by From Richard Norgaard 1 – From material progress to holistic survival and morality The coevolution of economism with the Econocene has led humanity to the brink of disaster. Faith in progress has long been a part of the problem. Actions to stave off climate change have been trimmed and delayed on the presumption that countering environmental destruction has the opportunity cost of foregone human wellbeing through further investments in technology that further increase the production or provide novel forms of material goods. And yet studies show that wellbeing increases little, if at all, with further material assets after basic needs are met. Shifting from faith in progress toward a consciousness of holistic survival would be more appropriate given the challenges of climate change. I
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from Richard Norgaard
1 – From material progress to holistic survival and morality
The coevolution of economism with the Econocene has led humanity to the brink of disaster. Faith in progress has long been a part of the problem. Actions to stave off climate change have been trimmed and delayed on the presumption that countering environmental destruction has the opportunity cost of foregone human wellbeing through further investments in technology that further increase the production or provide novel forms of material goods. And yet studies show that wellbeing increases little, if at all, with further material assets after basic needs are met. Shifting from faith in progress toward a consciousness of holistic survival would be more appropriate given the challenges of climate change. I include the word holistic to remind us that we need to be more fully conscious of all peoples and other species too.
Most of the questions we face today are moral questions. We have neither fully faced our moral responsibilities to future generations raised by past environmental destruction nor faced climate change over the past three decades. Economists have avoided addressing moral issues in order to meet legislators’ and the public’s expectations and need for so-called “objective” answers. Hence economists talk of economic efficiency when moral issues are at stake. This shriveling of economists’ ability to think and discuss moral issues is the essence of economism. Economics, in theory, cannot say what is moral, but if political processes determine what is moral, economics can talk about alternative efficient economies that meet moral obligations and paths to them. It is past time for economics to work with moral reasoning and political decision-making rather than falsely standing in for them.
2 – From knowledge hubris to knowledge humility
We need to become much more humble with respect to how smart we are. If we were so smart, we would not be in this dire predicament. Science and the scientific community can become part of the solution, but we also need to acknowledge how science has been a part of the problem. Western hubris allowed technologies based on new findings in particular fields of science to be implemented in and spread through whole natural and social systems. Because we had scant knowledge of the whole, specialized innovations transformed the geosphere and biosphere as well as the sociosphere in unexpected ways. Those in denial of climate change are partly caught in the hubris of Western knowledge past. The environmental sciences still evoke a nature that is “out there” and slowly changing at most rather than a nature undergoing rapid change driven by our economy sustained by our beliefs. Science education, research, and participation in management and policy need to shift from the hubris of scientists as agents of material progress through specialization to scientists as humble seekers of understanding of whole and rapidly changing systems.
Given the limited nature of current knowledge, more experimentation in how we interact with nature, with quick corrective steps taken when experiments go wrong, would provide opportunities to learn through experience. Introductions of innovations need to be limited in general until our understanding is sufficient to develop criteria. There will be advantages to de-globalizing. Differentiation in our future economies will allow lessons to be drawn with respect to what might work better. The idea that we can design one best way to transition and sustain a better world is an extension of Western hubris.
3 – From individualism to cooperation and care
Adam Smith wrote two books. We have neglected his first, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Economists found the logic of markets in The Wealth of Nations compelling while wealthy converts with political traction spread selected messages. We need a significant shift towards the messages of Smith’s first book. It still provides important insights into how empathy can build trust, responsibility, and care that are key to rethinking meaningful lives and social organization. And while Smith did not emphasize care across generations, we now need to care ahead.
4 – From private property to global commons
The belief that land could be owned by a private individual and used however its land-owner saw fit gained traction in the west only centuries ago, an extremely short time in human history. Throughout history, what an individual could do with land has been restrained, but in America in particular, the idea of land ownership as sacred and any restraint considered a deep imposition on liberty and freedom. The interconnectivity of natural systems assured that private land ownership, especially when connected to markets ever more distant, would result in environmental disaster, and it has. The common threads between land need to be managed as a commons, and with today’s technologies and markets, those threads have become global. Shifting consciousness in this direction will be difficult but necessary.
Just as a coevolutionary framework helps explain how humanity has come to the brink of social and planetary disaster, it can help us see how we might back off and set out anew. The framing is systemic and evolutionary, it incorporates ecological interactions and the selective processes of evolution, showing how things tightly fit together while also changing. It incorporates the best of postmodernist understanding. Social organization, technology, values, and even science, are “socially constructed”, indeed even nature is increasingly being socially constructed, but none are only “socially” constructed. The “economy” is important, but to understand how to escape the coevolution of economism and the Econocene, it will be important to concentrate on how other aspects of life besides the material contribute to individual and collective wellbeing and can guide us into the future. We need to both concentrate on survival and consciously expand our consciousness.
