The Yale international rankings of enviro quality show something that we talked about in the past, the Kuznets Curve in enviro quality.
I think Kuznets Curve makes sense. The EPA regulatory regime was, in many cases, behind positive trends in enviro quality, not ahead.
Here are the rankings with commentary.
http://www.epi.yale.edu/
Usually progress and economic success are followed by a decline in social and economic inequality according to Simon Kuznets but some assert with opposition, that environmental quality improve with industrialization and economic success and progress in the same way.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Kuznets_curve?o=2800&qsrc=999
Nice discussion tadchem. I learned something.
Can you teach me chaos theory? No, just kidding, I fear brain overload after your discussion on diminshing returns and equilibrium–I think you hit a good point.
Although i think that cultural developments are a natural byproduct of social/economic progress, which, as Julian Simon taught us, comes from reaching a critical mass of interacting people that starts the movement to specialization and creativity.
This site has a good chart on the difference between nominal income (what Kuznet describes) and real income (what you’re able to buy with your money).
http://www.policymic.com/articles/12319/6-myths-about-income-inequality-in-america
Metaphorically, the only way to calm the waves of ‘inequality’ on the seas is to freeze everything. Until you do that, there will always be waves that strive to be just a little higher than the other waves around them.
There is a deep-seated mathematical relationship behind the Kuznet’s curve as well as its cousin the Laffer Curve. They both peak at a point aptly described as a ‘point of diminishing returns’. The mathematical key lies in the interaction of negative and positive feedback in a first-order, non-linear system of differential equations.
Prof. Victor Yakovenko (UMd, Dept of Physics) discovered the mathematical basis by treating people and money as a physicist would treat molecules and energy in a large ensemble (millions of components) using Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics. Basically, the only way to achieve ‘equality’ is deprive all molecules/people of all of their energy/money.
Otherwise the Bolzmann statistics will dictate that every interaction (financial transaction or molecular collision) will alter the energy/money of both molecules/people. Simple entropy will then drive the collection to an equilibrium distribution – not an *equal* distribution.
The Kuznet curve has some sound features but I think it’sbased on a flawed concept of inequality and commerce. By measuring the difference in incomes, or even net worth, the theory ignores the reductions in price of necessities and luxury items that occur over the same time period. While the difference in income between the bottom earners and top earners has increased, the difference in quality of life has shrunk. People below the poverty line in the 1800s were literally starving to death. People below the poverty line today have cars, televisions, and cell phones. Clearly the real world incomes of the poor have gone up without the need to drag down the incomes of the rich.
I believe it is more appropriate to measure a society’s economic success not by equality but by the standard of living afforded by the lowest earners. The clean parabola described by Kuznet is only possible if income is assumed to be “zero sum”, a concept that has been falsified time and again. The assumption that the rich can only get richer by taking from someone else is patently false. To the contrary capitalism drives increases in efficiency of resource procurement and handling that end up meaning more for everyone.
To apply Kuznet’s curve to the environment you must ignore all of the accumulated knowledge available to the world. Lower income countries today do not have to start from scratch and relearn all of the lessons their richer neighbors had to learn along the way. It is possible for massive leaps of industry to be accompanied by massive leaps in environmental management without going through the middle portion of the arch.
What Kuznet really described was the learning process that accompanied industrialization. If knowledge is shared, there is no reason to expect the same or even a similar curve occurring in other societies.
Stop the Global GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS . . open education to competition – then the income inequality will slowly close as the ghettos of the huge mega cities demand better jobs and more value added manufacturing JOBS – Value added creates demand and higher wages stimulates the economic growth.
Close the EPA – http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/advocacy—article-v.html