Bibliographic record
Abstract
The theory of the treadmill of production highlights how the constant search for economic growth leads to advanced economies being stuck on a "treadmill," where their well-being is not improved by economic growth, yet the impacts of this pursuit of growth causes massive, unsustainable environmental damages. In interrogating the specific driving force that keeps the irrational system of the treadmill so powerfully in place, the theory of the treadmill of production focuses on how those who control the production process, corporations, are the primary agents driving the treadmill, while also highlighting how the state and workers generally continue to provide support for the treadmill's continued reproduction. In thinking about ways to begin to unwind the treadmill, there is a clear need to explore why workers, who are also consumers and citizens, continue to support (reluctantly or not) the treadmill of production. Through an analysis of the positional economy of consumption, this paper identifies key stakes that individual consumers have in expanding their income and consumption levels through the treadmill of production, despite the widespread inefficacy of the treadmill to increase aggregate satisfaction levels. This theory of the positional economy of consumption identifies the structural forces that lock individuals into increasing their income and levels of "defensive consumption" merely to maintain their existing levels of social practices and the well-being generated from them, thus further supporting the reproduction of the treadmill of production. La théorie de l''engrenage de la production' ('treadmill of production') démontre en quoi la recherche constante de croissance économique enferme les économies avancées dans un 'engrenage', où leur bien-être n'est pas amélioré par la croissance économique, mais où les impacts de la poursuite de la croissance se traduisent par des dommages environnementaux massifs et irréparables. En analysant les forces spécifiques qui préservent ce système avec autant de pouvoir, cette théorie insiste sur l'importance de ceux qui contrôlent le processus de production (les corporations) en tant que principaux agents appuyant cet 'engrenage', tout en soulignant comment, d'une manière générale, l'Etat et les travailleurs persistent à soutenir sa perpétuation. En pensant aux manières d'arrêter cet 'engranage', il y a un besoin évident d'étudier pourquoi les travailleurs, qui sont aussi consommateurs et citoyens, persistent à soutenir (à contrecœur ou pas) cet 'engrenage' de la production. Grâce à une analyse de l'économie positionnelle de la consommation, cet article identifie les principaux intérêts qu'ont les consommateurs individuels à augmenter leurs revenus et leurs niveaux de consommation au sein de cet engrenage de la production, en dépit de son inefficacité générale à améliorer les niveaux de satisfactions agrégés. Cette théorie de l'économie positionnelle de la consommation identifie les forces structurelles qui enferment les individus dans une recherche d'augmentation de leurs revenus et de leurs niveaux de 'consommation défensive', seulement pour maintenir leurs niveaux actuels de pratiques sociales et le bien-être qui en découle, contribuant ainsi à reproduire l'engrenage de la production.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.014 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".