Econ 101 and Where We're Headed

Property
There are two major forms of property- real and intellectual. Real property (RP) refers to what is physically tangible, like land, crops, livestock, machines, tools, and materials. Intellectual property (IP) refers to what exists only as concepts in the mind, like art and technology.

Capitalism
Capitalism is nothing more or less than the freedom of individuals and organizations to profit from selling whatever they chose to produce with their property (capital).

Market Systems
The market system is the legal environment in which capitalism is permitted. There are two major market systems, each corresponding with a major form of property- free markets and captive markets.

Freedom vs Captivity
Free markets are created by the absence of IP. There is no 'piracy'. Anyone can profit from reproducing anything. Police never shut people down and there is no need for censorship. The middle class is large and mostly self-employed. Poverty rates are low and there is no major disparity of wealth, no top 1%. Goods are made-to-order with high degrees of customization.

Captive markets are created by IP. Direct competition is a criminal offense punishable by arrest at gunpoint, years of incarceration, and fines that can never be paid off. Poverty rates are as high as the disparity of wealth. The middle class is comfortable enough not to revolt but mostly employed, living just above the poverty level. Mass production generates windfall profits for manufacturing monopolies on a regular basis while rapidly depleting all of the worlds non-renewable resources.

Where We're Headed
Cheap energy is what enables manufacturing monopolies to mass produce so much stuff to support so many consumers. Energy is cheap because it's plentiful but, under the captive market, it won't be long before it becomes scarce and expensive.

Dwindling resources will force the economy to shrink over time, supporting fewer consumers. Jobs will disappear, poverty rates will rise and famine will eventually make people desperate.

Crime will increase, beginning with shoplifting, armed robbery, then murder, rape etc. In response, governments will beef up their police forces. Fringe groups will become more popular. Rioting, looting, flash mobs will plague every city. People will begin leaving the country. Government authorities will declare marshal law and nations will descend into anarchy.

Life after that will not be much better than the middle ages.

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TheNightFly wrote:

Dwindling resources will force the economy to shrink over time, supporting fewer consumers. Jobs will disappear, poverty rates will rise and famine will eventually make people desperate.

Crime will increase, beginning with shoplifting, armed robbery, then murder, rape etc. In response, governments will beef up their police forces. Fringe groups will become more popular. Rioting, looting, flash mobs will plague every city. People will begin leaving the country. Government authorities will declare marshal law and nations will descend into anarchy.

Life after that will not be much better than the middle ages.

Can we skip to this part please?

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TheNightFly wrote:

Property
There are two major forms of property- real and intellectual. Real property (RP) refers to what is physically tangible, like land, crops, livestock, machines, tools, and materials. Intellectual property (IP) refers to what exists only as concepts in the mind, like art and technology.

I believe the distinction between earned (ex: machines, tools) and claimed (ex: land, unprocessed natural resources) property is also important.

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TheNightFly wrote:

Free markets are created by the absence of IP. There is no 'piracy'. Anyone can profit from reproducing anything. Police never shut people down and there is no need for censorship. The middle class is large and mostly self-employed.

Dude, there was a time in America that IP laws were tiny compared to what they are now, and what you're describing simply never happened. No matter you're system, most people won't have the knowledge, much less the will, to take on the risks of being an entrepreneur.

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TheNightFly wrote:

Captive markets are created by IP. Direct competition is a criminal offense punishable by arrest at gunpoint, years of incarceration, and fines that can never be paid off. Poverty rates are as high as the disparity of wealth. The middle class is comfortable enough not to revolt but mostly employed, living just above the poverty level. Mass production generates windfall profits for manufacturing monopolies on a regular basis while rapidly depleting all of the worlds non-renewable resources.

While IP laws do create legalized monopoly, and a monopoly in one industry does tend to create subservient monopoly in the supplier industries feeding it... I feel like you're still glossing over a key facet of natural resources: as I mentioned earlier, they're claimed, and only earned in the sense of transportation service rendered.

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TheNightFly wrote:

Government authorities will declare marshal law and nations will descend into anarchy.

Anarchy? Don't you mean chaos? Or are you not some kind of ancap?

energy will never be a scarce resource for us because solar energy exist. And I don't mean just the energy that is absorbed through solar panels. Solar energy is what power up the wind, rain, lakes and water currents. It's impossible to exhaust it while the sun is still there.

Building materials have a maximal amount (before going into space mining or core mining) but every metals are (almost) endlessly reusable and some type of stones can also be reused (concrete and asphalt ie). This is very unlikely to ever cause a problem because food will be one far far earlier than this would.

Now the one real choke-point is food production and to be more exact, the replenishment of our food growing capacity. The real problem here is that our current methods are being made obsolete by our current needs. We have desertification of our soils, the emptying of the oceans and their acidification. We are currently drawing more food from the land than it can replenish, which means that we will run out if we don't adapt soon. Thankfully, we can adapt and new technologies are appearing quickly that will allow this problem to be tackled albeit, it will be very costly. Vertical farming and hydroponics culture are far more efficient than traditional agriculture, have very little waste and do not suffer from parasites. The only problem is they are far more expensive to create (not so much to maintain).

There's also additional options such as reducing waste, going vegan and insect proteins since they require much less grams of feed per gram of food produced. That, however, would only be a temporary solution and is unlikely to be liked by everyone. Alternatively, the process of turning human poop into fertilizer to be used to enrich farmland would also help fighting desertification. Sadly, there's close to nothing that can be done with the over exploitation of the oceans due to our current international laws that allow anyone to fish in international water. China will likely fish all the life from the ocean, sadly...


That being said, you can make a difference yourself. Here's a few ways to help:

recycle

Either by re-purposing objects that have served their purpose or by recycling (I hope there's recycling centers where you live)

Compost

Food waste can be turned into compost, which you can use to grow your own crops or donate to a compost center if there's one where you live. This helps reduce the strain on our farmlands.

Trash sorting

Many items that are thrown into the trash do not belong there. And I don't mean for recycling purposes. Batteries should never be thrown in the trash as the acid is extremely damageable for the environment (and what it really means is that the acid in the battery will leak into the groundwater and pollute it). The same is true of many other appliances. Generally, there's a pick-up point for them and some of them even go to you if you have enough of those items to get rid of. Be responsible!

I'd say there's a 30% chance of this coming to pass. Maybe.

But there's a 100% chance TheNightFly is nowhere near informed enough to do much more than speculate, which is all this is. ignore the declarative language and the tone. And that hilariously condescending topic title, '101' as if this stuff is all obvious and simple and omg why doesn't everyone else GET IT!?

It's interesting how we go from a relatively basic rundown of conveniently-chosen facts to doomsday in less than a page.

That, folks, is what we call very bad scholarship. On the other hand, this is just a game forum right? Right -- so why is TheNightFly then making pretenses at scholarly rigour? Pissweak pretenses, admittedly, but there it is. A list of facts and a ridiculous conclusion to them. But since the whole thing smacks of tinfoil hat conspiracy armchair pessimism, I believe the conclusion came before the facts, which are far too compatible with the outlandish conclusion. Again -- very poor scholarship.

I guess the title is appropriate; this *is* the sort of thing you'd see in a first year class...the sort of thing a lecturer would (hopefully kindly) shoot down.

Caveat Lector.