Tverberg’s depiction of changes to workers share of output of economy, if costs keep rising for other portions of the economy. (Chart is only intended to illustrate the problem; it is not based on a study of the relative amounts involved.)

A description of each element:

• Pollution control. Pollution sinks are already full. Continuing to use non-renewable resources (including burning fossil fuels) adds increased pollution. Workarounds have costs, and these take an increasing share of the output of the economy.
• Energy used in energy production. When we started extracting energy products, the cheapest, easiest-to-extract energy products were chosen first. The energy products that are left are higher-cost to extract, and thus require a larger share of the goods the economy produces for extraction.
• Water, metals, and soil workarounds. These suffer from deteriorating quantity and quality, leading to the need for workarounds such as desalination plants, deeper mines, and more irrigated land. All of these take an increasingly large share of the output of the economy.
• Interest and dividends. Capital goods tend to be purchased through debt or sales of stock. Either way, interest payments and dividends must be made, leaving less for workers.
• Increasing hierarchy. Companies need to be larger in size to purchase and manage all of the capital goods needed to work around shortages. High pay for supervisors reduces funds available to pay lower-ranking employees.
• Government funding and pensions. Government programs grow in size in good times, but are hard to cut back in hard times. Pensions, both government and private, are a particular problem because the number of elderly people tends to grow.

We should note that the current system is based on competition and large scale production. There should be obvious now that with these rising problems of all sorts, what can solve them is the opposite of what created them, and that is cooperation and distribution of production. This can best be achieved using the RID-model (Representative Ingroup Democracy) of Terje Bongard. It’s a model of an economical democracy organized in self organizing production cells with an ideal size for cooperation, linked together in a larger network structure.

But we are in a hurry now, as we are standing on the edge on the Stagflation Period of the Secular Cycle!

Shape of typical Secular Cycle, based on work of Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov in Secular Cycles. Chart by Gail Tverberg.

Unfortunately the Research Council of Norway debunked Bongard’s initiative back in 2014, and the tipping point might be reached meanwhile. Still, Bongard is now translating his book “The biological Human Being – individuals and societies in light of evolution” into English all by himself, as he couldn’t find an international publisher. This in spite of that it has sold more than 2500 copies in Norway.

I hope the p2p-community will embrace this book, as it might help us from entering another intercycle, which will have unforeseen consequences with the global reach of our problems.

The illustrations are from Gail Tverberg’s post “Why we have a wage inequality problem“.

The post Why Wages of Workers are Squeezed appeared first on P2P Foundation.

I’m sorry, my dear daughter. These anonymous referees shot down your future. It’s just to lean back and wait for the slow collapse of John Michael Greer. At least this is how I feel now.

Dear daughter, you have no future

Dear all

Please find enclosed the comments from the anonymous referees (not included here).

First, I want to thank each and every one of you for grasping the idea so quickly. During this process I talked to many researchers who did not. Some of them stalled the process and used up our time, and some made it difficult for us with unnecessary negative comments.

It is not easy to think new and creative thoughts. To have a position, status, makes it more difficult to take chances, listen up and think freely. You all crossed this cognitive and evolved conservative mechanism, and I thank you all for that. Your open minded strategy is what is needed now.

Is it possible to reform the global free capitalism to sustainability? As an example, I include Beate Sjåfjell, leader of Concerned Scientists Norway, in this mail. She is fighting bravely to find legal actions to support and encourage “green businesses” through both nations and the EU, see http://www.jus.uio.no/ifp/english/research/projects/sustainable-companies/

Will small changes add up to something really working? I wish Beate all the best, and support her with all my heart, but I fear it will only be cosmetics confined to the rich world. Facing the global poverty, economic growth is overshadowing everything. And time is running out.

But, we need to work for both perspectives: Do the best of a bad job, and at the same time search for creative solutions. But we mustn’t forget the last perspective…

Would new ideas for minor changes and improvements have come out of our MEDOSS project? I don’t know, but I sincerely hope you all will bring the RID model with you, and reflect over the idea whenever discussing solutions to our dangerous near future. Regardless of what the “referees” of our application say, MEDOSS is based on scientific knowledge of human behavior: We can do this change, and it will address societal problems in surprisingly many arenas. It is a sustainable solution.

I would never have engaged in this process if it hadn’t been for the initiative coming from the Norwegian Research Council’s own advisors. The invitation to address the kick-off meeting, and the seed money support from them made me hope for a small miracle. These people are at the center of research and science, and have a unique competence for thinking new thoughts in broader perspectives, free from prestige. I thank you for the opportunity, and please keep thinking more in the same direction!

Alas, the programme committee and referees are not this broadminded. As you will see, the comments are all about how they want elaborations on topics they don’t understand, or are not willing to examine closer themselves. As you all remember, in the struggle to fulfill the limit for 10 pages max, we had to cut into bones. How is it possible to document, to every thinkable referee’s satisfaction, the scientific background for a new society built on a complete democracy, describe experiments and deliverances on 10 pages…. ?

I will write an essay, first in Norwegian, about my efforts over the last years in these matters. My reflections and experiences will perhaps be useful to others. In it, I will discuss how to move on. Of course I will appreciate and include in this essay your comments about the process, the application and ideas for further initiatives and development. We cannot give in yet, or…?

yours truly

Terje

________________________________________________________________

Terje Bongard

Researcher, PhD

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research – NINA

Postal address: NO-7485 Trondheim, NORWAY

Delivery/Visiting address: Høgskoleringen 9, NO-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY

Phone: +47 986 44 786 • Fax: +47 73 80 14 01 • www.nina.no

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