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Global Warning - Oct 17, 2008 - Printable Version
- Ecolonomics
by Robin Buckallew
Black Friday. Savings and loan scandal. Black Monday. Dot.com bubble. Enron. Housing bubble. Subprime meltdown. $700 billion dollar bailout. Americans and the rest of the world wait with bated breath while the market-economy lurches around yet another series of crazy loop-the-loops, unsure of where and when it will end, and biting their nails while they wonder if we will be right side up or upside down when it’s all over. Politicians on both sides of the aisle make self-righteous speeches, and rush to assure their constituents that they have the best answer to the mess, if only they can persuade the rest of the Congress to go along with it. Meanwhile, economists desperately consult their astrologic charts and Ouija boards, wondering why they aren’t working today. Then, they stand out in front of the TV cameras, and assure the public that they have studied the issue scientifically, and the next thing we can expect from the markets is (fill in the blanks yourselves on this one; the story changes every day, no doubt by the mood of the stars and/or the Ouija boards). Global warming, the war in Iraq, the health care crisis, even anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage crusades, take the back seat to the latest financial panic. It was ever thus. For the past many years now, we’ve been told that the environmental issues must wait their turn while some other imminent, urgent, fundamental, vital, inherently earth-threatening crisis occupies our attention. As soon as we’re done with this, we’ll get back to thinking about the future of the Earth itself. That is small potatoes, hardly worth our time when we’re talking about the money markets, for Crissake. Can’t you shut your treehugging, dirt-worshipping mouth, and go back to your room until we call for you? Well, actually, no I can’t. In fact, I am going to propose that we move environmental issues (ALL environmental issues, not just global warming) to the front of the list where they belong. “Reforming” the market cannot be our prime goal at this time, because “reforming” the market will never work. The market HAS been reformed. It’s been reformed about as many times as the Catholic Church – and, like the Catholic Church, it continues to screw the vulnerable and elevate the ignoble. It is time to totally rethink our economic system, and discover what should be obvious by now even to the most unregenerate free-marketeer in the universe – an economic system built on constant, astronomical growth in a world of finite resources simply cannot be justified. It is time we reconsider our unrequited love affair with capitalism, and consider a new way of doing things. But before you rush off to turn me in to Joe McCarthy (or Charlie McCarthy, if that’s your style) as a communist, let me reassure you that I am not talking about communism at all. Communism has the same fatal flaw as capitalism – it is based on the principle of “production”. Unfettered production simply cannot be maintained, and it is time for us to look elsewhere for economic inspiration. It is time to consider a concept I like to call “ecolonomics”.
I would like to give you a detailed, complete description of Ecolonomics 101, starting with the marginal cost of pollution, on through optimal amount of pollution, and into the cost-benefit analysis where we decide whether it is cost effective to save the world, or whether we should just pursue a scorched Earth policy while we make the maximum amount of money. Perhaps I could do justice to such a topic, having taken long, dreadful courses on the Economics of Natural Resources, where I was horrified to find that the greatest good was defined solely as that policy which makes the most money for the stakeholders. Perhaps you would sit patiently through such a long, detailed discourse, and forgive me for taking the risk of boring you or making your eyes glaze over. Or perhaps not. Anyway, I’m not going to do that, because as of today, there is no Ecolonomics 101 textbook, there is no Ecolonomics 101 theory, there are no Ecolonomics graphs and charts and PowerPoint presentations, and there is no Ecolonomics chair at any major (or minor) university. In fact, for the most part, Ecolonomics is a fairly new concept which I only named 24 hours ago, but which I have been working over in my mind for many years. It is, at this particular moment in time, more of a grand vision than a well developed scientific theory. I don’t even have a Ouija board or a crystal ball to get me started, but I do want to throw out the ideas into the ether, get them floating around, plant some seeds in some fertile brains, and perhaps begin to see the idea take root and grow. So, I throw out to you – Ecolonomics, Economics based firmly and inextricably in the principles of Ecology. Economics as if Ecology matters (which, of course, it does).
Although many economists talk about Economics as if the principles are universal laws of nature, and unchangeable, in reality, Capitalist Economics is a human creation. Money is a human creation, and economics have gone through a great deal of evolution since man first carved coins out of metal to keep track of exchanges with his neighbors. Evolution led us from whatever the earliest systems were through the barter system, feudalism, slavery, communism, and capitalism, which at this point in human history is regarded as inevitable, natural, and triumphant. It is rare to hear anyone, even the left side of the political/economic spectrum, question the rightness of capitalism these days. While everyone has their own distinct ideas about how it should be managed, who should own what, and who should pay for what, most people seem to be in agreement on one basic thing – capitalism is the way we are always going to do things, and we need to make the best sort of capitalism possible to meet whatever priorities we hold dear. I’ve read a number of books and papers in recent years that purport to define a “new” economic system, but each and everyone of them seems to be some twist on the same old capitalist economy, just another capitalist pretzel without any real recognition that they are merely doing the same old things but calling it something slightly different. Sort of like having your girlfriend change her color of lipstick because you find yourself wanting to have a different girlfriend – same old girlfriend, different makeup. Time for that break up, although it will no doubt be painful at first as you look back at all those fuzzy, warm memories of moonlit walks in the park, hand in hand, planning for the future. Well, now that the future is past, it’s time to wake up, recognize the black eyes and the broken bones we’ve been left with, and say “NO MORE”.
So, where do we go with Ecolonomics? Well, we start by recognizing that capitalism is not natural, it’s man-made. If we can make it, we can break it. Then, we take the next step. We recognize that there is another economist out there, one who has been more consistently successful, and has managed to produce at a scale we can only dream of. We recognize that nature is the first economist, and we look humbly to nature for lessons. We recognize that no decision we ever make, even the most innocuous and routine decisions, have a consequence in the world, and that every consequence is inherently an ecological consequence – and therefore, an economic consequence. Everything we do is bound up with other parts of the world, and we can’t take an action that affects only us. We examine those linkages, and learn to understand them apart from money, apart from possessions, and apart from the market economy. We begin to understand that some of the most valuable things we receive in this world cannot be bought or sold in human economies, but are vitally tied to the riches of ecological economies. Most importantly, we begin to recognize that our own destinies, economic or otherwise, are tied to the destinies of the world around us. We can remake the world into our own image, but only at a cost elsewhere in the world, and that cost will ultimately be figured in the bottom line of nature’s balance sheet. We can create air conditioning and use it casually and thoughtlessly, but we will be making a subtraction from the comfort of the familiar climate. We can drive cars everywhere we go, and even drive in them all alone, but we will be making a subtraction from the same climate, plus a subtraction from the clean water, a subtraction from the clean fresh air, a subtraction from the habitats that are chewed up to build our roads and parking lots, a subtraction from the majestic mountains that are mined for the metals and other raw materials that go into making the body of the car. We can have as many children as we please, but we will be making a subtraction from the available space, the available food, the available water, the remaining habitat…you get the picture by now, I have no doubt. Nature is the ultimate economics specialist, and the Earth has been keeping track of our withdrawals for the past one million years that has marked human history. Now, Mother Nature is conducting an audit, and I can see her frowning, shaking her head, and tut-tutting as she examines the books. How could you let your accounts get into such a mess? How could you overdraw so badly? Why didn’t you invest more wisely? Didn’t you give any thought to your old age at all? Your species is still in its teens, and you’ve already spent nearly your entire capital.
Nature has much to teach us about managing our accounts, and it is time to move away from classes on the Economics of Natural Resources, where Ecology is submerged into a mere tool of the economy, to a new way of thinking, where Economics is submerged into Ecology, and becomes a tool for the ecological well being of Earth and all the species on it. No, the economics of Ecology will not necessarily free us from a somewhat wild ride on a roller coaster; the realities of climate and the vagaries of the universe will keep us guessing a great deal. Recognizing the interconnectedness of the economy with the ecological realities of the world will require growing newly humble, as we recognize our own limits, and as we recognize the need to live within those limits. Nature’s ups and downs can be scary, and for a long time we’ve sheltered ourselves from the realities of the natural world by hiding in our world of markets and exchanges, arrogantly assuming that we could manipulate everything until it bent to our will. It’s time to take our heads out of the market, and move them back into the world where they belong. Many people are afraid of restructuring our markets around ecological principles, for fear that it will mean returning to the uncertainty of our ancestors, who lived through hungry winters and couldn’t be totally sure they would have a good crop in the summer. We like being able to count on the local grocery store, no matter what sort of year we’ve had. I suggest that, with all the skills we’ve gained throughout human history, there is no need that we need to return to that sort of life, famously described by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes as “nasty, brutish, and short”. We simply need to adapt our economic, agricultural, and production systems, as well as our consumption patterns, around ecological realities, and let nature be our partner instead of our enemy. We have not tamed nature, and we will not tame nature; I suggest we learn to allow nature to tame us.
At this point, I do not have all the details of Ecolonomics worked out. I’m not sure that I’m capable of doing that on my own. What I do have is the seeds of an idea that I can’t even take total credit for, since many have been talking for years about learning how ecological principles could be utilized to improve Economics. I feel confident that there are enough people out there with the ability to tackle this problem that we could make it work, if we only develop the desire. I would like to see this current economic crisis lead us to abandon business as usual, and rebuild economics in a whole new direction rather than just try to tweak or “reform” it while leaving the status quo essentially intact. It’s time to move past classical Economics, and consider replacing the market economy with the ecological economy. Ecolonomics. The future can be truly new.
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