Beckermania

As Herman Daly (and others) have noted, all resources must come from a finite environment, and all wastes produced must be absorbed by that same environment.  But some writers have continued to insist that infinite economic growth is possible.  One of them is Wilfred Beckerman in his book Through Green-Colored Glasses:  Environmentalism Reconsidered.  (This is the American version of Small is Stupid:  Blowing the Whistle on the Greens.)  His argument, which is directed against the proponents of "sustainable development" is made in chapter 4  "The Problem of Finite Resources, or How We Managed without Beckermonium."  On page 55 he wrote:

Resources are either finite or they are not.  If they are, the only way to ensure they last forever is to stop using them.  Stopping economic growth is not enough.  Levels of consumption would have to be reduced to infinitesimal levels if finite resources were to be made to last forever.  But of course even the most fanatical proponents of "sustainability" would hardly go that far.  They would soon sell a critical pass by confessing that, maybe, after due reflection, taking everything into account-etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah-the human race eventually would find ways of coping with the changes in the balance between demand and supply of resources that take place.

In other words, we cannot have it both ways.  Either resources are finite in some meaningful sense, in which case even zero growth will fail to save us in the long run, or resources are not really finite in any meaningful sense, in which case the argument for slowing down growth collapses.  In The Limits to Growth this dilemma was avoided by cutting off the computer printout at the year it becomes clear that even their proposed stationary state still would be untenable on account of exhaustion of what they assume to be a finite supply of resources.  

This is a complex argument, but it can be broken down into a number of misleading arguments. One of theses is inconsistency.  If  "even the most fanatical proponents of 'sustainability'" don't call for the immediate reduction of the use of resources to near zero, then there are no actual limits. Beckerman also sets up a false dichotomy, we must chose between cutting resource use to near zero (and thus end modern civilization) or agree to the vague concept that resources are "not meaningfully finite."  But Beckerman goes further, claiming that his opponents would agree with him. (I assume that these are straw opponents.)  He also misses the point that proponents of "sustainable development" are proposing what they believe to be a solution to the balancing of supply and demand.  Beckerman ends by implying that the authors of The Limits to Growth were dishonest (an Ad hominem argument).

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Written by Jim Norton

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