Failing States, Collapsing Systems

Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47816-6

Cited by 65 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the late twentieth century, however, global energy growth has begun to slow [120]. The energy return from extracting fossil fuels has undergone a steady decline as higher quality resources have become depleted, leading to the exploitation of ever lower quality fuels that require ever more energy to obtain and refine [120]. Nor are nuclear fuels the panacea they once appeared, since the mining, enrichment, conversion, and disposal processes involved in nuclear technologies are themselves heavily dependent on fossil fuels and relatively scarce minerals for reactor construction.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nor are nuclear fuels the panacea they once appeared, since the mining, enrichment, conversion, and disposal processes involved in nuclear technologies are themselves heavily dependent on fossil fuels and relatively scarce minerals for reactor construction. Moreover, the quality of available nuclear ore is itself declining, with high grade ore predicted to become rapidly depleted in the next few decades [120–122]. Renewable sources, though not susceptible to depletion, have their limits.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The continuing evolution of ownership

Hartley

2019

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The evolution in animals of a first possession convention, in which individuals retain what they are the first to acquire, has often been taken as a foundation for the evolution of human ownership institutions. However, among humans, individuals actually only seldom retain an item they have acquired from the environment, instead typically transferring what they possess to other members of the community, to those in command, or to those who hold a contractual title. This paper presents a novel game-theoretic model of the evolution of ownership institutions as rules governing resource transfers. Integrating existing findings, the model contributes a new perspective on the emergence of communal transfers among hominin large game hunters around 200,000 years ago, of command ownership among sedentary humans in the millennia prior to the transition to agriculture, and of titled property ownership around 5,500 years ago. Since today’s property institutions motivate transfers through the promise of future returns, the analysis presented here suggests that these institutions may be placed under considerable pressure should resources become significantly constrained.

show abstract

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Evolution Of Communal Command and Titled Property Ownementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The continuing evolution of ownership

Hartley

2019

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Indeed Tainter and Renfrew [166] argued that all complex societies, including our own, can or indeed will hit a tipping point after which they go into decline 3 . Ahmed [5] ties this tipping point to the combined effect of peak energy (the increasing cost of obtaining energy),…”

Section: Malthus and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Economy and the Work of Kenneth Arrow

Schofield¹

2018

Spatial Analysis, Modelling and Planning

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter contrasts two domains of human activity: LOGOS, the principle of enlightenment rationality and MYTHOS, the search for meaning through religion. LOGOS has created our modern world, and we have many successes as a result: the general equilibrium result for economics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics (but as yet no combined theory of the two). Even Newtonian mechanics has led to the notion of chaos. The Hilbert program to show the consistency and completeness of Mathematics has been invalidated by Godel's Theorem, while the attempt to extend the economics general equilibrium theorem fails because of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. Darwinian evolutionary theory is another success of Logos, but even here, there are many difficulties, particularly how genes work Logos has allowed us to create our industrial society, but has also led us to climate change, without indicating how we can avoid the collapse of civilization. Here we suggest that we may be able to use Mythos, our collective beliefs in what we should do, to help us make a wise choice about the future. The greatest failure of Logos is that we have no understanding of the nature of consciousness. If we can develop such a theory, then perhaps we can construct a theoretical political economy. Without this, it appears likely that climate change could induce a Malthusian trap for us unless we pay heed to Pope Francis's call for us to "Care for Our Common Home." Since this presents us with a common goal, it is possible that we can make a wise choice over our future.

show abstract

“…Schot and Kanger (2018) refer to this as the 'second deep transition' , while the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (explicitly invoking Polanyi) refer to another 'great transformation' similar in significance to the eighteenth century agricultural and industrial revolutions (German Advisory Council on Climate Change, 2011). For Mason, this is a 'post-capitalist' epoch, and similarly for Nafeez Ahmed who envisages a 'civilizational transition' that will of necessity need to transcend capitalism (Ahmed, 2017). For Mazzucato and Perez, capitalism can be reformed around new developmental and environmentally sustainable imperatives (Mazzucato, 2016;Perez, 2016).…”

Section: Introduction Mark Swilling and Desta Mebratumentioning

confidence: 99%