The Jevons Paradox is bullshit.

[joshcryer]

64. I dispute that. The world is moving toward state monopoly capitalism.

As opposed to corporations owning everything nationalized "corporations" own everything. There's no real substantiative difference because competition is still a major aspect of economic flow. ie, my countries' nationalized industries can do better if they do not give an equal share to another countries' industries. They're still in competition. The US, for instance, doesn't sell gasoline back to Venezuela at cost of refining, they add a US tax, export fees, and there's even a bit on top of that, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

If we had some sort of energy theory of value we'd have a better metric to calculate exchange (as opposed to the "subjective theory of value"; which btw is why I quit Econ 101, because it was subjective banalities and one textbook to the next was different). I spend 1000 BTU to make a smartphone, it sells for 1000 BTU of equivalent energy exchange. This would also have the effect of promoting clean energy because if I am using fossil fuels which are 30% efficient I am expending 70% more in energy utilization. The cost to me is enormous.

Indeed, in the case of regular gasoline, the gasoline's energy value is negative, that is, it requires more electricity (and therefore energy) to produce a gallon of gasoline than it does to power an electric vehicle.

It is not wrong to say that the undeveloped world would spend more and therefore consumption goes up as the world becomes more equal as far as standard of living. But it is wrong to say that there's no cultural plateau that would happen as that high standard is reached. Germany, Japan, negative birth rates, the United States, just about even (immigration is another matter). The problem is that we now have too many people to easily move the entire population of the planet to that high standard. So while I disagree with the principle of the matter, I do agree that the current situation civilization has to experience is not very promising.