Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Capital As Power. Power in the Blood of the earth.

Hi Don,
Murphy has a particular viewpoint, earlier last month you cited a joint paper by Tim Garret with Steve Keen was linked to in the Comments here at SEEDS. https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2021-21/esd-2021-21.pdf
What is apparent is an inconsistency in Starting points, starting assumptions, and also objectives. A job for integral analysis if ever there was one.
Keens Book The New economics: a manifesto, was positively reviewed by Simon and Nitschler, with the following proviso as to where next?

Click to access 20211200_bn_steve_keen_the_new_economics_wpcasp.pdf

“…politics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, international relations and other aspects of society affect
the economy. But these effects, whether supportive or distortive, are assumed external to the
economy proper. And this assumption is pivotal. Although the effects of these so-called external
factors alter economic outcomes, they leave the economic categories themselves intact. And this
bifurcation, we argue, is the Achilles’ heel of all economic theories, orthodox and heterodox,
old and new.
In our view, capitalism is not an economic system, but a conflictual mode of power. Those
who rule this mode of power – its dominant capitalists, politicians, mainstream academics,
opinion makers and the various organizations they control – make every effort to conceal its
power features. This is why neoclassical economics, beholden to its masters, can never be a
science. But the problem besieges every and any economic theory that keeps power external to
its basic categories. In our opinion, it is only when the study of capitalism substitutes for the
narrow understanding of its economy that power can assume centre stage to reveal what economics is structured to conceal.”

In the Garret and keen paper. it is stated.
“The half-century for which this fixed ratio held covers two thirds of historical growth in energy demands, so assuming its persistence, the implication is that society is not in fact decoupling from resource needs.”

John Adams referred me to the Murphy book in this comment https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/02/02/221-strategies-for-a-post-growth-economy/comment-page-1/#comment-28890

I did reply but my comment didn’t make it past the filter. Here it is again.

I have read through the Book.
I will read it in more detail. It certainly has a great framework to base a scientific discussion around.
Without hot air by The Late prof. Sir David MacKay is well worth a read its easily findable online. For the less mathematically minded Davids’s book would certainly make a good primer for the Murphy book.
Regarding the shape of and timescale over which an Energy Transformation will take place
There are of course challenges if one has to adhere to an Urgent timescale.
My view is that there is no urgency and those particularly invested in the Urgency narratives tend to be
more closed-minded as to what potential replacement energy sources can take up the slack where other staple energy sources are unable to meet the demands of the future human requirements.

I find the insights of Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan on Capital as Power very compelling their work on Oil price and differential accumulation offers a fascinating perspective on the actualities of oil supply over conjectures of peak oil and EROI of petro carbons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity
Economic actions that create artificial scarcity
Cartels, monopolies and/or rentier capitalism

Unravelling Catastrophe. Seeds of Hope or Seeds of destruction.

Paradigms Lost and Found?

Did you hear the one about the Blind Straw-man leading the Blind Straw-men. A Utopia of Usurers . the plutocratic appeal to science, or, rather, to the pseudo-science that they call Seeds.

Still About Oil . ‘Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition’ . Differential Accumulation, When Big Energy and Big Data Collide.

nEVER tOUCH THE mONEY sYSTEM, nEO cLASSICAL AND hETRODOX eCONOMICS, tWO cHEEKS OF THE SAME aRSE #gORGEOUS gEORGE

Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Capital As Power. Power in the Blood of the earth.

I agree with Eric M.
What Tom Murphy seeks to explain regarding his opinions on unproven and in cases unprovable questions involves a necessary ad hominem as to the Deplorable quotient in those expressing a wish to challenge his bias-based prohibitions as here.
“we need not look elsewhere for the source”.

My Brainwashing

Is Back radiation an Algebraic fiction.
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2022/01/back-radiation-algebraic-fiction-or.html

http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2022/01/back-radiation-algebraic-fiction-or_13.html

Of course this is a different question completely to the Geo Political questions surrounding Peak “Hydro Carbons”
“…politics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, international relations and other aspects of society affect
the economy. But these effects, whether supportive or distortive, are assumed external to the
economy proper. And this assumption is pivotal. Although the effects of these so-called external
factors alter economic outcomes, they leave the economic categories themselves intact. And this
bifurcation, we argue, is the Achilles’ heel of all economic theories, orthodox and heterodox,
old and new.
In our view, capitalism is not an economic system, but a conflictual mode of power. Those
who rule this mode of power – its dominant capitalists, politicians, mainstream academics,
opinion makers and the various organizations they control – make every effort to conceal its
power features. This is why neoclassical economics, beholden to its masters, can never be a
science. But the problem besieges every and any economic theory that keeps power external to
its basic categories. In our opinion, it is only when the study of capitalism substitutes for the
narrow understanding of its economy that power can assume centre stage to reveal what economics is structured to conceal.”
John Adams referred me to the Murphy book in this comment https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/02/02/221-strategies-for-a-post-growth-economy/comment-page-1/#comment-28890
Again I can not commend Eric M’s comment highly enough. Perhaps a better title for this blog post would be Scientism exceptionalism for it is scientism rather than the scientific method that is promoted by this blog.

Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. Capital As Power. Power in the Blood of the earth.

Hi Don,
You might enjoy these interviews with C Northcote Parkinson.



Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”[1] It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization.
Regarding Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. There is a body of what I would call Strawman literature and that book I would place in the same category.
A recent comment on the Tom Murphy Blog struck a chord for me.
Every piece you write feels exactly one of those anachronistic peak oil posts that were 9/10th perfectly logical and 1/10th “not even wrong.” https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/02/human-exceptionalism/#comment-12027
Toms’s exchange on the same thread with Dan Schroeder https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/02/human-exceptionalism/#comment-12069 is also very interesting and informative.
“I disagree with your “factor of 5″. Are you referring to the ratio of US per-capita energy use to world per-capita energy use? That ratio was approximately 5 two decades ago, but it’s now a little under 4. More importantly, Europe and Japan have plateaued at a per-capita energy use far below that of the US and only about twice as high as the current world average.”
With better dialogue and a more rigorous rejection of Polemic presented as objective scientific inquiry, perhaps we will start to generate more light than heat? We can but hope.

Project Cabal ( sorry Syndicate ) The in house Magazine of the Global Elite, Turning up the Heat!

The Economic Superorganism: Review and criticism. Close but no Cigar.