2025_ecrementa_All models are wrong and most are harmful. Part 1.

All models are wrong and most are harmful. Part 1. Unsustainable economic institutions === > [!tldr] Tags > #cat/litterature #type/journalArticle > [!info] Meta Data >**FirstAuthor**:: [[Ecrement, Vanille]] ~ > **Title**:: All models are wrong and most are harmful. Part 1. Unsustainable economic institutions > **Year**:: 2025 > **Citekey**:: [[2025_ecrementa]] > **itemType**:: journalArticle > **Journal**:: *Science against capital* > **ISSN**:: > > [!Cite] > Ecrement Vanille, « All models are wrong and most are harmful. Part 1. Unsustainable economic institutions », _Science against capital_, 20 janvier 2025. > > %%[@2025_ecrementa]%% > **URL**:: https://science-against-capital.club1.fr/papers/all-models-are-wrong-and-most-are-harmful-part-1-unsustainable-economic-institutions . > > **Related**:: . > > **Attachment**::[PDF](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ZWPMTYLA). --- > [!important] Synthesis > **Contribution**:: > > [!Abstract] > > This paper is the first of a series of 3, which aims to introduce my PhD. The goal of this research is to explain how capitalism is reproduced and… >> --- # Note. --- # Annotations%% begin annotations %% ### Imported: 2025-06-10 4:55 pm Quote > explain how capitalism is reproduced and transformed in climate mitigation Quote > scenarios for the EU Quote > limitate mitigation scenarios are documents that explain how a region (city, country, world, etc.) might lower its GHG emissions in order to avoid more climate change. They are often designed by economists, engineers and other researchers, who use models to assess the consequences of policies in tems of energy, emissions, incomes, etc. They are used by pretty much all governments in the world, and many other agencies, institutes, think-tanks, to take decisions or produce recommendations on public policies. As such, climate mitigation scenarios provide useful information if we want our economies to be sustainable. Quote > WWhhaatt ddoo II mmeeaann bbyy ssuussttaaiinnaabbiilliittyy? Quote > qualitatively: it is a situation where human activities do not impact their environment faster than it can regenerate. Quote > A society is sustainable if its activities will not cause significant damage to humans, through environmental impacts that are more intense than what can be regenerated. Quote > And a scenario is sustainable if it allows to create a sustainable society. Quote > None of these questions can be settled scientifically, any possible answer implies a political choice. Quote > 3 frameworks for sustainability assessment have encountered some success: > → Planetary boundaries (Richardson et al. 2023): 9 environmental pressure levels over which there is a large risk of "abrupt environmental change within continental- to planetary-scale systems" (Rockström et al. 2009). > → The ecological footprint, which quantifies the surfaces of land and ocean theoretically required to reproduce the resources consumed and absorb the waste and pollution produced by a given economy (Borucke et al. 2013). It can be compared with biocapacity, which quantifies the land and ocean surfaces available on the planet, in order to measure "overconsumption". > → Doughnut economics, which aims to combine maximum environmental pressure thresholds with minimum human well-being thresholds. Quote > A variant is to aim for a low ecological footprint with a high human development index. Quote > Doughnut economics allows to explicitly include human well-being, while with other approaches, the death of most of the world population could count as a sustainable scenario , as well as a low pressure but deeply unequal society. Quote > it's actually very easy to build a scenario that quickly puts an end to global warming, by massively developing renewable energies, electric cars, hydrogen appliances and carbon dioxyde removal. But these scenarios imply a colossal acceleration of mining (Pitron 2018 ; IEA 2022 ; Vidal and d'Hugues 2022) and strong risks regarding planetary boundaries, biodiversity and food supply (Deprez et al. 2024). Plus, their techno-economic feasibility might seem doubtful (Keyßer and Lenzen 2021 ; Floyd et al. 2020). Quote > aannyy sscceennaarriioo tthhaatt ccaann wwiitthh ggoooodd ccoonnffiiddeennccee rreedduuccee mmaannyy eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall pprreessssuurreess wwhhiillee iimmpprroovviinngg hhuummaann wweellllbbeeiinngg iiss aa ggoooodd sstteepp ttoowwaarrddss ssuussttaaiinnaabbiilliittyy. This is the approach chosen by Parrique et al. (2019) Quote > defining, measuring and using an indicator creates areas of political contestation, as documented by the sociology of quantification (Desrosières 2010) and classifications (Bowker and Star 2023). Quote > Dahan (2007) also explains that some scientists from the South have criticized the reference dates used in climate targets. Indeed, after the Kyoto protocol, this date is often 1990, which naturalizes all the emissions and industrialization that preceded it, even though they almost exclusively benefited countries in the global North. Quote > the definition of thresholds is a political issue Quote > the distinction between threshold (prescriptive) and limit (descriptive) is not so clear. These words are synonymous, and I distinguish them for analysis, as previously done by (Ortiz 2024). Quote > The notion of limit is often used in debates on the availability of oil (Ortiz 2024), metals (Pitron 2018), construction materials (Magalhães 2024), on the energy return on investment (EROI) of different energy sources (Palmer 2018 ; Floyd and al. 2020) Quote > there are good reasons to believe that productivity in the mining sector has started a structural decrease since the 2000s, despite constant efficiency gains (Humphreys 2020) Quote > As stricter environmental laws were implemented to protect french rivers and ecosystems, capitalists from the construction sector used alarming depletion scenarios to prevent further regulation (Magalhães 2024). Quote > Ortiz (2024) argues that public narratives on physical limits to growth ultimately benefit big oligopolies, which can enforce price increases without being suspected of agreeing on prices. Quote > Historically, narratives on absolute limits have mainly served the interests of capitalists in the raw materials and energy sectors. Quote > The field of climate mitigation is surprisingly uniform, and numerous works show that scenarios almost exclusively rely on "techno-economic" policies (Stephenson and Allwood 2023 ; Hirt and Pryck 2023 ; Lage et al. 2023 ; Négawatt 2022b ; Zell-Ziegler, Thema, Best, Wiese, Lage, and al. 2021 ; Zell-Ziegler, Thema, Best, and Wiese 2021 ; Floyd et al. 2020 ; Creutzig and al. 2022) > → Policies promoting R&D and technological change > → Policies consistent with the usual recommendations of neoclassical economists > → Policies transforming the supply of energy, goods and services, and not their demand > → Policies that can fit into the current organization of the economy, which do not require to change the rules. Quote > the people who design them tend to be the same: mainly economists with neoclassical training and engineers acculturated to economics. Quote > Some measures are less common in these scenarios. Among those, there are policies focusing on the reduction and transformation of demand (sufficiency), and those which change the rules of the economy. Quote > My goal is therefore to understand why these measures are almost never integrated into climate change mitigation scenarios. Quote > the naturalization of certain economic institutions Quote > I use the definition of institutions from institutional economics. North (1991) defines them as all the "humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interaction" Quote > Hundreds of papers have examined the hypothesis of "green growth", through 2 close but distinct fields of research: Quote > → TThhee eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall KKuuzznneettss ccuurrvvee ((EEKKCC)):: a theory proposed in 1992 in a World Bank report. Specialists on the subject seek to show that economic growth could naturally reduce environmental degradation beyond a certain threshold. Quote > → TThhee ddeeccoouupplliinngg ooff GGDDPP aanndd eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall pprreessssuurreess:: is a more recent and prospective version of the EKC. Its advocates recognize that economic growth may not reduce environmental pressures by itself. But they argue that with the right policies, it is possible to ensure that production continues to increase while reducing environmental pressures. Quote > These 2 fields have experienced phenomenal success over the last 20 years. The number of publications on the EKC is growing by 20% per year, which is 4 times the growth rate of publications in economics (5 or 6%, see Menezes, Pottier, and Roth 2023). In 2023, there were 2000 articles on the subject. The number of articles on decoupling has experienced constant and particularly rapid growth since 2014 (Vadén et al. 2020), reaching nearly 600 articles (Parrique et al. 2019). Quote > Parrique et al. (2019) provide a detailed definition of what would be sufficient decoupling from a sustainability perspective. It must be: > → AAbbssoolluuttee > → PPeerrmmaanneenntt > → GGlloobbaall > → FFaasstt eennoouuggh > → FFaaiirr > → FFoorr ddiiffffeerreenntt eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall mmeettrriiccss > → MMaaccrrooeeccoonnoommiicc Quote > EEnneerrggyy ccoonnssuummppttiioonn aanndd eeccoonnoommiicc oouuttppuutt:: aa ssyymmbbiioottiicc rreellaattiioonnsshhiip Quote > Sakai et al. (2019) note that no model used to design transition scenarios represents energy efficiency in the physical sense of the term, that is to say the quantity of energy conserved when it passes from one form to another. They therefore design and test a macroeconomic model which represents this thermodynamic efficiency, and show that it plays a very important role in economic growth. Each gain in energy efficiency activates several causal chains which can increase the production, which requires more energy Quote > Therefore, a body of evidence shows that the coupling between GDP and energy consumption is bidirectional. Energy efficiency gains allow the economy to consume more energy (since there are fewer losses), and therefore to grow, which in turn increases energy consumption. The same is probably true of material efficiency, as Fressoz (2024) suggests. Quote > 77 uunnssuussttaaiinnaabbllee eeccoonnoommiicc iinnssttiittuuttiioonnss > → The institution fosters economic growth. > → Preserving the institution would worsen inequalities and living standards in a degrowing or stationary economy. > → The institution reinforces another unsustainable economic institution. > → The institution has direct links to environmental degradation. Quote > EEccoonnoommiicc ggrroowwtthh oobbjjeeccttiivveess Quote > Economic growth is not an institution, but enshrining it in law and using it as an objective in public policy documents does indeed constitute a constraint on the organization of the economy. Quote > The OECD, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the World Bank and the European Commission Quote > systematically promote green growth Quote > PPrriivvaattee pprrooppeerrttyy aanndd ccaappiittaall aaccccuummuullaattiioon Quote > The appropriation of means of production by a small minority consolidates classes, which have to use markets to meet their needs (Cahen-Fourot 2022). Quote > Private property therefore reinforces 2 other institutions: markets and wage labour. Quote > Another way of approaching the unsustainability of private property is to show the unsustainability of the inequalities it generates. The 10% people that consume the most are responsible for 43% of GHG emissions and 37.2% of biodiversity loss (Tian et al. 2024) Quote > GGeenneerraalliizzaattiioonn ooff mmaarrkkeetts Quote > the generalization of market relations and their continuous expansion, which is called commodification (Lawn 2011) Quote > For Cahen-Fourot (2022), the generalization of market relations constitutes a growth imperative, because it makes income highly unpredictable. Quote > The generalization of markets also makes it possible to sell off overproduction, which makes it an essential institution for economic growth. Quote > Fremstad and Paul (2022) find a negative correlation between a country's degree of neoliberalism and its "climate performance". Quote > More generally, many degrowth policies are based on removing essential goods from markets: housing, energy, water, health, education, etc. (Fitzpatrick, Parrique, and Cosme 2022 ; Hickel et al. 2021). This can be done without totally eradicating markets, and scholars often argue for their marginalization (Li 2020) in order to decouple well-being from economic growth. Quote > In addition to these well-documented problems, voluntary carbon markets generate environmental injustices (Pottier 2016) Quote > The projects they finance allow businesses in the North to continue their economic growth, and have harmful consequences in the global South, through the privatization of commons, illegal evictions, lax certifications, etc. (Evite and Zara 2023). Quote > WWaaggee llaabboouurr Quote > Wage labour is when people work in exchange of money, in a company whose bosses and shareholders own the means of production. Quote > IInntteerrnnaattiioonnaall ttrraaddee aanndd gglloobbaall ssuuppppllyy cchhaaiinnss Quote > Between 1950 and 2018, the value of goods traded internationally increased 300-fold. Between 1980 and 2017, traffic by container ship increased 20-fold (Quet 2022). Quote > International trade is therefore an economic institution, made possible by colossal stocks of infrastructures (Magalhães 2024). Quote > The development of international trade has enabled the acceleration of global economic production (and environmental injustices) Quote > Hickel et al. (2022) quantify inequalities in trade between countries of the Global South and the Global North. Quote > They find that between 1990 and 2015, the global North appropriated 254 Gt of raw materials, 33 billion hectares of land, 650 exajoules of energy and 5.9 billion person-years of work. The losses of the Global South due to these unequal exchanges are 30 times greater than the cumulative aid these countries have received. Quote > the existing stock of infrastructures and machines requires half of annual resource use just for its maintenance (Krausmann et al. 2017), and its growth poses significant risk for climate targets (Krausmann, Wiedenhofer, and Haberl 2020) Quote > EEnnttrreepprreenneeuurrsshhiipp ffrreeeeddoomm Quote > Entrepreneurship freedom is also guaranteed by the absence of democratic debate on techno-economic choices, by the institution of private property, and sustained by the profit-oriented subjectivities created within capitalism (Doganova 2024). Quote > The "transition", if it takes place, will be the most gigantic closure and dismantling operation ever carried out: mines, pipelines, power plants, container ships, roads, factories, industrial farms, data centers, warehouses, industrial ports, etc. Quote > This is what Monnin (2021) refers to as "negative commons": all realities to be urgently closed to avoid the worsening of ecological disasters. Quote > CCoonnssuummppttiioonn ffrreeeeddoomm Quote > consumerism (Bell 2015) Quote > Consumption freedom is the demand side counterpart of entrepreneurship freedom Quote > sufficiency policies (Négawatt 2022b) Quote > 7 economic institutions with the main papers and books that provide proof of their unsustainability ![[202502_ecrement_7-institutions-unsustainable.png]] > %% end annotations %% %% Import Date: 2025-06-10T16:55:11.097+02:00 %%