Basic HTML Version
We ought to build more highways, the reasoning goes,
because they are already carrying the bulk of the trans–
portation load. It's just another way of saying, " Let's
maintain the status quo." What the legislator actually
did was make the classic error of confusing the effect
with the cause. He neglected to mention that one of the
major reasons 97 percent of all goods and people travel
by highways is precisely because the government poured
so much money into them in the first place.
Perhaps the statement of a prominent oil company
executive gets closer to the heart of the problem. Reac–
ting against a Ford Foundation study that called for
extensive energy conservation meas ures, he wrote: "We
agree that waste of energy should be eliminated [who
can oppose mom, flag and country?]; but even when
wastage is taken out of the systcm, the average consumer
in this growing economy will continue to need
more
energy tomorrow than he does today."
The implicit assumption in this executive's a rgument is
that consumer needs must cont inu e to inexora bly expand.
Or elsc the real assumption was that people will
want
more
in the future or even be manipulated to want more.
Herein líes one of the fundamental ftaws of our indus–
trializcd, mass-production society. Goods are produced
not just to fulfill basic needs but to satisfy wants. High–
powered assembly lines can continue to mass-produce
only if there is continua! mass demand. Genuine needs
usual!y exist at a stable or stationary leve! and there is a
limitto their growth potential. Wants, on the other hand,
are more elastic. They can be artificially stimulated by a
production-oriented industrial complex that continually
advertises its wares through every possible medium. As
Lewis Mumford explained it: "The aim of industry is
not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a
mínima! productive effort, but to multiply the number of
needs, factitious or fictitious, [to) produce profits. These
are the sacred. principies of the power complex··
(The
Pentagon ofPower,
p.
328).
Expansion is of course important in an industrial–
based society because growing profits are directly tied to
it. Without expansion, investors lose confidence, stocks
drop in value, capital dries up, and the corporation finds
itself spinning its assembly-line wheels in an intolerable
no-growth situation.
" Our whole society. especially our industrial system,"
writes Maurice Strong, former executive director of the
UN environmental program, "is geared to a set of auto–
matic, habitual responses that are inherently self-defea t–
ing: more production, more growth, more everythiog."
Social considerations obviously have to take a back–
seat in this kind of profit-centered orientation. "So what
if trains are less polluting and use less energy than
automobi les?" this kind of reasoning would go. "Their
return on investment can't begin to match that of a
healthy automotive industry." Hence the dilemma.
Anyone with the authority to reverse these priorities
would soon find himself with
no
authori ty if he tried.
Stockholders, for instance, aren't about to stand for a
company that says profits are secondary. And if the
stockholders won't stand for it, neither wi ll the board of
directors, the president, and anyone else who values his
corporate position.
The
PLAIN TRUTH April 1978
Presumably if there were an infinite supply of energy
and resources available to such a growth-oriented so–
ciety, there would be no physical problems inherent in
this philosophy. But as the distinguished British econo–
mist E. F. Schumacher observed: "An attitude to life
which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of
wealth- in short, materialism- does not fit into this
world, because it contains within itself no limiting prin–
cipie, while the environment in which it is placed is
strictly limited"
(Small Js Beautiful,
pp. 29-30).
Garrett Hardin, a University of California professor of
human ecology, was even more emphatic: " In the new era
of scarcity, laissez-faire and the inalienable right of the
individual to get as much as he can are prescriptions for
d isaster.
It
follows that the political system inherited from
our forefathers is moribund"
(Skeptic,
No.
2,
p.
52).
Towards a New Social Ethlc
acing real ity means first recognizing the fact
that our institutions as they are presently
configured are virtually incapable of coping
with the factors that lay a t the root ofthe energy
crisis. No number of technological break–
throughs, new sources of energy, or vacuous public rela–
tions statements will a lter this fundamental dilemma.
As economist Robert Heilbroner explained it: " Re–
source-consuming and heat-generating processes must
be regarded as necessary evils, notas social triumphs. to
be relegated to as small a portion of economic life as
possible. This implies a sweeping reorganization of the
mode of production in ways that cannot be foretold but
that would seem to imply the cnd of the giant factory,
the huge office, perhaps of the urban complex"
(A
n
Inquiry into rhe Human Prospect,
p.
139).
Needed also is a new human ethic to accompany a
change in our institutions- a revolution in human val–
ues, ifyou will.
Schumacher described itas "a n entirely new system of
thought ... a system based on attention to people, and
not primarily to goods"
(Sma/1 l s Beautiful,
p.
74).
lt
would a lso require an ultimate end to growth-hungry
corpora te technostructures, politicians that value power
more than principie, and people who are unwilling to
give their fellow humans the same considerations that
they themselves would expect.
It
would take a new spirit
of sacrifice which would motívate the consumer to vol–
untarily renounce such things as gas-guzzling autos or
vans in favor of subcompacts or mass transit. And it
would also necessita!e a revolution in our work, labor
and production habits: Things would be made to last
rather than primarily to produce profit.
Anything short of these goals and we are kidding
ourselves. Failure to take effective action could ultimate ly
result in the ruin of our society or the loss of our personal
freedoms. One way or another, our fool's paradise of
"endless energy" will ultimately come to an end. lt can be
either changed on a voluntary basis or fo rced upon us,
perhaps even by tyrannical forcesoutside ourcontrol. lfwe
cannot bring our society into harmony with our finite
world, then that society will soon cease to exist.
We still have the opportunity to change it-if
we are
wil/ing.
O
21