in the lead. Granted though, the US venture capital system will help a lot. But what's killing Ford and GM? They say it's health care and pension costs which, of course, all their competitors can lay off onto the state. Yet the US spends much more on health per capita than anybody else. Where does this wonderfully efficient capitalist system spend it all? Despite the rhetoric, there is no actual evidence that a pure free market system is intrinsically better. Canada is after all, rather better off than the USA. The USSR isn't a fair comparison but modern Russia is - in a different way. Their first flirt with capitalism (under total advisement from US economists) was a complete disaster. They are far better off now because Putin removed this free-ness which was encouraging only rampant corruption and reinstated some proper state regulation. State energy companies like Petrobras or Statoil work very well while 5-minute wonders like Enron go down the pan owing millions. The difference is not in the wonders of competition, which is illusory, it is purely good versus bad management. The free market ideology, has been extensively tested in latin America since it was being shoved down their throats by the IMF and World bank and it resolutely failed everywhere. Latin America is much now better off because they rejected it. And guess what? The world bank and the IMF now admit it! Having said all that, yes I do agree that when socialism goes too far, it utterly stifles companies and creates too many pampered, leeching bureaucrats. France is an absolutely perfect example of that. Yet France is still doing fine. The quality of life there is excellent, somewhat better than the US I assure you, and they are 80% nuclear - thanks to good socialist state decisions free of competition. There is definitely a sweet-spot to be struck somewhere in the middle between laissez-faire and regulation. That's what experience really tells when you look more carefully at the facts and ditch all that simplistic and crappy ideological theory - mainly taught by people who were never in business themselves. You seem to see only black and white but most real systems are shades of grey. While the USSR was bad that was hardline communist, not socialist. Have you considered that California is successful precisely because it is more liberal? Consider it! Then consider the economies of Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, UK - all successful with modern social democracies based on a large dose of safety-net socialism. Now look again at the current US economy with it’s obsession for consumerism and individualism. Not looking so great is it? Sure it looked fine a few years back but spending other people’s money does seem great until its time to pay it all back. When the US recovers from this crisis it’ll surely be California in the lead. Granted though, the US venture capital system will help a lot.

But what’s killing Ford and GM? They say it’s health care and pension costs which, of course, all their competitors can lay off onto the state. Yet the US spends much more on health per capita than anybody else. Where does this wonderfully efficient capitalist system spend it all?

Despite the rhetoric, there is no actual evidence that a pure free market system is intrinsically better. Canada is after all, rather better off than the USA. The USSR isn’t a fair comparison but modern Russia is - in a different way. Their first flirt with capitalism (under total advisement from US economists) was a complete disaster. They are far better off now because Putin removed this free-ness which was encouraging only rampant corruption and reinstated some proper state regulation. State energy companies like Petrobras or Statoil work very well while 5-minute wonders like Enron go down the pan owing millions. The difference is not in the wonders of competition, which is illusory, it is purely good versus bad management. The free market ideology, has been extensively tested in latin America since it was being shoved down their throats by the IMF and World bank and it resolutely failed everywhere. Latin America is much now better off because they rejected it. And guess what? The world bank and the IMF now admit it!

Having said all that, yes I do agree that when socialism goes too far, it utterly stifles companies and creates too many pampered, leeching bureaucrats. France is an absolutely perfect example of that. Yet France is still doing fine. The quality of life there is excellent, somewhat better than the US I assure you, and they are 80% nuclear - thanks to good socialist state decisions free of competition. There is definitely a sweet-spot to be struck somewhere in the middle between laissez-faire and regulation. That’s what experience really tells when you look more carefully at the facts and ditch all that simplistic and crappy ideological theory - mainly taught by people who were never in business themselves.

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