Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (2 page)

However that may be, the point I am making is a very simple one: the proposition to replace thousands of millions of tons of fossil fuels, every year, by nuclear energy means to 'solve' the fuel problem by creating an environmental and ecological problem of such a monstrous magnitude that Dr David will not be the only one to have 'a queasy feeling'. It means solving one problem by shifting it to another sphere - there to create an infinitely bigger problem.

Having said this, I am sure that I shall be confronted with another, even more daring proposition: namely, that future scientists and technologists will be able to devise safety rules and precautions of such perfection that the using, transporting, processing and storing of radioactive materials in ever-increasing quantities will be made entirely safe; also that it will be the task of politicians and social scientists to create a world society in which wars or civil disturbances can never happen. Again, it is a proposition to solve one problem simply by shifting it to another sphere, the sphere of everyday human behaviour. And this takes us to the third category of 'natural capital'

which wt: are recklessly squandering because we treat it as if it were income: as if it were something we had made ourselves and could easily replace out of our much-vaunted and rapidly rising productivity.

Is it not evident that our current methods of production are already eating into the very substance of industrial man? To many people this is not at all evident. Now that we have solved the problem of production, they say, have we ever had it so good? Are we not better fed, better clothed, and better housed than ever before - and better educated! Of course we are: most, but by no means ail. of us: in the rich countries. But this is not what I mean by

'substance'. The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product. Perhaps it cannot be measured at all. except for certain symptoms of loss. However, this is not the place to go into the statistics of these symptoms, such as crime. drug addiction, vandalism, mental breakdown, rebellion, and so forth. Statistics never prove anything.

I started by saying that one of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. This illusion, I suggested, is mainly due to our inability to recognise that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which it has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income. I specified three categories of such capital: fossil fuels, the tolerance margins of nature, and the human substance. Even if some readers should refuse to accept all three parts of my argument, I suggest that any one of them suffices to make my case.

And what is my case? Simply that our most important task is to get oh our present collision course. And who is there to tackle such a task? I think every one of us, whether old or young, powerful or powerless, rich or poor, influential or uninfluential. To talk about the future is useful only if it leads to action now. And what can we do now, while we are still in the position of

'never having had it so good'? To say the least - which is already very much -

we must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence. To give only three preliminary examples: in agriculture and horticulture, we can interest ourselves in the perfection of production methods which are biologically sound, build up soil fertility, and produce health, beauty and permanence.

Productivity will then look after itself. In industry, we can interest ourselves in the evolution of small-scale technology, relatively non-violent technology, 'technology with a human face', so that people have a chance to enjoy themselves while they art: working, instead of working solely for their pay packet and hoping, usually forlornly, for enjoyment solely during their leisure time. In industry. again - and, surely, industry is the pace-setter of modern life - we can interest ourselves in new forms of partnership between management and men, even forms of common ownership.

We often hear it said that we are entering the era of 'the Learning Society'.

Let us hope this is true. We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature and. above all. with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us; for, assuredly, we have not come about by accident and certainly have not made ourselves.

The themes which have been merely touched upon in this chapter will have to be further elaborated as we go along. Few people will be easily convinced that the challenge to man's future cannot be met by making marginal adjustments here or there, or, possibly, by changing the political system.

The following chapter is an attempt to look at the whole situation again, from the angle of peace and permanence. Now that man has acquired the physical means of self-obliteration, the question of peace obviously looms larger than ever before in human history. And how could peace be built without some assurance of permanence with regard to our economic life?

Two

Peace and Permanence

The dominant modern belief is that the soundest foundation of peace would be universal prosperity. One may look in vain for historical evidence that the rich have regularly been more peaceful than the poor, but then it can be argued that they have never felt secure against the poor: that their aggressiveness stemmed from fear; and that the situation would be quite different if everybody were rich. Why should a rich man go to war? He has nothing to gain. Are not the poor, the exploited the oppressed most likely to do so, as they have nothing to lose but their chains? The road to peace, it is argued, is to follow the road to riches.

This dominant modern belief has an almost irresistible attraction as it suggests that the faster you get one desirable thing the more securely do you attain another. It is doubly attractive because it completely by-passes the whole question of ethics: there is no need for renunciation or sacrifice: on the contrary! We have science and technology to help us along the road to peace and plenty, and all that is needed is that we should not behave stupidly, irrationally, cutting into our own flesh. The message to the poor and discontented is that they must not impatiently upset or kill the goose that will assuredly, in due course, lay golden eggs also for them. And the message to the rich is that they must be intelligent enough from time to time to help the poor, because this is the way by which they will become richer still.

Gandhi used to talk disparagingly of 'dreaming of systems so perfect that no-one will need to be good'. But is it not precisely this dream which we can now implement in reality with our marvellous powers of science and technology? Why ask for virtues, which man may never acquire, when scientific rationality and technical competence are all that is needed?

Instead of listening to Gandhi, are we not more inclined to listen to on of the most influential economists of our century, the great Lord Keynes? In 1930, during the world-wide economic depression, he felt moved to speculate on the ‘economic possibilities of our grandchildren’ and concluded that the day might not be far off when everybody would be rich. We shall then, he said, ‘once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful.’

“But beware!’ he continued. ‘The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair,; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.’

This was written forty years ago and since then, of course, things have speeded up considerably. Maybe we do not even have to wait for another sixty years until universal plenty will, be attained. In any case, the Keynesian message is clear enough: Beware! Ethical considerations are not merely irrelevant, they are an actual hindrance, 'for foul is useful and fair is not'. The time for fairness is no; yet. The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions,

I shall now consider this proposition. It can be divided into three parts: First: that universal prosperity is possible;

Second: that its attainment is possible on the basis of the materialist philosophy of 'enrich yourselves';

Third: that this is the road to peace.

The question with which to start my investigation is obviously this: Is there enough to go round? Immediately we encounter a serious difficulty: What is 'enough'? Who can tell us? Certainly not the economist who pursues

'economic growth' as the highest of all values, and therefore has no concept of 'enough'. There are poor societies which have too little: but where is the rich society that says: 'Halt! We have enough'? There is none.

Perhaps we can forget about 'enough' and content ourselves with exploring the growth of demand upon the world's resources which arises when everybody simply strives hard to have 'more'.

As we cannot study all resources, I propose to focus attention on one type of resource which is in a somewhat central position - fuel. More prosperity means a greater use of fuel - there can be no doubt about that. At present, the prosperity gap between the poor of this world and the rich is very wide indeed and this is clearly shown in their respective fuel consumption. Let us decline as 'rich' all populations in countries with an average fuel consumption - in 1966 - of more than one metric ton of coal equivalent (abbreviated: c.e.) per head and as 'poor' all those below this level. On these definitions we can draw up the following table (using United Nations figures throughout):

TABLE 1(1966)

Rich (%) Poor(%) World(%)

POPULATION (millions)

1,060 (31) 2,284 (69) 3384(100)

FUEL CONSUMPTION (million tons c.e.)

4,788 (87) 721(13) 5509 (100)

FUEL CONSUMPTION PER HEAD (tons c.e.)

4·52 0·32 1·65

The average fuel consumption per head of the 'poor' is only 0·32 tons -

roughly one-fourteenth of that of the 'rich', and there are very many 'poor'

people in the world - on these definitions nearly seven-tenths of the world population. If the 'poor' suddenly used as much fuel as the 'rich', world fuel consumption would treble right away.

But this cannot happen as everything takes time. And in time both the 'rich'

and the 'poor' are growing in desires and in numbers. So let us make an exploratory calculation. If the "rich' populations grow at the rate of 14 per cent and the 'poor' at the rate of 2.5 per cent a year, world population will grow to about 6,900 million by 2000 AD - a figure not very different from the most authoritative current forecasts. If at the same time the fuel consumption per head of the 'rich· population grows by 23 per cent, while that of the 'poor' grows by 4f per cent a year, the following figures will emerge for the year 2000 AD:

TABLE II (2000 AD)

Rich (%) Poor(%) World(%)

POPULATION (millions)

1,617 (23) 5,292 (77) 6,909 (100)

FUEL CONSUMPTION (million tons c.e.)

15,588 (67) 7,568 (33) 23,156 (100) FUEL CONSUMPTION PER HEAD (tons c.e.)

9.64 1·43 3·35

The total result on world fuel consumption would be a growth from 5·5

milliard tons c.e. in 1966 to 232 milliard in the year 2000 - an increase by a factor of more than four, half of which would be attributable to population increase and half to increased consumption per head.

This half-and-half split is interesting enough. But the split between the

'rich' and the 'poor' is even more interesting. Of the total increase in world fuel consumption from 5·5 milliard to 23·2 milliard tons c.e., i.e. an increase by 17·7 milliard tons, the 'rich' would account for nearly two-thirds and the

'poor' for only a little over one-third. Over the whole thirty-four-year period, the world would use 425 milliard tons of coal equivalent, with the 'rich'

using 321 milliards or seventy-five per cent and the 'poor', 104 milliards.

Now, does not this put a very interesting light on the total situation? These figures are not, of course, predictions: they are what might be called

'exploratory calculations'. I have assumed a very modest population growth on the part of the 'rich'; and a population growth rate twice as high on the part of the 'poor'; yet it is the 'rich' and not the 'poor' who do by far the greatest part of the damage - if 'damage' it may be called. Even if the populations classified as 'poor' grew only at the rate assumed for the 'rich', the effect on total world fuel requirements would be hardly significant - a reduction of just over ten per cent. But if the 'rich' decided - and I am not saying that this is likely - that their present pm capital fuel consumption was really high enough and that they should not allow it to grow any further, considering that it is already fourteen times as high as that of the 'poor' - now that would make a difference: in spite of the assumed rise in the 'rich'

populations, it would cut total world fuel, requirements in the year 2000 by over one-third,

The most important comment, however, is a question: Is it plausible to assume that world fuel consumption could grow to anything like 23,000

million tons c.e. a year by the year 2000, using 425,000 million tons c.e.

during the thirty-four years in question? In the light of our present knowledge of fossil fuel re serves this is an implausible figure, even if we assume that one quarter or one-third of the world total would come from nuclear fission.

It is clear that the 'rich' are in the process of stripping tile world of its once-for-all endowment of relatively cheap and simple fuels. It is their continuing economic growth which produces ever more exorbitant demands, with the result that the world's cheap and simple fuels could easily become dear and scarce long before the poor countries had acquired the wealth, education, industrial sophistication, and power of capital accumulation needed for the application of alternative fuels on any significant scale Exploratory calculations, of course, do not prove anything. A proof about the future is in any case impossible, and it has been sagely remarked that all predictions are unreliable, particularly those about the future. What is required is judgment and exploratory calculations can at least help to inform our judgment In any case, our calculations in a most important respect understate the magnitude of the problem. It is not realistic to treat the world as a unit. Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed, and any short- age of supplies, no matter how slight, would immediately divide the world into