Re: KEYNESIANISM AND ECOLOGY

At 06:45 PM 4/29/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>Randy, Warren and all-
>
>The problem with the "optimistic scenario" of the semiperiphery moving up
>in the system is that it might very well destroy the biospere.  (It may in
>fact already be too late...)
>
>If the forward momentum of economic "progress" continues, whether in its
>unreformed capitalist mode, a reformed social democratic mode, or a state
>socialist mode, ecological disasters are inevitable.

I wonder. An escape clause might, just possibly, be found in the expected
sharp population decline in First World countries, and even in Second World
countries like the former Soviet bloc and even China (in a couple of
generations).

Static or even declining populations aren't completely uncommon in
industrial states. Take France, which had achieved a stable population under
the Second Empire, and whose population would have shrunk over the next
three generations had it not been  for the growth of an immigrant working
class, mainly of Belgian, Italian, Spanish, and Polish origins. Despite a
static population, France was able to remain an advanced industrial economy,
despite the post-1871 economic depression, so much worse in France than in
Britain and Germany.

People will go to where the wealth is. The economies of the Triad (the US
excepted, thanks to a high rate of natural increase), and Second World
countries in central Europe will have declining populations in the
foreseeable future. Long-term population trends suggest that the same will
occur in First World and Second World countries worldwide, without
exceptions barring a "baby boom" of some kind or another. The International
Database (@http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html) gives an idea of the
sharp declines experienced by many of these countries.

Specialists have traditionally thought there to be four stages to the
demographic transition:

* high birth rates and high death rates, each at roughly 40 per 1000.

* high birth rates and falling death rates, leading to significant natural
increase;

* middlish birth rates and low death rates, leading to continued but less
significant natural increase;

* low birth rates and low death rates, each at roughly 10 per 1000.

It may well be that there is a fifth stage to the demographic transition, of
birth rates lower than death rates and consequent population decline. If
that is the case, then not only may the population of the world stabilize at
a barely manageable level, but the populations of the most industrialized
and hence most environmentally dangerous countries may be declining sharply,
leading to a decreased impact on the environment. Would the development of a
more purely services-based economy do anything to lessen environment damage?

Just an idea.

>RH

Randy McDonald
Charlottetown PE
Canada