January 15, 2014 – BOOK REVIEW: Enough is Enough, by Rob
Dietz & Dan O’Neill.
I won’t keep you in suspense: it’s a fascinating book. Dietz & O’Neill make the subject of
a steady-state economy both terribly interesting and accessible. As it ought to be; there’s really
nothing terribly complicated about it.
Take, for instance, their definition of a steady-state economy, which
begins “… a steady-state economy is an economy that aims to maintain a stable
level of resource consumption and a stable population. It’s an economy in which
material and energy use are kept within ecological limits, and in which the
goal of increasing GDP is replaced by the goal of improving quality of life.”
Because the information contained in the book isn’t hard to
understand does not mean that establishing a steady-state economy will be an
easy thing to do. Oddly enough,
climate change could be helpful in this regard. Maintaining a constant stock of built capital – roads, for
example –is one facet of a steady-state economy. Our current winter weather has caused an enormous amount of
road damage already. By maintaining
what we have – not adding to the inventory – we move in the direction of
creating a steady state. It’s
unlikely we’ll have the money left for building new roads. It in fact remains to be seen if we
have enough money to take care of what we’ve already built.
That is an open question because we haven’t even begun to
see the worst of climate change.
Taking care of buildings and roads will be a challenge we want to rise
to, and we have certainly demonstrated, as a society, our willingness to go
into debt in order to procure the things we believe we need. Whether or not all roads can be covered
in asphalt or concrete, or whether gravel, or even mud, will have to suffice,
only time will tell. The years
ahead will help us to re-establish the difference between need and want. Having enough of anything may once
again mean a sufficiency, more than which is unnecessary and even
counter-productive.
As for maintaining a stable population, it has very recently
been forecast that hundreds of millions of people will be impacted by the loss
of coastline that sea level rise will cause. Add to this major factor the likelihood that people will
live much more closely together, due to the loss of land. An increased mortality rate, the result
of communicable disease and wars over the land that remains, could well bring
an end to the increase in human population.
Dietz & O’Neill contend that improvements in quality of
life, due to changes in our knowledge, technology, products, income
distribution and social institutions, are the welcome aspects of a steady-state
economy. It is entirely possible that
a deeply divided world, areas of which endure the worst of climate change while
other regions manage to enjoy quality of life improvements, could exist, at
least for a while. There can be
little doubt that, until the worsening of climate change subsides, humankind
will be unable to reap the rewards that the millennia of improvements afforded
us by civilization have taught us to expect.
A steady-state economy is worth striving for. Discovering whether we can attain its benefits
while contending with a deranged environment could make for some interesting
times ahead. Because human beings
always need to be able to aspire to something better, find out how to do that
by reading this book. It will tell
you where your energies can make the greatest difference in improving our
beloved world.
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