Go on regardless?

Subject: Economic Repair

Dear WSN,
   We need to find what kind of economy can provide people's needs
without making too much pollution and without running out of resources
rapidly. Our present consumer economy has many nice features, yet it is
basically at odds with resource stewardship.
   Labor has been surplus relative to local natural  resources for a
long time. In today's crowded world migration can no longer provide an
escape from depleted local resources, and imported resources are no
longer abundant and cheap.  Even though we face a growing shortage of
resources we still pretend that labor shortage is limiting production.
Our fear of labor shortage is obsolete.  Since the dawn of the
industrial age it has been necessary to constantly find ways to increase
consumption in order maintain full employment.
   The left and the right agree that jobs are the only acceptable way to
dole out money to the masses.  Yet, when we create nearly full
employment our powerful technology and out large supply of workers will
always consume far too many resources for such hyper-activity to be
sustainable. Only in our dreams is there no conflict between expanding
the economy to make jobs and contracting the economy to conserve
resources.
   Our present views rarely include any awareness that wealth comes from
nature and inheritance more than from any work we do. To make our system
work under present conditions we must admit that human labor is no
longer scarce because machines with computer control can replace most
paid labor, even in services. We should expect to shift our dependence
from wages toward unearned income as automation replaces more human
labor. Our system already has unearned income, but for now it is only
for a few. Changing that is the key to becoming sustainable. Unearned
income can end our dependence on jobs and growth.
   Whether our goal is to preserve the present pecking order or to help
improve the lives of the poor, we must have a sustainable system for
anything to really matter to anyone.  Excess growth is the cause of our
high consumption, and high consumption is the reason our economic system
is not sustainable.  Growth is the common problem of all classes!
   True conservation cuts consumption and that cuts production and that
cuts real paying jobs and profits. No one supports a sustainable
economy.  Without true conservation we can continue to squander scarce
resources to exercise all our surplus labor.  Without conservation we
can have our giant SUVs.  That is our plan, left or right.
   There are four basic ways, I can think of, to conserve resources:
increased efficiency, increased durability, recycling and by doing less.
Durability allows doing less without having less. Efficiency allows
using less in what we are doing.  We can make deep cuts in consumption
without sacrifice by designing new products to maximize their life time,
efficiency and reparability.
   Durability will make it possible to stop the waste and pollution that
are making our economy unsustainable.  Because durability has been
neglected we have a lot to gain when we starting using durability to
conserve.
   Conservation of perishables using recycling and efficiency are
already our goals, but the use of durability to conserve has had little
notice. Yet, a stable population could use a general increase in
durability to cut its resource consumption to very low levels while
maintaining high living standards.
   If we could somehow accept unearned income for all classes then we
could adjust the dole to stabilize wages. (No more tight money.)  This
will provide a mechanism allowing us to match the labor force to the
real need for labor, instead of making jobs to match the labor force,
regardless of the consequences.

Barry Brooks
durable@earthlink.net