I read "Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben a couple of weeks ago. As Gene said
I tend to devour books so I need a bit of time to think about them. The
book is not a book on economics but a book on the economy. The two have a
loose relationship, the economy is your day to day activities, economics is
an attempt to explain it all as if it were a scientific process.
In "Deep Economy" McKibben attempts to lay out what sort of economy we
could be facing in a future no longer fueled by cheep energy. He starts
out by pointing out that no system can expand forever. As Edward Abbey
observes, uncontrolled growth is a cancer. Always before we have lived in
a world where more is better. Now we have moved to a world where more has
separated itself a long ways from more.
As an example consider a very poor farmer. A farmer who can only afford
one blanket. Now if that farmer can improve his lot to where he can buy a
second blanket, more is defiantly better. Now consider ourselves. We have
sufficient blankets to keep us warm in the coldest winters so more blankets
is not better. You can expand this to anything, does getting a bigger TV
translate to better? A 3000 sq. ft. house better than 1000?
Politicians now promise more and more as if it were better but since more
and better are now widely separated, it is getting more difficult to keep
those promises. He points out that the standard of living for the 4000
years leading to the mid 1800s increased about 100% but has increased many
times since then, driven by the industrial revolution and fueled by cheap
oil. We cannot grow at those rates for many reasons, not the least of
which is that we are running out of resources. There is not enough
available iron to give the Chinese or Indians the level of automobile
ownership we in the US have. There are many examples, there is not enough
wheat in the world for the Chinese double their beer consumption.
In the book McKibben extends this to a future of oil shortages. In that
future growth has slowed or even stopped. Our national transportation
network can no longer deliver food the 1500 miles we do now so there will
be a rise of local producers. Pesticides and fertilizers will also be
limited as will fuel to power large farm machinery so those local farms
will be smaller to make them easier for a single family to work them. For
some this will be a giant step backwards but it will be unavoidable and we
will have to make accomodations.