Sustainable Economics
by Barry Brooks
Introduction:
Durability is the key to building a sustainable affluent economy. The use of durability would be simple and painless if it didn't conflict with job creation. Our present leaders insist that we need to produce and waste more and more forever so we can keep "workers" busy. For the leaders of the business world durability is not seen as a means of conservation, rather it is seen as a threat to expanding sales.
Waste is good for the economy as we define it so we have waste instead of durability. We can have a sustainable economy, but first we must find a way to end our dependence on growth and waste. We don't have to get bigger and bigger.
Today's System:
Most of us agree that we should manage the economy to do more than just providing goods and services. We also want the economy to provide enough jobs to go around. Recently, our economy has been able to provide goods, services, and jobs even during the rapid introduction of labor saving technology.
The market insures that producers will either use the latest labor saving automation to cut labor costs or go out of business. We have learned from experience that automation will cause unemployment if we don't consume more as we can produce more. Our adoption of automation and the corresponding need for growth have made the consumer economy a necessity.
Since the industrial revolution, economic growth has been the key to making enough jobs. Growth has compensated for the loss of jobs due to increased use of labor saving machines and computers. Our history of economic growth explains why machines haven't caused unemployment. Machines have given us affluence instead of leisure.
The Problem:
Economic growth has been a great success in providing goods, services, and jobs, but now the economy has grown so large that it is having a negative impact on natural systems and natural resources. Our economy has reached the vast scale where it can cause the extinction of whole populations of fish, clear-cut forests, pollute most water, and dirty the global atmosphere. This problem of being too large a burden on our planet threatens the survival of all human civilizations.
The limits to growth have become common knowledge. One response has been that we have a new goals for the economy. We would like the economy to make the best use of scarce resources. We would like to keep our wealth and have a sustainable economy too. The big question is; how can we adjust to the limits to growth without accepting a lower standard of living?
There seems to be a dilemma in the need to stimulate the economy to make jobs which is opposed to the need to slow the economy to avoid upsetting the natural balance too much. Federal reserve policy is being used to slow the economy, while congressional tax/borrow and spend is being used to stimulate the economy. It's like driving with the brakes and the accelerator pressed together. Our inconsistent use of use of fiscal vs. monetary policy implicitly confirms that we can't continue economic growth, but we can't give it up either.
Since economic growth can't be a permanent compensation for the replacement of human labor by computer-controlled machines, we must look for some other solution to the unemployment problem. .
The Solution:
The dilemma of choosing between expanding and contracting the economy is not a real problem because the production of ample goods and services does not require us to stay busy as we have assumed. Our goal of having plenty of goods-in-service doesn't require the high rate of production we have today.
We can use increased durability to provide more goods-in-service without the need for high resource consumption. Increased durability is a substitute for more production. The quantity of goods-in-service is proportional to both the rates of production and the life-span, or durability, of the goods. If we build products that last a long time we can own a lot of wealth without high resource consumption. The real meaning of sustainable is to last over time. Sustainability of the system we all depend on which produces physical goods will come from our use of durability. What else could be so effective?
Population stability combined with the use of increased durability will allow inheritance to provide durable goods for future generations without a need for high rates of replacement production.
While we focus on earning our livings we tend to ignore what we have been given. We just take wealth from nature with no payment. We are parasites on our shrinking planet, yet we make decisions based on money, while prices only reflect labor-cost and ignore the resources inputs. Other ways of making decisions have had declining influences since the world takeover of market ideology and market politics.
Our economy needs to find an alternative kind of income for people to depend on since wages and paid jobs will nearly disappear when the automation revolution is over. Yes, machines can replace most workers, even service workers, and make most income appear as profit. If people own no capital they will have no income, except for the lucky few who win in the struggle for a paid job.
If capitalist unearned income is OK, why is welfare so bad? Cutting the work week does nothing for the sick, crazy, young, old, and many others who will always remain a net loss to any employer. When we think we are "earning" our living we are caught-up in the most colossal arrogance. We could move toward a more realistic attitude of thanks for what we have been given, then durability and sustainability would become options. Make-work, with or without growth, is a waste and it is an insult to the concept of freedom and human dignity. Doesn't everyone want unearned income? Wouldn't it make possible the end to hyperactivity waste? If you are against unearned income aren't you anti-capitalist?
We must use durability to conserve, and we must stop pretending that we earn our living. The use of durability combined with technological unemployment will make the acceptance of unearned income our only choice as inheritance and profit replace most wages. This will allow us the time to do all the important work we have neglected because it is unpaid. Under the present market worship even motherhood has lost respect because it doesn't make money, and mothers don't have time for their children.
We need to be thankful for what we take from nature, inheritance and culture, instead of having so much pride in our work creations. We tend to forget that we got it all from nature and nurture. Hard work is good, but after all humility is still a virtue, and pride is the most serious of the seven deadly sins. Good intentions are not enough. We can avoid waste to become sustainable without sacrifice by tailoring our labor to the real need for labor instead of staying busy. Too much work will make us poor as surely as too little.
Barry Brooks