Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: The Jevons Paradox is bullshit. [View all]joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Making the argument instead of the results of efficiency improvements but more what the "driving force is." Yes it is perfectly valid to argue that efficiency improvements in India were 'caused' by widespread fears of famine. Of course, it took Norman Borlaug 20 years to develop his strain. He couldn't have foreseen that there would be an immediate need for a strain of wheat that would grow there. It was almost a coincidence.
Of course, I am not saying the innovations are a bad thing, and I fully agree that "had we been able to do something about the Black Plague" it would've been done. Just as it was done in India. I'm not sure how that has much bearing on the basic argument about the results of efficiency improvements. The arguments about the Black Plague pertained specifically to what might have happened to India as a developing state had they not been subservient under the capitalist model.
Again, for the third time, I disagree with Jevons paradox. I just don't think ya'll are right when it comes to efficiency improvements under capitalism being a good thing.
This paper may convince you: Globalization and Its Impact on Indian Agriculture: A Study of Farmers' Suicides in the State of Andhra Pradesh
It doesn't help that climate change is going to have an innumerably catastrophic impact on India's agriculture sector.