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>The economists wants us to produce and consume more "stuff" because that is good for jobs and the economy.

Isn't this just the Broken Window Fallacy? All the effort spent making ten shitty products instead of one good one could have been better spent improving our lives elsewhere. If economists want this, they're bad economists.

I do see a problem in that the efficiency of manufacturing has far outstripped the efficiency of repair. If you have a fully automated assembly line and you've already put in the capital outlay, it's way cheaper to tell the machines to make another one than it is to pay someone to spend time diagnosing and fixing a faulty unit. This must surely lead to massive materials waste if nothing else.

But then you have to ask yourself, is that bad? And if it really is, why isn't that reflected in the price of the materials? Are there unaccounted externalities? If so, then we need to impose those through tax and regulation.

Our modern industrialised economy's overproduction does take a severe toll on the environment (and thus we get global climate change, severe pollution, etc.), and it'll probably hurt us down the line to have expended all these finite resources now.

Modern economics no longer believes the Broken Window Fallacy is actually a fallacy. The theory goes that when inflation is low, low unemployment can be resolved by taking a tiny pinch of wealth from everyone in the form of inflation and paying a person to do what the free market considers a worthless job (like breaking and then fixing a window). This capital now transferred to the previously unemployed window repair person will then be correctly invested in the free market by their demands, the same as if they were truly gainfully employed.

We see this theory applied to roads being repaired before they truly need it, shielding regulations and subsidies for businesses the market has punished, even education subsidies that push people into fields where there is little demand.

But at least there is plenty of opportunity for graft and corruption.

What is a real-life example of someone being paid by the government to break, then fix a window (metaphorical or otherwise)?

The Federal Reserve

I already gave really good examples. Repaving roads that are still viable through regular maintenance.

There are plenty of examples and most have to do with encouraging the replacement of goods that normally would still be considered useful. For instance all the cars that were crushed for cash, with the only requirement being they were still fully functional.

[EDIT] Keep in mind, inflation, a tax on all wealth, was being used to destroy wealth, in the interest in spurring further economic growth. It just so works out that industries and corporations closely aligned with politicians were the economic winners. Shocking, right?

Any barely justifiable war the U.S. has been in going way back. There's usually a political motivation. However, there's also companies making billion both destroying and rebuilding. On top of it, both usually create profit for them but debt for the taxpayer. Yet, it's argued to be in taxpayer's economic interest to be involved.

That's an example someone gave me a long time ago.

Iraq? The $2 trillion+ break it then try to fix it.

But doesn't that work equally well if you pay the unemployed window repairperson to fix a window that was already broken? With the added benefit that the total number of broken windows has gone down?

That's just survivorship bias. You remember all the good stuff that survived, but don't realize all the junk your grandma bought and threw out that you never saw.

To an extent, but IIRC it's pretty well documented that mending/repairing/making yourself was a lot more common in the first half of the 21st century. There's lots of popular writing from the era on how to make and mend things that no one but a dedicated hobbyist/maker would attempt today.

The radio in my kitchen is from ~1972, made by a local brand that started in 1930 and went out of business in the 80s when "Made in China" became a thing. Apart from being a beautiful piece of wooden furniture, when I opened it to have a look I found that it contained a sheet of paper with all the wiring diagrams and any other information needed to fix anything broken.

That's true of some things, especially pre-transistor TVs and radios that had ongoing maintenance tasks associated with them.

But for durable appliances, it's a totally different story. Modern "reliability engineering" and energy efficiency practices ensure that any major appliance today is expected to survive it's warranty period, and have a low failure rate through the typically extended warranty cycle. After that, good luck.

Your comment is spot on. You're correct that traditional economics has focused on growth and consumption, and that this puts economic prosperity in direct conflict with sustainability and the health of the economy.

I tend to think that the answer isn't so much about specific laws (though the laws do need to change) as it is about holistic system change that stops focusing on working as much as possible and starts focusing on ways to optimize for human well being. This was supposed to be the goal of optimizing for growth, but we're seeing the limits to that thinking.

In response, new branches of economics have started that attempt to capture the frustrations many people have with the old ways, and find more holistic, sustainable solutions to economic issues.

One movement I have been following lately is just called "New Economics", and that search term will lead to a load of resources covering the issues being discussed by the New Economics Movement.

I've been tuned in to videos by the New Economics Coalition[1] now, who recently hosted a conference called commonbound. A central theme of New Economics is the idea that we should hold more value in commons, at a local level. Doing so leads to business decisions that are more likely to consider the people they impact. This doesn't work for everything (massive industry like aircraft production, etc), but it can improve life in a lot of areas. It is also stressed that people who work more use more resources (fast food vs cooking at home, etc) which is bad for the environment, and that working less allows us more time to spend with family and friends which leads to more happiness than just having more stuff.

A few people to follow are Juliet Schor [2] and Gar Alperovitz [3]. I also discovered the Institute for Local Self Reliance [4] yesterday, which is worth checking out.

What I've been working to do is reconcile progressive ideas for how I feel the world ought to be with anarchist/libertarian ideas that we shouldn't force anyone to behave a certain way. I think the classical liberal way of choosing how things should be and forcing everyone to comply is a recipe for inequality, concentration of power, and disenfranchisement of the people. To me, New Economics seems like a way to respect individual autonomy while creating an economic system that works for everyone.

This is a lot of links. If you want a short intro, something like this video with Juliet Schor may be a good start [5].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/Efssociety/videos [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD9L96GA_OY [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ZTRa4yP-Q [4] https://ilsr.org/ [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrIhloNEwT8