Limits

An essay by Wendell Barry leads off the May Harpers:

The general reaction to the apparent end of the era of cheap fossil fuel, as to other readily foreseeable curtailments, has been to delay any sort of reckoning. The strategies of delay, so far, have been a sort of willed oblivion, or visions of large profits to the manufacturers of such “biofuels” as ethanol from corn or switchgrass, or the familiar unscientific faith that “science will find an answer.” The dominant response, in short, is a dogged believe that what we call the American Way of Life will prove somehow indestructible. We will keep on consuming, spending, wasting, driving, as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves.

This belief was always indefensible—the real names of global warming are Waste and Greed—and by now it is manifestly foolish. But foolishness on this scale looks disturbingly like a sort of national insanity. We seem to have come to a collective delusion of grandeur, insisting that all of us are “free” to become as conspicuously greedy and wasteful as the most corrupt of kings and queens. (Perhaps by devoting more and more of our already abused cropland to fuel production we will at last cure ourselves of obesity and become fashionably skeletal, hungry but—thank God!--still driving.)

(Get the May 08 Harpers Magazine and read the rest--it's worth it. I do feel that any concerned American who considers her/himself educated should have an acquaintance with Wendell Barry’s writings. The Gift of Good Land should be required reading in schools.)

But how many times does all this need to be said? Why do we keep jazzing ourselves up with hubristic desires for unlimited growth? Why do we keep on with our smug American self assurance that we will figure this all out and still be able to water the golf course and drive the BMW? Does anyone remember E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful? That was published 35 years ago; at the time I read it and thought “This is earthshaking! Now things will begin to change!” But if you Google “small is beautiful” today you will get one or two references to the book and a whole lot of other crap, including porn sites. The phrase has been co-opted into America-speak without the slightest shred of its original meaning. Here is a quote from E. F. :

A modern economist is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity.

Schumacher was one of the first economists to question “growth”. He points out that our economy is unsustainable because natural resources are treated as expendable income when in fact they should be treated as capital since they are not renewable and thus subject to depletion. Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness," appreciating both human needs, limitations and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed “Buddhist Economics.” He faults conventional economic thinking for failing to consider the most appropriate scale for an activity, blasts notions that “growth is good”, and that “bigger is better”. Schumacher said that “the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption.”

Over the years I have had quite a number of arguments with local and not-so-local business people about “growth”. I always have maintained that growth is not necessary in a stable, income producing enterprise that budgets for depreciation of capital, takes into account changing resource use, etc. I usually get a horrified response akin to those anti-vampire crossed fingers. Since I can’t gain any headway, I always retreat. When I have found my safe retreat founded on growing with nature, not percentage growth of GNP, I wonder if these same people will be attacking me with guns because I am the only one with food.