|
post-autistic
economics review |
|
issue 32
contents PAE
Review index
home page |
|
Forum on Economic
Reform In recent decades the alliance of neoclassical economics and neoliberalism has hijacked the term “economic
reform”. By presenting political
choices as market necessities, they have subverted public debate about what
economic policy changes are possible and are or are not desirable. This venue promotes discussion of economic
reform that is not limited to the one ideological point of view. Tackling greed while recognizing ecological
limits: A reply to Edney
Tom
Green (Rainforest Solutions Project, Canada) © Copyright: Tom Green
2005 Julian Edney’s
essay on “Greed (Part 1)” (post-autistic
economisc review, issue no. 31) raises critically important moral issues
around accumulation, consumption and deprivation, and the relationship between
greed and poverty. Edney sets out some of the ways
in which economic theory has justified greed, a task that post-autistic
economics theorists should vigourously contribute
to. I agree with Edney
that greed, and the ways in which economics has given greed a cloak of
acceptability, represent a significant impediment to a more just economy and
a more humane society, and indeed lead us to an array of social problems and
human tragedies. I agree with Edney that we need to
explain and challenge the simultaneous occurrence of life-threatening
scarcity and unimaginable wealth. Unfortunately, in arguing against greed, Edney simultaneously attacks a straw man version of the
ecological scarcity argument. He thereby seeks to undermine one of the most
compelling practical and moral arguments against greed and ends up promoting
the very type of injustices that he decries. In the section of his essay entitled
“Distraction,” Edney not only denies that
environmental degradation and exploitation is an issue that leads to human
suffering, he argues that it is an already outdated rhetoric, a distraction
from the real issue of poverty being what people do to people, and that
predictions of scarcity have not been borne out. Edney
cites two sources to support this position: an article arguing that people in
rich countries do not consume too much, published in the Atlantic Monthly by Mark Sagoff, a
philosopher; and the controversial writings of Bjorn Lomborg,
a political scientist and professor of statistics best known as the author of
The Skeptical
Environmentalist and a key force behind the Copenhagen Consensus.1 Edney’s sources represent a curious choice for
someone tackling the issue of greed, as both these authors take positions
which weaken arguments for constraints on greed. As a philosopher, Sagoff is hardly the most qualified individual to assess
our ecological predicament. Of the seemingly impressive 128 footnotes in Sagoff’s article, at best 5 can be considered to be
published in the peer-reviewed natural science literature. This same article
was refuted a few months later by five natural scientists, with a long list
of peer-reviewed publications to their credit, in that same magazine.2 Lomborg’s
assessment of our ecological predicament is simply not credible. The Skeptical
Environmentalist was the subject of a detailed rebuttal in the January
2002 edition of Scientific American.
“Misleading Math about the Earth: Science defends itself against The Skeptical
Environmentalist.” Lomborg’s pet project, the
Copenhagen Consensus, involved a panel of respected mainstream economists in
choosing projects on the basis of their economic efficiency to best address
global problems. The outcome of this project was to rate liberalizing trade
as a very good project (the further liberalization of trade would exacerbate
the inequities condemned by Edney3), while improving infant and
child nutrition, reducing the prevalence of low birth weight, and scaling up
basic health services (all projects that would be consistent with decreasing inequities,
improving health, and redressing some minimal aspects of life-threatening
scarcity decried by Edney) were all rated as merely
fair projects. Rather than relying on authors who have
little, if any, qualification to pronounce on our ecological predicament, Edney could have turned to scientifically credible
sources. For instance, the United Nation’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,
which involved over 1360 experts around the world, was released earlier this
year. Its objective was to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for
human well-being and to look at actions required to ensure that natural
systems would continue to contribute to human well-being. A number of its
conclusions, as summarized in the Statement of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Board, Living Beyond Our Means: Natural
Assets and Human Well-being, are particularly relevant to Edney’s discussion of greed: ·
“At
the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting
such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the
planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for
granted.” ·
“The
loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger,
and disease.” ·
“In
many cases, it is the poor who suffer the loss of services caused directly by
the pressure put on natural systems to bring benefits to other communities,
often in different parts of the world.” ·
“The
negative impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately on the
poorest parts of the world...”4 It seems that Edney
believes that when we act to address threats to the continued viability of
ecosystems upon which humanity depends, that we will set aside concern for
issues of poverty, or that we will fail to see that greed and poverty are
linked. The opposite is true. Mainstream economists have fought vigourously against the recognition of ecological limits,
and have been staunch promoters of the concept that the scale of the economy
can keep growing for ever. And for good reason. If the poor only receive
crumbs from society’s pie, and the pie is not growing, the only way to
improve the lot of the disadvantaged is through redistribution. If we can
hold forth the illusion that the pie can grow infinitely, then society is off
the hook for inequity since with time the poor person’s crumb will grow into
a satisfying forkful and eventually a modest slice of pie.5 The
lack of interest on issues of distribution amongst neoclassical economists,
and their simultaneous defence of growth once again shows Edney
to be aligning himself with those who would not support him in his arguments
against greed. Ecological economists have promoted the
concept of ecological footprint analysis to make clear the linkages between
consumption and ecological impact, and how one person’s material standard of
living affects prospects for people in other places or in the future.6
The ecological footprint of the average person in North America is equivalent
to that of a couple of dozen people in most poor southern countries; the
footprint of the millionaires with whom Edney opens
his essay could easily approach that of an entire village in the South. Such
analysis clearly shows that the well-off appropriate more than their fair
share of the Earth’s resources and ecological services, and that the typical
lifestyles of the well-off (or greedy) in rich countries would require
several more Earths were all of the world’s population to live at their
standard of living. It begs the question, “Why should greedy individuals be
allowed to impose such a burden on the Earth, and reduce the opportunities
for other people now and in the future?” In responding to Sagoff’s
Atlantic Monthly article, Ehrlich
and fellow natural scientists clearly take a moral position against greed and
for a more just economy: “For decades in the rich nations increased
consumption has not been correlated with increased satisfaction, and
perpetuating Third World poverty is a luxury that the prosperous can no
longer afford.” Amongst other measures they call for, “reduced consumption
among today's superconsumers” in order to
close “…the rich-poor gap without an
ecological collapse… humanity could create a sustainable global society with
a higher quality of life for everyone.” In the future one would hope that Edney would use to advantage rather than seek to skewer
with broken spears one of the most potent arguments against unfettered greed.
The notion that we are approaching ecological limits is entirely compatible
with the idea that much scarcity and human deprivation is the result of an
inequitable economic system. Nor is it accurate to blame the poor multitudes
for our ecological predicament, or to use scarcity as an argument against
improving the living standards of the poor. Edney’s
characterization of the scarcity argument, “we have poverty and scarcity
because our Earth has limits…” is a caricature of a complex issue. Most
researchers who raise the issue of ecological limits raise the issue of equity
and point to the need to impose rules to ensure market economies lead to more
equitable and sustainable outcomes.
One would hope that future contributions to the post-autistic economic review would not follow the autism of
mainstream economics with regards to the natural environment. In 2005, the
world is faced with a dizzying and still accelerating rate of biodiversity
loss, the wide-scale contamination of water bodies and groundwater, the
already observable harmful effects of
excessive CO2 in the atmosphere, the tragic loss of fish
biomass in the ocean, an alarming rate of soil loss, degraded forests and
heavily fragmented natural habitat. All these problems harm poor people
somewhere in the world, while the very well off are able, for the time being,
to insulate themselves from such problems. The time for arguments within the
economic literature about the existence of limits is long past. Limits exist,
and limits imply that greed is unconscionable. Notes 1. See http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/
(accessed June 1, 2005). 2. Paul
R. Ehrlich, Gretchen C. Daily, Scott C. Daily, Norman Myers, and James Salzman, 1997. “No Middle Way on the Environment,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1997. 3. See
for instance: Harris, Jonathan, 2001. “Macroeconomic Policy And
Sustainability” Global Development And Environment Institute Working Paper
No. 01-09, Tufts University. Available at: ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/ working_papers/macroandsust.pdf.
(accessed June 1, 2005). 4.
Available at: http://www.maweb.org//en/Products.BoardStatement.aspx
(accessed June 1, 2005). 5.
Herman E. Daly, “The Illth of Nations and the
Fecklessness of Policy: An Ecological Economist’s Perspective”, post-autistic economics review, issue
no. 22, 24 November 2003, article 1, http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/review/issue22.htm 6. Wackernagel, M. and Silverstein, J. 2000: "Big
things first: focusing on the scale imperative with the ecological
footprint." Ecological Economics
32: 391-394. Author
contact: tom@rainforestsolutions.org ___________________________ |