Is "Human Nature" the Problem? Is "saving the economy" the solution?
I assert that "human nature" is not what troubles us. Also, saving "the economy" is foolish, if you look at the realities and not the compelling fantasies crafted for popular consumption.
My environmentalist friends routinely make the following two assertions, which I will set forth and then try to refute.
The first assertion is that we have environmental problems (e.g., climate change) because of “human nature.” Humans are greedy, slothful, ambitious and driven by the desire for comfort and convenience, etc. We are good, clever and charming, but tragically flawed. So the story goes.
The second assertion is that we should prevail upon the powers that be to show them that climate change will be bad for “the economy.”
Let’s look at both of these assertions.
Do we have environmental problems because of “human nature”?
I don't put much stock in the idea that we have environmental problems because of “human nature.”
I think we are where we have environmental problems because of the few people who happen to be in charge, who benefit from war, from pollution, from a high energy economy, etc.
We are in the thrall of a few powerful institutions and a few powerful people who, for now, have the authority to tell the rest of us how things will work. I don't think the average person has a proportional amount of power to influence the system. In other words, "one person one vote" is honored more in the breach than the observance. We know that money rules. We know that the President, the Congress and the Media are all bought and paid for. It's more like "one dollar one vote," and those who have the most dollars get the most votes. If one person has a thousand times more dollars then he or she has a thousand times more power.
If so, then “human nature” is not what determines public policy, but rather the nature of the few who have a disproportionate amount of power.
If this is true then our strategy for change should contemplate how we transfer control from the few to the many.
At this point, some people would express skepticism as to whether the majority are capable of ruling responsibly, to which I respond: Why do we think the minority is capable of ruling responsibly? The minority is currently in charge. Are they ruling responsibly? The results should speak for themselves.
“People will never sign up for that!”
A friend of mine said, "Americans will never settle for public transportation." To which I respond, "It's not as if we've ever been given a meaningful choice." The average automobile in the United States takes over $10,000 per year to own and operate, according to the American Automobile Association. How many people would be willing to do with one less car per family … if they had a choice?
The car companies and the oil companies conspired to destroy the trolleys 100 years ago. They paid a nominal fine and have been conspiring ever since to embroil us in a high energy economy that optimizes their profits, not least of all with the interstate highway system of the 1950s, the space program of the 1960s and the war machine of every decade since WWII.
Transportation, energy, war, policing, surveillance, media & communications, food & agriculture are all controlled by the few and for the few. Do the people want to spend all this money on war? Do the people want to pump farm animals full of antibiotics and drench our crops with toxic chemicals? Do the people want our economic lives to be controlled by a few corporations who are rich enough to buy public policy and usurp the democratic process?
Arguably not.
Our "democracy" is more of an illusion than a reality. It is a powerful idea that gives us a sandbox to play in. We debate vigorously on social media. And we watch politicians and pundits debate vigorously on cable news. Then we go pull a lever every two years, voting for two candidates who are both acceptable and non-threatening to the agenda of the ruling class. Meanwhile the "important" people make the important decisions.
Still, we should try to influence public policy. Of course we should.
Notwithstanding the illusory nature of our democracy, we should try to influence the direction of society. Otherwise we would not be having this conversation. But if we misdiagnose the problem, we will prescribe the wrong cure.
If we say human nature is the problem, and are blind to the influence of a few powerful people and the institutions that they control (business, government, finance, NGOs, religion, political parties, media) then we will spend a great deal of time and energy fixing imaginary problems, majoring in minors and hoping for the best.
Should we try to save “the economy”?
Recently an article came out in some hotshot publication like The Economist. It made the rounds. It said something to the effect that climate change will adversely affect the economy as evidenced by a study that said we will thereby lose a certain amount of GDP by 2050.
But I don't put much stock in trying to save "the economy." Some people point to the projections that tell us that climate change will be bad for the economy. In so many words, they are saying, “Hey, let’s prevail upon rich people to change their ways, because, look, climate change will adversely affect the economy and the GDP.
To which I respond: Should we be trying to save the economy and the GDP? Does GDP have any rational correlation to human well being? Why are we trying to save the Gross Domestic Product? Gross Domestic Product is the amount of money changing hands. It’s something like the net profits of businesses, plus wages, plus the net positive receipts of governments. Supposedly, this represents the net valued added to the economy. As if value and money are perfectly correlated.
But they don’t subtract out the damage done due to pollution, extinction, war, etc. If you pollute a river or cause the local extinction of a species or impoverish a group of people who opposed your industrial “development,” that doesn’t count. That should be subtracted from GDP, but it’s not.
The idea is that the net value of the money changing hands is the best measure of human well being.
In my opinion this is one of the biggest lies humans have been led to believe, and environmentalists are no exception.
This lie should be exposed for what it is: A grossly misleading half truth. Sure, many people benefit when the economy grows, but others don’t. And every few years, we have a downturn that disproportionately impacts those who are the most vulnerable, while the richest and most privileged tend to benefit by buying up depressed assets at fire sale prices and paying lower wages to desperate workers.
And all the while they use public policy to pay slave wages in places like Haiti and Indonesia.
This is not me whining. This is not me lamenting the inevitable. This is me saying that the economy should not be seen as a measure of human well being, and that public policy should support human well being, not the economy per se.
We should be measuring human well being by … well … human well being. We have the tools. We have polls. We can survey people. For a fraction of the money it takes to support the war machine or bail out Wall Street at taxpayer expense, we could employ an army of psychologists and pollsters to determine what people want, and then work to make that happen.
So why don’t we? We might find that most people don’t place a high value on activities that generate war, poverty and pollution.
We might find that after your basic needs are met, the best things in life are free. We might find that people would like to work less and get to know their neighbors more. We might find that people would rather have time to learn a musical instrument rather than always consuming other people’s music. We might find that people would like to participate in community theater rather than always watching celebrity actors in Hollywood movies with pro-war themes subsidized by the Pentagon. We might find that people would rather spend more time playing sports and would not need to settle for the role of spectators.
Not that spectator sports or Hollywood movies or commercial music are bad or wrong. But would people make different choices if they had the choice? Would people not reallocate their time if they had the time, and reallocate their money if they could spend it on what they want?
We might find that people would rather spend more time growing and cooking food and less time consuming the junk that we get in restaurants and supermarkets. Given the harms of the industrial food system, wouldn’t this be great for our water, our wildlife and our health?
We might find people want to spend more time creating their own podcasts rather than being relegated to the role of spectator. That way, people could be more engaged as citizens, rather than only consuming news in what little spare time they have.
But the above scenarios have this fatal flaw: All of this is less profitable to Wall Street. And all of this is less advantageous to the people who benefit from keeping us in our role as docile consumers.
If you have never heard any of these ideas, join the club. Our system is not designed for us to think about what we want.
What do you want?
When was the last time a politician asked what you want?
When was the last time a media personality asked you what kind of world you want?
When, if ever, have you heard a political conversation that started with this question: What is the right thing to do here, and why?
It doesn’t happen, because it is not supposed to happen. But if it did happen, we would have a different world, and one that is better for the environment.
Making any of this happen would require radical change.
Some would say it is not "realistic" to go toe to toe with those who are currently invested in "the economy." To which I respond: Do we have a choice? The only other choice is business as usual and the illusion of change.
Besides, there are more of us than there are of them. And we would be in control, if we could escape from the constant manipulation that guides us into activities and mindsets that are non-threatening to the ruling classes.
‘Does “the economy” serve the needs of the majority?
I assert that “the economy," such as it is, does not serve the needs of the great majority. It only serves the needs of the few. Most of us would choose a different economy, if we could. Most of us would like to keep more of the fruits of our labor. And most of us would like to have more time to pursue our passions and not be on a treadmill running from financial insecurity. Instead, the fruits of our labors go into the coffers of the rich, who—demonstrably—keep getting richer.
Withdraw or diminish your participation in “the economy.”
Those of us who care about people and the planet should be making plans to withdraw our participation in "the economy" (such as it is) by living on less and pouring fewer dollars into "the economy." Nate Hagens who—correctly or not—predicts a dramatic downturn in the economy in the next decade, what he calls “The Great Simplification” urges his followers, first and foremost, to live on less. Spend less, so you have to earn less, so you are ready for the more realistic economy of the future.
Here’s one reason why.
The economy (such as it is) is based on economic growth. Economic growth means a proportional growth in several things, including 1) energy, 2) fossil fuels, 3) complexity, 4) materials throughput, 5) electricity, 6) waste heat, etc. etc. (I'm getting this from Nate Hagens, Simon Michaux and Tom Murphy).
Imagine an economy that doubles every 30 years, which is what happens when economic growth is about 2.5%. That's an economy that will be ten times bigger every 100 years, with a proportionate increase in energy, materials, waste heat etc. If we think CO2 causes warming, we should contemplate an economy with 100 times more waste heat, which is where we are headed in 200 years, assuming a growth rate of 2.33%, which causes a 10x increase every 100 years. Ten times ten is 100, which is the amount of growth that will occur in 200 years, given these assumptions.
Every 100 years, add a zero to the amount of energy we consume and the amount of materials we extract from the earth (via mining, forestry and agriculture). In 1,000 years, we will have multiplied the economy (and the energy consumed and the materials throughput and the waste heat, etc.) by 10,000,000,000. That’s 10 billion. Ten centuries the the power of ten each century is ten billion.
Imagine an economy that has 10 billion times as much money and energy flowing through it. Imagine an economy in which we are extracting 10 billion times as much materials from the mines, the farms, the forests and the oceans of the world. If you can imagine that, your imagination is better than mine.
What could go wrong, when we are extracting 10 billion times as much materials from the mines, the farms, the forests and the oceans of the world? The real question is, “What could go right?”
The last thing we need to do is to take a species that causes the extinction of 150 other species per day and give it even more energy to do what it does. But that is exactly what happens when we try to save the economy. So why are we doing that?
Conclusion
I submit to you that most of the foundational assumptions of environmentalists are fundamentally misguided because these assumptions are borrowed from an economic system and a philosophy of living that is fundamentally at odds with the needs of the natural world.
A British business school professor by the name of Stafford Beer said, “The purpose of a system is what it does.” The acronym is POSIWID. The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it purports to do. If you want to know the purpose of a system, look at the outcomes, not at the rhetoric of its proponents.
If you want to know the purpose of our economy, don’t look at the rhetoric. Look at the reality.
The reality of our economy is that it impoverishes the vast majority of people and the habitat of other species. Those who say that our economy creates wealth are only looking at the income and the bank accounts of the few and not substracting out the expenses and liabilities represented by pollution, poverty and war.
The purpose of our economy is impoverishment, because that’s what it does.
POSIWID.
Let’s stop listening to the rhetoric of the powerful. Let’s look instead at the world they have given us.
Well said!
Thanks Hart's AI.
Relly dibent kneed that