Have you ever explored the incentives of what happens if the country had a deflationary currency instead of an inflationary one which promotes high volume low durability goods. It sounds like an economic incentives problem getting in the way of efficiency and progress. If you flip incentives from spending to saving, you may find that the product mix becomes a tendency toward higher durability long lasting products and more efficiency. Fix the money and incentives and you may find a fix to the economics vs progress conflict
With regard to the circular economy: even if you can get the *materials* to "become circular", it's basically impossible for the *energy* and *labour* inputs to do so. So even a circular materials economy is still expensive, even if it doesn't seem as "wasteful" on the surface.
Externalizing The Costs Of Our Modern Life
Have you ever explored the incentives of what happens if the country had a deflationary currency instead of an inflationary one which promotes high volume low durability goods. It sounds like an economic incentives problem getting in the way of efficiency and progress. If you flip incentives from spending to saving, you may find that the product mix becomes a tendency toward higher durability long lasting products and more efficiency. Fix the money and incentives and you may find a fix to the economics vs progress conflict
Nice post, and very well put.
With regard to the circular economy: even if you can get the *materials* to "become circular", it's basically impossible for the *energy* and *labour* inputs to do so. So even a circular materials economy is still expensive, even if it doesn't seem as "wasteful" on the surface.