hi chris, could you scribd this for a blogpost in early august, with same title as above, i.e. "the insuffficiency of efficiency" see http://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/CASSE_Brief_Efficient_Allocation.p... Michel CASSE: "Long before the economy threatens the resilience of ecosystems, economic growth can become undesirable. Much growth (i.e., increasing GDP) consists of “defensive expenditures,” products and services that counteract the negative consequences of other economic activities. An example of a defensive expenditure is the treatment of cancer caused by industrial pollution. Even assuming a product causes no direct harm to its user, its production inevitably contributes to the depletion of natural resources. The tradeoff between products and natural resources may be worthwhile when the economy is small, but as it grows, the additional products become increasingly costly. Through much of human history people have been made better off by having and consuming more things. In high-consuming countries today, however, the costs of increased production often outweigh the benefits. Further growth has become uneconomic." (http://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/CASSE_Brief_Sustainable_Scale.pdf ) [[Category:Ecology]] [[Category:Economics]] -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI