Re: new thread: PKT and ecology

["Adam Stokes" <Adam.Stokes@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen. Below is a link to a publication put out by the Department of
Environment and Heritage (Australia) in 1996 that might be useful.
Anyway, its free:)
http://www.environment.gov.au/epcg/eeu/consumption/consump.htm

I would also like to make a comment on the issue of "the post-Keynesian
emphasis on
aggregate demand sustainment and elevation".  The issue of what is
meaningful and valuable work has been bounced around this forum not that
long ago.  What I think we took from that is that work doesn't
necessarily need to equate with widgets and therefore sustaining
aggregate demand does not require that we keep smoke billowing out of
the stacks.

Adam

>>> Stephen Block <stephenb@xxxxxxxx> 03/22/01 08:40am >>>
 Some intriguing issues have been raised by environmentally-minded
students
concerning the long-term viability of the Keynesian growth model given
the
(from their point of view) apparently unsustainable nature of the
planet as
we know it if current levels of consumption are maintained and/or
increased.
I have tried to offer a way of going down the middle suggesting that we
need
not accept the dichotomy between jobs and the environment posed by
conservatives; that perhaps we can add environmentally sustaining jobs
to
the economy, etc. And I am reminded that Shumiacher (SP?__Small is
Beautiful_), was a disciple of Keynes. When it is added that Keynes
believed
in the growing satiety of demand within the 20th century ( a belief
not
borne out), and that he would have been relatively sympathetic to the
environmental movement, it provides a (albeit insufficient) beginning
to
finding some compatibility. But given the post-Keynesian emphasis on
aggregate demand sustainment and elevation (very understandable
especially
given our present circumstances) does this, at least  temporarily, cast
the
green in us overboard, or is there literature or ideas out there on
the
development of a distinctly green Keynesianism, or on an ecology
steeped in
Keynesian-compatible economy?

Stephen Block
Vnaier College
Montreal