Well, as an economics nerd the premise of this short definitely intrigued me, but I went in a little skeptical. Browsing her links page made me completely skeptical. I actually watched a little farther on the official website before coming here, but I'll limit my comments to the portion above. As you said, let's keep the politics out of this. For the record, I consider myself utilitarian politically. I don't see politics in partisan terms and I think it's better treated as a logical, scientific issue, rather than a moral cause to get all fired up about.

Really, this, like many things that are assumed to be political in nature, are economical in nature, with political implications. Not the other way around. Economics is the study of how to allocate resources that are scarce and which have alternative uses. And in economics there are two main methods: normative and positive. A dumbed-down definition of normative economics is "the way things ought to be" (i.e. "interest rates are too high"). Positive economics deals "the way things are." Positive economics is the more scientific, reason-and-empirical-data-based economics that seeks to describe cause and effect relationships (i.e. prices go up, so people buy less).

Neither one is "better," really, but normative economics comes *after* positive economics, i.e. one shouldn't form opinions from ignorance.

And now my critiques! :-)

1) I could not find the term "materials economy" in any of my economics books or textbooks (yes, I buy them for fun) or even on a prominent economics website I like ran by some economics professors. This tells me that like the term "trickle-down economics," it's one of those economic-sounding concepts that economists don't really talk about. The chain she describes (from extraction to disposal) is one way of describing how consumer goods are made and done away with, but it might not be the only one, some are simpler and others more complex. How complex or simple it needs to be depends on what you are trying to study or describe about it. If she's setting up this model herself, why does she attack it as too simplistic?

2) She mentions how 51 of the top 100 economies on Earth are corporations. Given that there are many tiny nations with tiny governments, and many huge corporations (where everybody, down to the janitor, counts as a member of that "economy"), that's not really surprising or alarming. Corporations are just a legal construct to make it more efficient for large groups of people to conduct their affairs, they aren't inherently a good thing or a bad thing, if you want to discuss them in moral terms. Their goodness or badness is defined by the goodness or badness of the people who make up the corporation. But value judgements of whether something is morally good or evil aren't really economics.

Also I question the use of the term "economies" to apply to both corporations and governments. I've never come across it before. For one thing, a large government like the one the US has differs from a corporation in that it is not a single decision-making unit, so its behavior is different.

3) The fact mentioned above is not given a source anyway. For the rest of her factual sources, you have to go to a PDF listed elsewhere on the site, where you'll find her sources for her facts are from political activists' literature. Not very empirical, regardless of the political inclination of the activists.

4) The government is beholden to monied, well-organized, special interests in general, whether they be corporations, activist groups, groups of people in a certain profession, or whatever. The very powers that lobbyists hope to shape or leverage for their own use trace their beginnings to policies that were justified on the grounds of helping everybody, without lobbyists or corporations pushing for it. For governments to help a special interest group at the expense of the larger population, they must exercise some special power, and it's pretty rare that the power gets created by the special interest group in the first place. Railroads hated the Interstate Commerce Commission but they later lobbied for it to inhibit the trucking business. Whenver you hear of a business calling for tighter regulation in its industry, what they are really saying is "Please Uncle Sam, make it hard for other businesses to compete with us" and there could very well be some palm-greasing going on behind the scenes. Most corporations are against regulations affecting their industry in the first place, but once they exist, those corporations that survive are happy to keep them in place and even expand them to squelch competition.

Right now in Columbus there is some strip club owner who is campaigning for tighter "no touch" rules and anti-prostitution enforcement in strip clubs, ostensibly to help the morality of the area, but really to keep out the competition.

Governments also directly subsidize various industries, ostensibly with the goal of protecting people. It happened in the Great Depression with agricultural price supports so farmers wouldn't go bankrupt. It led to the government paying farmers to burn food so it wouldn't reach market--lest the price of food go down--at a time of mass hunger in America. We see it today with direct subsidies on companies involved in ethanol farming and production. Even now, billions of dollars go to small farmers and huge corporations across the country, in the form of farm subsidies, small business loans, and general subsidies.

So while it's marginally true that governments serve corporations, it's not categorically true. Governments could abolish corporate taxes and switch to an all-income or all-consumption tax system, but they don't. They could lower regulations in this or that area to help corporations, but they don't. The real lesson isn't that governments help corporations, but that they help whoever scratches their back.

Now let me go into normative mode: many of the examples I cited (agricultural supports, etc.) wouldn't have happened in the first place without broad new interventionist powers of the government being created. I'm not "anti-regulation" or "anti-government" because you can't be categorically against things like that, you can only be for or opposed to specific policies. My views on all of this is based on practical economics, not parties or platforms. Feel free to disagree. I'm me, and I approve this message.

Jason, thank you for starting a discussion on topic that deserves more attention. I think it's good to discuss the ramifications of our consumer economy.

I know just a hint about your political viewpoint (you're really good at guarding yourself) but I would guess that you're strongly against the statement, "It's the governments job [...] to take care of us." Don't get too hung up on that statement! She's creating a dichotomy between the individual person and big-business. She's setting the argument completely against big-business by showing how the government has been taking care of corporations. Her point is that the governement should be concerned with the individual person and not become a slave to big-business. I think she's 100% for the individual person and not advocating big-government.

As for the "materials economy", CaptainButtercup is 100% correct about that term not existing in any economic textbook. I believe it's a phrase that has been coined by the people who are concerned about our evironment. I wouldn't get too hung up on her choice of words. She's simply identifying herself with the camp of people who care about the health of our earth.

CaptainButtercup also questioned the use of the word economy for businesses. Again, don't get too hung up on the word. She isn't using the word in the strictest sense; she's illustrating how deep pocketed businesses have enough cash coming in through their sales to be considered an economic force to be reckoned with. The following web page is a little dated, but it illustrates her point with numbers: http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html The point that she's making is that businesses have begun to get so large that they're eclipsing entire countries in their economic influence on our world.

Now, to the original question presented by Jason!
"you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely"

Annie chose her words carefully in that statement. Her point is that a system that operates in a single direction will ultimately run out of resources. If we take raw materials out of the earth only to have them end up in a landfill somewhere, we're going to have an unsustainable system. Some natural resources have a predetermined quantity because they cannot be farmed (animals, food, etc). If we consume those resources as if they're unlimited, then we at risk of setting our entire ecosystem out of kilter.

You all are so brainy and smart!! I will let you all discuss the economics of the thing because I don't feel all that competent. It doesn't take a genius however, to figure out that the corporations with all their lobbyist and money are bending the governments will. I also don't really understand the complete ins and outs of the comment "you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely" God did seem to make the planet rejuvenate itself. (Like us for example) But it also doesn't take the brightest button in the box to see that we are taking and taking from the earth's resources without giving time for rejuvenation. Maybe I am just a sceptic but it seems to me that most humans are opportunistic hoarders. They see something shiny and want to keep it to themselves. I know I do!

Wow, Some of you other folks have the type of critique ability I would love to have. I, on the other hand, just have my own little viewpoint. Yes, of course there are problems associated with a highly consumer-oriented society. There are problems associated with every type of society there is. One thing I have observed is my own tendency to accumulate more and more and more stuff. Moving house has helped with that a few times, but we've been here for almost 9 years, so we're going to have to try another method. The accumulation of stuff is a HUGE problem in our society. I personally do try to recycle or donate stuff and have even been on freecycle for awhile a couple of times.

About two years ago I called our local trash collection company to ask some questions about recycling and trash collection. I had thought up this great idea that we should pay for our trash by the pound, which seemed like it would encourage people to reduce, recycle and reuse as much as possible. Long story short, it's a huge thing to implement, and my local company isn't looking at it right now. I had also heard that recyclables were being put into the landfill and wanted to know about that, since recycling is a pain and I am willing to do it if it actually does something. I was able to learn about recycling and how there has to be a market for the recycled materials. It was all very interesting, but I haven't solved the problem yet of what to do with all these containers and papers that come into my house.

I buy three jars of applesauce per week, on average, because my family really loves applesauce. I suppose I could buy apples and make my own, but I would still be having an impact on the environment because of the energy I would use to cook and prepare the applesauce. The jar problem would be solved, but I wonder how much it would end up costing me to make my own applesauce. Maybe I'll look into that.

I truly wish we did not have so many choices in the grocery store. When I'm buying cheese, I always just check the per pound price, but there are at least 6 different sizes, brands, and/or methods of presentation (grated, block). What causes the big block sometimes to be less than the small block, but the small block to be less than the large block, and sometimes the grated cheese is the least of all?

Like I said, I'm not an economist or particularly a big picture thinker, but I do the shopping for this family of seven, and I do think things are out of balance in our country. I have shopped thrift shops for clothes for the kids and for myself, but I have a limited amount of time, and sometimes it's just a lot more efficient to go to Kohl's or Target to get some socks or jeans for the kids. We do pretty much wear stuff until it wears right out and I try to give most of our outgrown stuff away, but in the last few months I have thrown a few things away because I couldn't imagine that anyone would want something so raggedy.

I did watch the whole movie at one sitting, so hopefully I'm not commenting beyond the first section, but I think it is very very easy to make sweeping generalizations and cite statistics, and without sources I am pretty skeptical about the veracity of such information.

My question is: what happens if all of us just start buying what we need, resisting the cheap junk, resisting the stuff made in China, and reduce, reuse, and recycle with a vengeance? What would happen to our economy?

That's all for now.

Sunbonnetsioux.