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In a world of limited resources, how can per capita consumption be made adequate for all, and, at the same time, be made sustainable for the very long term?
In a world of limited resources, how can per capita consumption be made adequate for all, and, at the same time, be made sustainable for the very long term?
That question, in our view, addresses the most critical issue facing mankind. We believe that its most important goal should be to create an economy that 1) will be sustainable for the very long term, and, 2) will afford an adequate standard of living for all.
Clearly, our present world economy does not meet either requirement. Because of its immense size, it is obvious that it is unsustainable, even in the short term of several more decades. And, in spite of the phenomenal economic growth in the last several hundred years, the majority of mankind still lives in abject poverty. That is the present situation we are faced with.
We believe that the only solution to the problem we are confronted with is to drastically reduce demand for energy and material resources until they can eventually be stabilized at a sustainable level, far lower than today's, while, at the same time, improving the standard of living for those now living in poverty until it reaches an adequate level. A tall order indeed.
Such a massive reduction in demand, coupled with an increase in per capita consumption for many, cannot possibly be achieved without a drastic reduction in both U.S. and world population.
World population, now 6.3 billion, is growing by about 75 million a year. Predictions are that it will stabilize later in this century at between nine and ten billion. The U.S. population is now 303 million, growing rapidly at over 30 million per decade. Predictions are that it will reach 450 million by mid-century, and still be growing rapidly.
We believe that a sustainable level would be not more than one to two billion for world population, and not more than 150 million for our own country. Massive immigration, both legal and illegal, is the driving force behind our U.S. population growth.
We must rid ourselves of the mistaken belief that, without a drastic reduction in population size, science and technology alone can allow mankind to achieve the goal of creating an economy that will be sustainable indefinitely, or at least for the very long term, with an adequate standard of living for all. The contributions of science and technology are essential, but would, by themselves, be insufficient to achieve the goal.
How is it possible that the goal as described above, together with the recommended solution, are not recognized, endorsed and supported by the overwhelming majority of our opinion leaders and policy makers, in and out of government?
The answer, we believe, lies in the irrational, but apparently unshakable, belief in economic growth, the world's great secular religion. Economic growth, in spite of its obvious, and we believe fatal, flaws and shortcomings, has been universally worshiped for the last several hundred years.
The belief in economic growth must be discredited before we can hope to progress toward a sustainable economy. First of all, we must distinguish between macro (or aggregate) economic growth, the sum total of growth in the overall global economy, and per capita economic growth, which will be necessary to continue until everyone on the planet has achieved an adequate standard of living.
Oddly enough (at least at first glance) the two, macro economic growth and per capita economic growth are totally incompatible. Overall economic growth is also incompatible with huge numbers of people because we live in a world with large, but still finite resources, and finite sinks for the wastes that are the inevitable by-products of industrial activity.
The crux of the matter is that the global economy is a subset of our ecosystem, which itself is finite. The huge scale of our present economic activity is already far too large to be sustainable, and must be reduced substantially in order to become sustainable. That can only be achieved by a drastic reduction in population. The fact is that vast numbers of people are simply incompatible with an industrial society.
A perhaps absurdly simple analogy will (hopefully) illustrate the point we are trying to make. Let us suppose that we have a number of people gathered around a table hoping to receive a fairly sizable slice of a pie (the pie representing the aggregate or macro global economy) that at best is non-growing, and perhaps over time even diminishing progressively in size. How can the size of each slice (per capita consumption) be maximized?
Since the pie itself cannot grow, the size of each slice, of course, is determined by the number of people to be fed. That is an indisputable fact. The more people to be fed, the smaller each slice must be. It is clear that the only way to increase the size of each slice is to reduce the number of diners.
Lindsey Grant has explained the above situation more elegantly in a book written in 2000 titled Too Many People. In it he writes, "The only way to reconcile the economic objective with the environmental constraint is to keep total economic activity within tolerable limits. That is, decide first how large a pie the environment can tolerate. Then decide how big the individual slices (the standard of living) should be. Then divide the pie by the size of each slice. The result is the number of slices (the population) the system can support."
A forthcoming NPG editorial will address the question of how fertility rates could be reduced to a below replacement level by non-coercive means so that a far smaller world population could be achieved.
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NPG Forum papers:
An Essay on a Sustainable Economy, 1999
A No-Growth, Steady-State Economy Must Be Our Goal, 2002
The Steady-State Economy: What It Is, Why We Need It, 2005
Highly recommended reading: Beyond Growth, by Herman E. Daly
1996, Beacon Press, 25 Beacon St. Boston, MA 02108-2892
