A Future Beyond Growth

Towards a steady state economy

Haydn Washington, Paul Twomey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317358336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

There is a fundamental denial at the centre of why we have an environmental crisis – a denial that ignores that endless physical growth on a finite planet is impossible. Nature provides the ecosystem services that support our civilisation, thus making humanity unavoidably dependent upon it. However, society continues to ignore and deny this dependence.

A Future Beyond Growth explores the reason why the endless growth economy is fundamentally un sustainable and considers ways in which society can move beyond this to a steady state economy. The book brings together some of the deepest thinkers from around the world to consider how to advance beyond growth. The main themes consider the deep problems of the current system and key aspects of a steady state economy, such as population; throughput and consumerism; ethics and equity; and policy for change. The policy section and conclusion bring together these various themes and indicates how we can move past the growth economy to a truly sustainable future.

This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of economics, sustainability and environmental studies in general.

SECTION 1

Population

The heresy of numbers

1

A POPULATION PERSPECTIVE ON THE STEADY STATE ECONOMY

Herman E. Daly

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

A steady state economy is defined by a constant population and a constant stock of physical capital. In a way it is an extension of the demographer’s model of a stationary population to include non-living populations of artifacts, with production rates equal to depreciation rates and birth rates equal to death rates. The basic idea goes back to the classical economists and was most favorably envisioned by John Stuart Mill.

The population problem should be considered from the point of view of all populations – populations of both humans and their things (cars, houses, livestock, crops, cell phones, etc.) – in short, populations of all “dissipative structures” engendered, bred, or built by humans. Both human bodies and artifacts wear out and die. The populations of all organs that support human life, and the enjoyment thereof, require a metabolic throughput to counteract entropy and remain in an organized steady state. All of these organs are capital equipment that support our lives. Endosomatic (within skin) capital – heart, lungs, kidneys – supports our lives quite directly. Exosomatic (outside skin) capital supports our lives indirectly, and consists both of natural capital (e.g. photosynthesizing plants, structures comprising the hydrologic cycle), and man-made capital (e.g. farms, factories, electric grids).

In a physical sense, the final product of the economic activity of converting nature into ourselves and our stuff, and then using up or wearing out what we have made, is waste. What keeps this from being an idiotic activity – depleting and polluting, grinding up the world into waste – is the fact that all these populations of dissipative structures have the common purpose of supporting the maintenance and enjoyment of life. As John Ruskin said, “There is no wealth but life.”

Ownership of endosomatic organs is equally distributed, while the ownership of exosomatic organs is not, a fact giving rise to social conflict. Control of these external organs may be democratic or dictatorial. Our lungs are of little value without the complementary natural capital of green plants and atmospheric stocks of oxygen. Owning one’s own kidneys is not enough to support one’s life if one does not have access to water from rivers, lakes, or rain, either because of scarcity or monopoly ownership of the complementary exosomatic organ. Therefore all life-supporting organs, including natural capital, form a unity with a common function, regardless of whether they are located within the boundary of human skin or outside that boundary.

Our standard of living is traditionally measured by the ratio of man-made capital to human beings – that is, the ratio of one kind of dissipative structure to another kind. Human bodies are made and maintained overwhelmingly from renewable resources, while capital equipment relies heavily on non-renewable resources as well. The rate of evolutionary change of endosomatic organs is exceedingly slow; the rate of change of exosomatic organs has become very rapid. In fact the collective evolution of the human species is now overwhelmingly centered on exosomatic organs (Georgescu-Roegen 1971). We fly in airplanes, not with wings of our own. This exosomatic evolution is goal-directed, not random. Its driving purpose has become ‘economic growth,’ and that growth has been achieved largely by the depletion of non-renewable resources.

Although human evolution is now decidedly purpose driven, we continue to be enthralled by neo-Darwinist aversion to teleology and devotion to random. Economic growth, by promising more for everyone, becomes the de facto purpose, the social glue that keeps things from falling apart. But what happens when growth becomes uneconomic, when it begins to increase environmental and social costs faster than production benefits? How do we know that this is not already the case? If one asks such questions, one is told to talk about something else, like space colonies on Mars, or unlimited energy from cold fusion, or geo-engineering, or the wonders of globalization, and to remember that all these glorious purposes require growth, in order to provide still more growth in the future. Growth is the summum bonum – end of discussion!

In the light of these considerations, let us reconsider the idea of demographic transition. By definition this is the transition from a human population maintained by high birth rates equal to high death rates, to one maintained by low birth rates equal to low death rates, and consequently from a population with low average lifetimes to one with high average lifetimes. Statistically such transitions have often been observed as standard of living increases. Many studies have attempted to explain this correlation, and much hope has been invested in it as an automatic cure for overpopulation. ‘Development is the best contraceptive’ is a related slogan, partly based in fact and partly in wishful thinking.

There are a couple of thoughts I’d like to add to the discussion of demographic transition. The first and most obvious one is that populations of artifacts can undergo an analogous transition from high rates of production and depreciation to low ones. The lower rates will maintain a constant population of longer-lived, more durable artifacts. Our economy has a GDP-oriented focus on maximizing production flows (birth rates of artifacts) that keeps us in the pre-transition mode, giving rise to low product lifetimes, planned obsolescence, and high resource throughput, with consequent environmental destruction. The transition from a high maintenance throughput to a low one applies to both human and artifact populations independently. From an environmental perspective, lower throughput per unit of stock (longer human and product lifetimes) is desirable in both cases, at least up to some distant limit.

The second thought I would like to add is a question: Does the human demographic transition, when induced by rising standard of living, as usually assumed, increase or decrease the total load of all dissipative structures on the environment? Specifically, if Indian fertility is to fall to the Swedish level, must Indian per capita possession of artifacts (standard of living) rise to the Swedish level? If so, would this not likely increase the total load of all dissipative structures on the Indian environment, perhaps beyond capacity to sustain the required throughput?

The point of this speculation is to suggest that ‘solving’ the population problem by relying on the demographic transition to lower birth rates could impose a larger burden on the environment, rather than the smaller burden hoped for. Of course indirect reduction in fertility by automatic correlation with rising standard of living is politically easy, while direct fertility reduction is politically very difficult. But what is politically easy may be environmentally ineffective.

Also, even if a nation follows the demographic transition and achieves a balance between births and deaths, there is still the problem of immigration. In the US, Canada, and Western Europe, for example, nearly all population growth is due to net immigration. A mix of genuine humanitarianism and legitimate refugee needs on the one hand, with class-based cheap labor policies and ethnic politics on the other, has made immigration control politically divisive. If population pressure in pre-transition countries is eased by net emigration, while the benefits of population equilibrium in post-transition countries are erased by growth from net immigration, does that not weaken the basic causes of the demographic transition itself? In the face of increasingly open borders, high fertility seems less likely to be brought down by the automatic demographic transition. True, high-fertility immigrants into low-fertility countries eventually adopt the fertility behavior of the receiving country, but that takes a generation or more.

In a finite world, some populations grow at the expense of others. Homo sapiens and Mechanistra automobilica are now competing for land, water, and sunlight to grow either food or fuel. More nonhuman ‘bodies’ will at some point force a reduction in human bodies. This forced demographic transition is less optimistic than the voluntary one induced by chasing a higher standard of living by engendering fewer dependents. In an empty world, we saw the trade-off between products and people as motivated by desire for a higher standard of living. In the full world, that trade-off is forced by competition for limited resources.

The usual counter to such thoughts is that we can improve the efficiency by which resource throughput maintains dissipative structures. For example, a car that lasts longer and gets better mileage is still a dissipative structure, but with a more efficient metabolism that allows it to live on a lower rate of throughput. Likewise, human organisms might be genetically redesigned to require less food, air, and water. Indeed smaller people would be the simplest way of increasing metabolic efficiency (measured as the number of people maintained by a given resource throughput). To my knowledge no one has yet suggested breeding smaller people as a way to avoid limiting the number of births, and neither do I. We have, however, been busy breeding and genetically engineering larger and faster-growing plants and livestock, as well as building larger exosomatic organs, so that we become smaller relative to the other organisms we depend on, although we remain the same size absolutely. So far, in the empty world, the latter dissipative structures have been complementary with populations of human bodies, but in our finite and full world, the relationship has become competitive.

Indeed, if we think of population as the cumulative number of people ever to live over time, instead of those simultaneously living, then many artifact populations have long been competitive with the human population. That is, more consumption today of terrestrial low entropy in non-vital uses (Cadillacs, rockets, weapons) means less terrestrial low entropy available for tomorrow’s vital use of capturing solar energy (plows, solar collectors, dams, windmills). The solar energy that will still fall on the earth for millions of years after the material structures needed to capture it are dissipated, will be wasted (Georgescu-Roegen 1971), just like the solar energy that currently shines on the barren moon.

If our ethical understanding of the value of ‘sustainability’ (longevity with sufficiency) is to ‘maximize’ cumulative lives ever to be lived, subject to a per capita consumption level sufficient for a good life, then we must limit the load we place on the earth at any one time. Fewer people, and lower per capita resource consumption, facilitated by more equitable distribution, mean more (and more abundant) lives for a longer, but not infinite, future. There is no point in maximizing the cumulative number of lives lived in misery, so the qualification ‘sufficient for a good life’ is important, and requires a deep rethinking of economics, and a shift of focus from growth to sufficiency, including sufficient habitat for other species. It also requires rethinking of the traditional pro-natalist dogmas of the fundamentalist branches of most religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The modern secularist religions of Marxism and Scientism likewise proselytize for the Ecumenical Church of Growthism while ignoring population.

Note: This article originally appeared in: Daly, H. (2015).

References

Daly, H. (2015) ‘A population perspective on the steady state economy’, Real-World Economics Review, 70, pp. 106–109. See: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue70/Daly70.pdf

Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971) The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

2

POPULATION

Better not bigger

Ian Lowe

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY

Introduction

This chapter discusses the complex and controversial issues around overpopulation, a key driver of the environmental crisis. It considers the reasons why overpopulation must be considered and solved if we are to reach a meaningful sustainability. It lists the many misconceptions inherent in the debate, and debunks some of the myths involved. The chapter then discusses what an ecologically sustainable population might be for the Earth, and the humane and non-coercive strategies needed to move us there.

The problem

The fundamental reason for the environmental crisis is the total pressure of our human consumption on natural systems (Higgs 2014). This pressure is in turn the product of the number of people and their per capita consumption. The scale of consumption varies by about two orders of magnitude from the most wasteful society – the USA – to the poorest nations (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009), so we could make great strides toward achieving a balanced and sustainable future by reducing consumption levels and consequent environmental pressure in the most affluent countries. That simple statement ignores the obvious political problem: in every country in the world, not just the poorest and most frugal but also the richest and most profligate, elected politicians generally see economic growth as the highest priority, leading almost inevitably to increasing consumption. Even if we were able to achieve dramatic reductions in per capita consumption, those gains would be swallowed by increasing numbers if the human population were to continue growing. This is the basic point: no species can increase without limit in a closed system with finite resources. If the population is not stabilised by social measures at a level that can be sustainably supported, it will inevitably be reduced by the irresistible forces of starvation, disease and conflict.

There are only three models of species population over time in a closed system (Lowe 2012, pp. 22–24). The first, and most agreeable from our point of view, is that the population can increase until it stabilises at a sustainable level. The second, less appealing, is that it can increase beyond that before collapsing to a lower level, then recovering and oscillating above and below the scale that can be sustained. The third, disastrous, outcome is that the population can so greatly exceed the sustainable level that it collapses completely and the species becomes extinct. All three models give the same sort of graph of population against time in the early stages, the sort of exponential growth we have seen in the human population in recent centuries. The third model is extremely unlikely unless there were catastrophic events like a major meteorite impact or a global thermonuclear war. The most likely outcome on present trends is that the human population will so exceed the sustainable level that it will be significantly reduced by starvation, disease and conflict. I think it is fair to assume that most thoughtful people would prefer the alternative of stabilisation at a level that can be sustainably supported. Our collective decisions this century will determine which of these possible futures is the fate of Homo sapiens. Is the planet now overpopulated?

The question doesn’t have a simple answer. As discussed earlier, the pressure of the human population on natural systems is the product of our numbers and our per capita consumption of resources. What is unarguable is that the natural systems cannot sustain the present population if everyone makes the same resource demands they do now; our current activity is reducing the capacity of natural systems to allow us to meet our basic needs for food, water, shelter and energy (see Washington in this volume), as well as degrading the experience of nature we used to take for granted (GFN 2013). It is even more obviously true that we can’t expand the activities of the human population so that all use natural resources like an average Australian, let alone aspire to the consumption levels in more wasteful societies like the USA, where per capita energy use is nearly double the figure for Australia (Lowe 2005). It seems to be a local Australian political ambition to rival US resource use. As a specific example, the average new house in Australia is now the largest in the world, inevitably needing more energy and other resources for its use (James 2009). Sixty years ago, in 1955, the average per capita resource use in Australia was only about one-third of the figure it is today (Lowe 2005). Those of us who were alive then do not remember it as a time of Neolithic privation. On average, Australians lived quite comfortably, but much less wastefully than today. We were much more likely to travel by public transport. The cars that some people used were much smaller and used much less fuel. Frills like air conditioning and escalators were much less common. Scaling back per capita resource use to something like that of the 1950s in Australia would give a level of material consumption that could, at least in principle, be applied to all humans (Lowe 2005).

At one level, inequality and desperate poverty are a question of distribution rather than the total quantity of goods and services available. A recent calculation found that the Millennium Development Goals could be achieved, giving every human adequate food and water, secure shelter, bas...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Frontmatter
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction Why the growth economy is broken
• Section 1 Population The heresy of numbers
• 1 A Population Perspective on the Steady State Economy
• 2 Population Better not bigger
• 3 Nine Population Strategies to Stop Short of 9 Billion
• 4 Choosing a Planet of Life
• Section 2 Throughput and consumerism A key elephant in the room
• 5 Re-Engineering Cultures to Create a Sustainable Civilization
• 6 Sustainable Business: What should it be? Circular economy and the ‘business of subversion'
• 7 Peak Mining Stepping down from high resource use
• Section 3 Key aspects of a steady state economy
• 8 What is the Steady State Economy?
• 9 The Physical Pathway to a Steady State Economy
• 10 Relating the Steady State Economy to the Green, Circular and Blue Economies
• 11 Sustainable, Equitable, Secure Getting there?
• 12 The Genuine Progress Indicator An indicator to guide the transition to a steady state economy
• 13 Capitalism and the Steady State Uneasy bedfellows
• Section 4 Ethics and a message from the future
• 14 Sustainable Development vs. Sustainable Biosphere
• 15 A Message from the Future about the Steady State Economy
• Section 5 Policy for change
• 16 Degrowth as a Transition Strategy
• 17 Strategies for Transition to a Future Beyond Growth
• Conclusion: The Endless Growth Myth Simplicity and complexity
• Index