Tech can’t make capitalism sustainable—it’s basic thermodynamics

John, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. “Sustainable Capitalism: Our Best Hope for the Future.” Prepared for presentation in Cabin Fever Lecture Series, Baraboo, WI, January 23, 2008. https://ikerdj.mufaculty.umsystem.edu/presentation-papers/sustainable-economies/sustainable-capitalism-our-best-hope-for-the-future //InTr

Obviously, many economists do not agree with this conclusion. While ignoring the law of entropy, they profess a profound faith in the ability of humans to find an alternative for any energy resource we might deplete. However, the diminishing time-value of economic benefits is clearly reflected in market rates of interest, which heavily discount the value of future events. For example, economic benefits expected to accrue a decade in the future are worth less than fifty cents today for each dollar expected later. Potentially cataclysmic events such as fossil energy depletion and global climate change are of little economic importance today because their ultimate impacts are still beyond the five-to-ten-year planning horizons of most corporations. Economic events expected 70 years in the future are worth only a penny on the dollar today. From everything we know about the basic nature of natural ecosystems and human societies, today’s economic planning horizons are simply too short to allow economics to ensure the long run sustainability of humanity. Still, many economists proclaim that free markets somehow will allocate scarce resources to meet the needs of future generations. While such beliefs provide a convenient defense of our narcissistic society, they are beliefs without basis in fact. Other economists recognize the risks to sustainability inherent in relying on markets. Various political strategies and public policies have been proposed for creating markets that fully reflect ecological and social costs and benefits, both within and across generations. Markets would be allowed to allocate natural and social resources among alternative uses over time, once economic values were assigned to ecological and social externalities. However, attempts to internalize non-economic externalities inevitably lead to misallocation of ecological and social resources. Society and nature both provide direct intrinsic values, in addition to their derived economic values.[4] People benefit directly from their personal relationships with other people and from relating to their natural environment. These direct ecological and social benefits provide the necessary motivations for sustainability. If these direct non-economic benefits are ignored or denied, the value of sustaining the long-run health and productivity of society and nature will be grossly underestimated. In addition, social and ethical values cannot be converted into dollars and cents nor efficiently allocated by markets. The economics of sustainability requires a fundamentally different way of thinking. As Albert Einstein once pointed out, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Industrial economic development, which has dominated thinking for the past two centuries, is based on a mechanistic view of the world. We humans are but cogs in a giant, complex machine. Sustainable economic development must respect the fact that the world is actually a natural living ecosystem, of which we humans are a part and within which we are integrally connected. A sustainable economy must then mimic the natural processes of living, biological systems. Living plants have the capacity to capture and store solar energy to offset the usefulness of energy lost to entropy. They have the capacity to be useful to other species – to be productive – and at the same time to devote a significant portion of their energy to renewal and regeneration. Obviously, an individual life is not sustainable because every living thing eventually dies. But living communities clearly have the capacity to be productive while devoting a significant part of their life’s energy to conceiving and nurturing the next generation. Even we humans are capable of capturing and storing solar energy; we just do it with windmills, dams, and photovoltaic cells. We also have an inherent tendency to produce and reproduce, even when we have no economic incentive to do so. Otherwise, few of us would choose to raise children. To achieve sustainability, we must respect this basic human tendency by diverting a significant portion of our energy and the earth’s energy from individual economic uses to renewal and regeneration for use in the future. It will take energy to rebuild and redesign the windmills, dams, photovoltaic, and other solar collection systems needed to sustain future generations. And perhaps most important, it will take human energy to renew and regenerate the healthy families, communities, and civil societies needed to ensure that whatever energy is available in the future is put to constructive rather than destructive uses. Sustainable economies must function according to the principles of regenerative, living systems. For example, the development of sustainable communities must be guided by the principles of healthy, productive natural ecosystems, including holism, diversity, and interdependence. Ecosystems are more than collections of individual physical and biological elements. They are holistic – relationships matter. Diversity also is essential in sustaining natural ecosystems, for renewal, resilience and resistance, regeneration and adaptation. Interdependence transforms the potential benefits of holism and diversity into positive ecological reality. Interdependent relationships are neither extractive nor exploitative but are mutually beneficial. The guiding social principles for sustainable communities, including trust, kindness, and courage, arise from a set of common core values, which transcend religion, philosophy, race, nation, and culture.[5] Trusting relationships are built on the core values of honesty, fairness, and responsibility. When trusts are validated, relationships grow stronger, and when violated, they grow weaker. Relationships of kindness are built on the core values of empathy, compassion, and respect. Sustainable relationships sometimes require mercy rather than justice. Finally, trust and kindness accomplish little without the courage to act. It takes courage to reject deception, inequity, irresponsibility, ruthlessness, and disrespect – to be trusting and kind. The guiding economic principles of sustainability include value, efficiency, and sovereignty. Economic value is determined by scarcity, meaning there is less of something available than people need or want. Things of great intrinsic value, such as air, may be of no economic value if they are not scarce. Sustainable communities and societies must produce things of economic value. Economic efficiency reflects economic value relative to the economic costs of the things used to produce it. Sustainable communities and societies must make efficient use of their land, people, intellect, energy, and money. Economic sovereignty is the freedom to make informed choices. In sustainable communities, people must be free to make their own decisions and must accept responsibility for their choices. The integrity of a community, meaning its completeness, strength, and soundness, depends on the extent to which the principles of sustainability permeate all aspects of the community. The social community, for example, must be more than a collection of people. The relationships among individuals must be holistic, diverse, and interdependent. Its social and cultural resources must be used wisely, not just to create economic value but to create things of intrinsic social value. Social integrity depends on ecological and economic integrity. Sustainable relationships between a community and its natural environment can be derived directly from the principles of social relationships. Environmental pollution and degradation violate the principles of kindness or trustworthiness in relationships among people, both within or among generations. And natural resources must be used not just to create economic value but also maintain the intrinsic value of living in a clean and healthy natural environment. Ecological integrity depends on social and economic integrity. Finally, a sustainable local economy also must be holistic, diverse, and interdependent. A degree of specialization and standardization may be necessary for efficiency, but a sustainable economy must maintain a measure of diversity and its economic relationships must be mutually beneficial, rather than extractive or exploitative. Economic relationships must be based on trust, not just contracts and laws, and must reflect a sense of kindness toward others, including those of the future. Economic integrity is inseparable from ecological and social integrity. A number of specific programs are available to guide communities through the sustainable economic development process. The Natural Step is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 by Swedish scientist, Karl-Henrik Robèrt. A number of rural eco-municipalities across Canada and the United States are working to develop “ecologically, economically, and socially healthy communities for the long term” by using the Natural Step framework.[6] The Natural Step seeks to minimize the accumulation of wastes from both naturally occurring and manufactured substances while maintaining the productivity of natural ecosystems and sustaining a healthy, productive local society. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies is an international alliance of more than 50 independently operated local business networks dedicated to building local living economies.[7] A living economy is defined as one in which economic power resides locally, for the purpose of sustaining healthy community life and natural life as well as long-term economic viability. There is no shortage of programs to guide sustainable economic development. The key to success, however, is widespread local commitment to the purpose and principles of sustainable economic development. Many individuals, businesses, nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and informal communities are taking the initiative to live, work, and govern by the principles of sustainability. The fundamental question confronting humanity, however, is whether people in general will be willing to forgo some level of individual economic self-interest to ensure the long run sustainability of humanity. If we continue to behave like non-thinking animals, following our most basic instincts and urges, our species will suffer the same fate as any other non-thinking species that finds itself in a position of dominance in its ecological environment. We will continue to expand our population and consumption until we degrade and deplete the resources that must sustain us. Humans are not exempt from the fundamental laws of nature, regardless of how much we think we know or how technologically advanced we may become. Unfortunately, the ecosystem dominated by we humans today includes the entire biosphere of the earth.