Re: new thread: PKT and ecology

["Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>]

Eban Goodstein has some work on the false jobs vs. environment, drawing on,
among other PK works, Nell's transformational growth paradigm. Bill Mitchell and
his CofFEE group are very interested in these issues, and I am as well. I touch
on environmental aspects of public jobs programs in several recent pieces, but
it will be the main theme of my paper at CofFEE's conference this summer in
Newcastle.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Block [mailto:stephenb@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 3:41 PM
To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: new thread: PKT and ecology


 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