Let's say you and a boatload of people -- 100 people in all -- are shipwrecked on a small island. The island has no mineral resources. It has trees, fruit, small game, fish, rocks, and access to plenty of fish.

How would you make cars if someone wanted to drive? How would you perform open-heart surgery if someone needed that? How would you start an airline? Hell, how would you get off the damned island if people want to travel?

Why is it that the U.S., in the aggregate, is richer than Iceland? Is the U.S. that much more technologically advanced? No, but it is richer in material resources of all kinds: fertile farmland, minerals, timber, etc. This allows it to support a larger population, out of which it supports more scientists, artists, engineers, merchants . . .

Material resources do matter, and they always have limits. We have succeeded in expanding those limits considerably, but this is not unlimited. Nor is it true, as Cato suggested, that we have "only scratched the surface" of the earth's resources, because in fact almost all of the earth's usable resources are ON the surface (or a very shallow depth beneath it). And what's more, we can only divert a certain percent of those resources to the support of human wants and needs. Most of it needs to go to support the rest of the biosphere, on which we depend for maintaining the chemical balance of the air, the average temperature, and all the other prerequisites of life.

The example of whale oil being replaced by petroleum is specious. First of all, whale oil was never used as widely as petroleum is today; it was used in oil lamps and a few other things. The main pre-oil fuels were wood and coal, not whale oil, and oil didn't replace wood and coal because we were running out of those fuels but because oil is better. It's both richer in energy per mass, and more versatile in its use. As we run out of cheap oil, it's obvious there's no comparably superior fuel to replace it with, because if there were we'd already be using it. What will happen as we run out of cheap oil is that we'll turn to energy sources that aren't as good: not as rich, not as versatile. Back to wood and coal, or to nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, etc., all of which have their drawbacks compared to oil. We will have to make do with less energy to use.

Luckily, we have quite a bit of room to improve as far as efficiency is concerned, and can replace oil with these inferior sources of energy without suffering too badly by throwing away less. (We could of course improve efficiency now, or have done so over the past few decades, and so gotten more use out of our cheap and plentiful oil, but neither the immediate economic incentive nor the foresight existed to do this.) But there are limits to efficiency improvement as well. The more efficiency is improved, the harder it becomes to further improve it. Diminishing returns kick in.

In the final analysis, we have no other option that to learn to live within limits imposed by nature. Once we have done so, then we can also learn to terraform other planets, and so expand into space. But there will be natural limits on any other planet, just as here, and so while the limits will expand in this way, they will not disappear.

James Madison, the father of the constitution told us why Welfare is unconstitutional.


"The question of federal relief projects arose in the very first Congress, in 1789, when a bill was introduced to pay a bounty to fishermen at Cape Cod, as well as a subsidy to farmers. James Madison spoke in debate on this bill:

'If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion in to their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county, and parish and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor . . . Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America'[1].

Congress rejected the Cape Cod fishery bill, and with relief Thomas Jefferson said: 'This will settle forever the meaning of the phrase ["promote the general welfare"], which, by a mere grammatical quibble, has countenanced the general government in a claim of universal power'[2].

MORE READING...

Is Welfare Unconstitutional?

Why did you post this in answer to my question of what the first sentence of Article I, Section 8 is? Obviously it doesn't answer the question.

Mr. Hamilton, who is every bit as much the "father of the Constitution," pulled a fast one on Mr. Madison. He included language making a government potentially as powerful as it needed to be, given the public will and desire. If Madison believed to the contrary, Madison was mistaken. Of the points he made in your quote:

Congress cannot take the care of religion into their own hands because that is expressly forbidden by the First Amendment; if that were not so, then it could.

Congress could appoint teachers and pay them from the public treasury. It chooses not to do so.

Congress can, and in part does, assume the provision of the poor.

The power of Congress IS established (potentially) in that latitude, and it DOES subvert the concept of limited federal government, at least in potential.

Congress can, of course, choose not to utilize any federal power the Constitution authorizes, which is what happened w/r/t the Cape Cod fishery bill in 1789. The law wasn't passed and then declared unconstitutional by the Court, it simply wasn't passed. What Congress doesn't vote into law doesn't become law, whether Constitutional or not.

And given that measures similar to the fishery bill are commonly enacted today, quite obviously Mr. Jefferson was wrong in saying that the matter was "settled for all time."

Didn't argue to the contrary. I argued wealth and growth are unlimited.
Currently. But the same argument could be made 250 years ago when the only energy we had was wind, wood, and peat. Somehow, we managed to avoid complete collapse and the destruction of all current natural resources. Wonder how we did that?
Of course. Because we could never find anything better than oil. We might as well quit now. No sense in looking, or inventing, or thinking. Oil is the lifeblood of the Universe and things will always be the way they are today.

The point of using whale oil is to show that innovation does happen in the face of a dwindling resource. And yes, whales were a dwindling resource. I was under the impression that the inability to see much further than a few years down the road wasn't a liberal trait.
So, we can only learn to extract resources from other planets AFTER we've learned how to live within the limits imposed by the nature of THIS planet? Won't other planets have their own constraints? If we learn to live within the limits imposed by this planet, what reason would we have for seeking resources on other planets?

Yes, Jefferson was wrong, because people like you have abused the General Welfare clause to mean anything you want it to mean.

In 1817 Madison vetoed a bill for canals.

He said......

Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation with the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

James Madison,
President of the United States


James Madison: Veto of federal public works bill, March 3, 1817

In effect, that is arguing to the contrary. Wealth is produced by applying human creativity and labor to natural resources. If either of those is limited -- and certainly natural resources are (human creativity and labor are, too, I would argue) -- then wealth is limited.

If we find something better than oil, good for us. It certainly isn't on the horizon right now, which means it is VERY unlikely to be available and developed in time to replace oil, even if it exists. The thing about fossil fuels is that they take many many years' worth of solar power and store them in an accessible form. They're like a bank account that's been growing for a long time before we were even born. There's a lot of money in the account, but it's not infinite, and when it runs dry you're limited to what you can make in the here and now, as opposed to what was laid down for you by your ancestors. There's simply no easy way to replace that.

It's not that we won't have any sources of energy after oil. Of course we will. But they will be poorer sources of energy, barring something that doesn't even exist in anyone's imagination at this time.

I understand the point, but it is specious for the reasons I stated; also because our innovation didn't create oil -- the oil was there to be discovered and used. As always, human creativity and labor can only create wealth by operating on natural resources, and natural resources have limits.

Correct, because unless we do that, our civilization won't survive to develop the technologies needed to extract resources from other planets.

Certainly.

Let me give you an analogous question. If you can learn to live on $25,000 a year, what reason would you have to seek a job that pays $100,000?

I believe the answer is the same. Limits are inevitable. The size of the limits, however, is not.

I can do what I want now and not feel guilty, I bought CCC's (Conspicuous Consumption Credits) from Al Gore.

__________________

Norrin:

I think it might serve you well to read up a bit on the Democratic-Republican Party and the reasons why Jefferson, Madison, et al were against spending money on public works and infrastructure. The early years of the United States, up through and including the Civil War, were characterized by a conflict between the planter elite and the new merchant/capitalist elite. Roughly speaking, the Democratic-Republicans/Democrats represented the former and the Federalists/Whigs/Republicans represented the latter. The reason why Madison vetoed that bill was at least as much because public works for transportation infrastructure would have benefited industry more than agriculture as anything he stated in the veto message.

You can see the conflict in embryo within the Washington administration between the governing philosophies of Jefferson and Hamilton. Madison, of course, was Jefferson's protege. Hamilton saw, rightly IMO, that a stronger central government was needed to spur industrial development; Jefferson actually agreed with this, but didn't WANT industrial development and so opposed a stronger central government.

Yet despite Jefferson's and Madison's restrictive interpretations, the language exists allowing the government to spend money really on just about anything that isn't specifically prohibited. There are some other actions besides spending money that aren't so free and open; Congress can't pass just any law it wants with criminal penalties, for example. But spend money for public works? That's wide open. In vetoing the bill, regardless of what he said, Madison was acting to further his own philosophy of governance, not the Constitution. The bill would not have been unconstitutional if he'd signed it, as later public works projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, attest.

Do you believe that taking from people who work and giving to those who do not work is consistent with the principles this country was founded upon?

No, it's not. I can create wealth and growth through existing natural resources without adding anything more to them, as I demonstrated in my examples. In fact, that the resource is limited (one of a kind) creates the wealth.
No, human creativity and labor are not limited. Those who would argue they are say more about their own abilities than the abilities of Man.
Really? And when will all the oil be gone?
Simply because oil wasn't created by Man doesn't make the argument specious. The point is innovation finds a way; necessity births invention. Take away the necessity and there is no reason for invention. And just because natural resources have limits, doesn't mean wealth is limited as well.
Because I want more. The whole point of this thread, and the discussion I'm having with Andrew, is that wants need to be curtailed. If they are, then I will no longer want that $100,000. If, to use your position, I'm supposed to live within the means of this planet, why would I want anything else? By definition, I have no other needs to be met if my needs are already met by this planet.
What a completely ridiculous statement. Analogous to: Finite is infinite.

The point is that exponential economic growth is based on limited resources. Wants and needs are inevitable.


Really? Are we making cars out of old cars right now? (trade legislation striclty forbids this type of recycling).

Look up efficiency paradoxes. This is very true and is obvious by only a momentary consideration of the history of industrial civilization. Efficiency creates demand. Sound funny, but it is true.

Jevons paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In economics, the Jevons Paradox (sometimes called the Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource. It is historically called the Jevons Paradox as it ran counter to popular intuition. However, the situation is well understood in modern economics. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given output, improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource – which increases demand. Overall resource use increases or decreases depending on which effect predominates."


My plan would be to transition to a fully sustainable economy. Where each year we put an equal amount or more back into the earth than we take.

The current model produces suffering for most. I.e., there are currently more people living as slaves and in extreme poverty then there has ever been in history. This is a direct result of the pursuit of exponential economic growth.

I'm not sure what your point is. They might have created some wealth, but they did not create any more oil.


Begin? The current model produces massive amounts of suffering.

Besides, you are wrong, we hit limits all the time. I.e., there are no more rivers to dam for power. There is a limit to the amount of fertilizer once can put in the soil. There is a limit to refining capacity a nation can produce. There is a limit to the amount of oil a well can produce. There is a limit to the amount of debt a nation can accumulate. There is a limit to the amount of carbon the ocean can store. There is a limit to the amount of nuclear power plants that can be built. There is a limit to the number of solar panels that can be constructed. There is a limit to the amount of wind turbines that can be placed. There is a limit to the amount of labor a single person can produce. Limits to growth are experienced every single day.

There is going to be a reduction in population anyway. We already know the solutions. We just have to apply them.

It has come to pass dozens of times to multiple different civilizations. The difference is that we are now global, therefore so will the collapse be.

Why would we have to make people suffer? I'm talking about improving their lives, lessening the suffering that is caused by our current model, not making them worse.

Andrew

__________________
Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

But growth and wealth are unlimited. They might be based upon limited resources, but they are not limited by those resources. Quite the contrary, the more limited the resource, the greater the propensity to create wealth.
Doesn't mean we can't, does it? If there were no more metal ore on the planet, do you suppose we'd all up and stop making cars?
From your source:
"One way to understand the Jevons Paradox is to observe that an increase in the efficiency with which a resource (e.g., fuel) is used causes a decrease in the price of that resource when measured in terms of what it can achieve (e.g., work). Generally speaking, a decrease in the price of a good or service will increase the quantity demanded (see supply and demand, demand curve). Thus with a lower price for work, more work will be "purchased" (indirectly, by buying more fuel)."

It is the decrease in price which leads to an increase in demand, and thus a decrease in the resource. Were price to remain the same, demand would remain the same, and since less resources are used in the production the rate of decline would slow.

Increasing efficiency doesn't speed the rate of decline. Increasing demand speeds the rate of decline.
Unless population remains constant, that's an impossiblity. So your plan depends upon zero population growth. How would you accomplish this?
Perhaps in absolute terms, though I doubt it. Certainly not in relative terms.
The point is that wealth and growth are not limited by resources.
Every model creates suffering. How much suffering will there be when you tell everyone on the planet that they can't have as many kids as they want?
Limits which are surmountable. You're concentrating on the means rather than the ends. If we begin with the assumption that growth and wealth are good (and I can't imagine arguing they are not), then we can work on the means to those ends. But if you begin with the assumption that there's no way we can ever find a means to those ends so we should simply stop striving for such a goal, then you effectively doom everyone to something infinitely worse than the ideal.
Why?
I don't see how you're going to make their lives better by forcing them to stop reaching for that which will make their lives better. Is stagnation and atrophy good for living organisms?

Part of this depends on how you define "wealth," and how you define "value." There's a common-sense meaning of the word "value," and then there's a technical meaning as used in economics, particularly certain schools thereof. In that technical sense, there is no difference between the "price" of something and its "value" (assuming some buyer is willing to pay the price, of course). But in the common-sense meaning of "value," that's not true; there's an implied subjective judgment as to what something is good for.

Using that common-sense meaning, the "wealth" in your example of the car, is the car. How much someone pays for it isn't its value, that's its price. Its value is in its use: the enjoyment it gives to someone to drive it or give someone a ride in it or show it off. And there is no exact dollar figure that can be placed on this (which is why economics prefers to use a definition that's equivalent to price, for which you CAN give an exact dollar value). Similarly, the value in the things you buy with the money you get for the car have value in the uses you will put them to. Money isn't wealth; money is a token of exchange that can be used to transfer wealth (meaning goods and services) from one owner to another.

In reselling the car for a higher price, you have not created wealth. You have merely redistributed it. The car, which was once yours, goes to the buyer; the things you buy with the money you go