“For most of human history, the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch,” writes journalist Bill McKibben in his 2007 book Deep Economy. “You could toss one stone and hope to hit them both.” McKibben’s birds are a clever way of illustrating that, in the past, when the economy produced more, life usually got better. However, nowadays McKibben argues, it’s no longer possible to hit both birds neatly with one stone. People have to choose between More or Better. McKibben’s metaphor aptly illustrates his argument that we’re paying a heavy price for our 60-year-old obsession with economic growth. The flood of consumer goods it produced has been accompanied by rampant environmental destruction and the threat of catastrophic climate change, while unemployment and poverty continue to plague us. And coming up with technological fixes so that we can continue to consume as usual on the one hand, and save the planet on the other, won’t work. That’s why seemingly good, green ideas like the province’s renewable electricity plan aren’t likely to succeed, because they hitch renewable energy to economic growth.
In short, “we need an alternative economy, not just an alternative energy system,” says economist Juliet Schor. Like McKibben, Schor questions the desirability of continued economic growth in rich, industrial nations. And she provides convincing evidence that technological measures such as energy efficient appliances and cars actually increase energy use. In her new book, Plenitude, Schor also points out that in 1960, Americans consumed, on average, just a third of what they did in 2008. StatsCan figures show a similar increase in Canada, with personal spending on goods, for example, rising 57 percent from 1981 to 2005. Schor argues that to avoid ecological disaster, we need to stop defining wealth narrowly in terms of money, goods and growth, and instead use productivity gains to increase leisure time while we start making more things for ourselves and strengthen our family and community ties.
Schor points out, however, that politicians continue to trumpet the benefits of economic growth, while promoting technological fixes such as renewable energy schemes to avert climate change. “More far-reaching change, in growth aspirations, the basic structures of the economy, or the consumer culture, is barely under discussion,” she writes.
For the moment, though, the political barriers to an alternative economy seem formidable. What Schor calls, the “business-as-usual” growth economy is still firmly entrenched. Here in Nova Scotia, the province is firmly committed to pursuing economic growth. In fact, its renewable electricity plan, announced in April, promises that “green” energy will create thousands of good jobs while “growing the economy.” The plan calls for Nova Scotia to generate 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, mainly from industrial wind farms, burning wood waste and—if all goes well—importing hydro-electric power from Quebec over an expanded grid system that could be in place by 2013. The province is also committed to increasing energy efficiency levels as a way of keeping electricity consumption flat. Overall, it’s hoping to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade by 10 percent over 1990 levels. It sounds admirable and, on the surface, it is. It’s also clear from speaking with a senior official in the premier’s office that the NDP government is thinking hard about conservation, renewable energy, and the path to a “greener” economy. But its goals conflict with the pursuit of economic growth in which we keep consuming more stuff.We need a more radical, decentralized approach to alternative energy and the economy.
Fortunately we don’t need to look far for successful blueprints. Nova Scotia has a rich co-op tradition, pioneered in Antigonish by Moses Coady. The province could also adopt GPI Atlantic’s Genuine Progress Index—a guide to an alternative economy in which quality of life is valued more highly than the quantity of things we buy. As Bill McKibben points out, More no longer automatically equals Better.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2010.
All so true. This argument is also neatly encapsulated in McKibben’s other awesome book, called “Enough”. In it, he questions whether humans even have the capacity to acknowledge that at some point, we have enough – money, technology, stuff, progress, etc… Unfortunately, the rich and their government lackeys never have enough, no matter how much they have, and through material and status envy, they drag the rest of us along with them on the path to total earth destruction via unending economic growth.
In it, he questions whether humans even have the capacity to acknowledge that at some point, we have enough – money, technology, stuff, progress, etc.
never will happen.we are programmed (all of us,not just the rich) by evolution to consume.especially to progress.
Unfortunately, the rich and their government lackeys never have enough, come on this is a democracy.this argument is tiring
total earth destruction.lol
The problem is I wonder can the author tell us is there any alternative to Capitalism since I believe the Coast as a free newspaper does need all the Ad space and Capitalist marketing for people even to bother pick it up or to even keep it a float. Also any alternative has proven not to even work in the real world. I think someone should just remind Eastern Europeans on how the alternative economy works. I think the lack of basic goods is one and the type of Government that would require even denied them basic human rights to their people even in Cuba their model is not working for them either and Fidel Castro even admitted to that it not even working for them. I think the alternative economy might look good on Paper and might only work on Paper but in reality it does not since is capitalism that even has rise living standards threw out the world and even brought us all the technology we all enjoy today such as computers, cell phone, etc and I ask this I doubt our society could not even function without a computer. Of course it’s those evil Capitalist that are to blame but I think that’s what all leftest think anyway. I would like to even see how a Alternative economy would work in the real world since they usually only work on paper or in someones head.
The issue is the consumption of non renewable resources. As we acquire and throw away more things we have shifted our spending patterns to have goods shipped from further and further away. We are actually destroying our ability to generate our own wealth because we produce less and less. Check the labels on the products you buy do any say made in Nova Scotia or Canada.
Last Thursday’s “Democracy Now” provided a broader perspective on consumerism as a form of structural violence from Sulak Sivaraksa, a dissident from Bangkok who won the “Right Livelihood Award” in 1995. You can read a transcript of the whole interview if you scroll down the page at: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/17/larg…
Here are three brief excerpts:
*To train in nonviolence is part of right livelihood. It means you must learn not to hate others. And deep down, you must also learn not to hate yourself. A lot of people hate themselves, you know? In order to get money, in order to be successful, they even exploit themselves. But the Buddhist approach is that you must learn to know yourself, to learn that the self really doesn’t even exist.
*Without the trees, we cannot live. Without the earth, we cannot live. If you use that Buddhist approach—you don’t have to become Buddhist—you use that Buddhist approach, you change your entire attitude towards life, towards Mother Earth, towards others.
*In America, itself, you know, the people consume too much natural resources. I think Americans must also understand this is structural violence. The top people in the big companies earn far too much, whereas the common laborers earn too little. I think this is the structure. And this structural violence is also linked with cultural violence. You see, a lot of media use all kind of half-truths to denounce the others. I think one ought to learn to practice right livelihood.
Buddhist are idiots.
Their Brave New World will more closely resemble Kim’s North Korea, than the Lennonist Utopia of “Imagine”.
lmfao
Totenkopf – Check out the” Forces Recruiting Thread “on LTWWB. Got a dispatch for ya.
I’ve read Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy and found it stimulating.
Another book that helped me refine my thinking in this area is Herman Daly’s For The Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, coauthored with John Cobb and published in 1989.
Herman Daly has been writing about the benefits of a “steady state economy” since the early 1980s. He has pointed out that both capitalist and Marxist ideologies accept as axiomatic that progress is measured in the growth of the industrial economy and for that reason both ideologies are unable to deal with the reality of limited or zero growth.
It seems an obvious fact that natural systems cannot experience unlimited growth and economic systems are no different, embedded as they are in the real world.
I recommend the book by Daly and Cobb to anyone interested in understanding how another path is possible, getting away from the Left – Right axis of conventional economic thought.
just curious to know that if money is not creating money (growth) where will we get money for say medical research,or any type of research,education,infrastructure,military(which we all know is necessary) and everything else in society. where is the incentive to do better for yourself if there are no raises,wage increases,promotions,will there be any jobs at all are we to be all given the same things as equals (communism).because generally when things are not growing they are declining.
not going to read the book ,but how does he address these obviouse questions.
As long as folks are reading an’ shit, go pick up Stewart Brand’s “An Ecopragmatist’s Manifesto” if you want to have your eyes opened.
Rather than listen to people here who only got concerned about climate change after “an Inconvenient Truth” came out, you may want to read what a true environmental pioneer says (and one who can put the socialist poseurs of The Coast to mumbling shame)
I would suggest reading articles by Milton Friedman a Nobel winner in Economics. Here is someone who has a real understanding of the damage being caused throughout the world by the Central Banking system, IMF & World Bank.
Not only that he has a workable plan for using his idea to wrestle control of the monetary supply out of the control of Bankers & putting it into the hands of Government. Because we all know the upswing & downswinging of the economy benefits the banks, is controled by the banks & always to the detriment of the population.