by Gerard Emershaw
NASA may no longer be in the space shuttle business, but
apparently it is in the dire prediction business. According to a recent NASA-funded
study based upon a mathematical model, global industrial civilization may
soon face a collapse “due to unsustainable resource exploitation and
increasingly unequal wealth distribution.” The study points out that many
advanced civilizations in history have collapsed:
The
fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan,
and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all
testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative
civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.
The study explains that five interrelated factors can be
used to determine the risk of a civilization collapse today: population,
climate, water, agriculture, and energy. These factors can lead to a collapse
when two social factors are present: “the stretching of resources due to
the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic
stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or ‘Commoners’)
[poor].” According to the study, it is these social factors which have played
the central role in previous civilization collapses.
The study
contends that wide gaps between socio-economic classes today in industrialized
nations leads to over-consumption of resources:
...
accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather
has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing
the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or
just above subsistence levels.
According to the study, technological
advancements are unlikely to solve this problem:
Technological
change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both
per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that,
absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the
increased efficiency of resource use.
The study predicts that one of two possible scenarios—both
bleak—is likely. According to the first scenario, civilization
...
appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an
optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the
Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that
eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this
Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of
workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.
In the second scenario, “with a larger [resource]
depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites
are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed
by the Elites.” In both scenarios, the Elites do not feel the effects of the
collapse until much later than the Commoners. The authors of the study theorize
that this is why Elites in the past have been oblivious to such collapses. This
has significant importance for the current situation:
While
some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards
an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in
order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these
changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of
doing nothing.
While pessimistic, a collapse is not considered inevitable:
Collapse
can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of
depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are
distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.
Right-wingers immediately reacted to the study in a
predictable fashion. The Daily Caller claimed
that the study concludes that the only way to save the planet from collapse is
communism. The Daily Caller paraphrases
what it believes the report is saying:
The only way to avoid calamity is to
adopt egalitarian methods of resource distribution if resource consumption is
limited and distributed equally—eerily reminiscent of those who champion
population control or communism.
Tucker
Carlson’s conservative website then draws parallels between the NASA study’s
recommendation that population must reach “a steady state at the maximum
carrying capacity” and Communist China’s population control programs. It also
suggests that the study’s conclusion is akin to recommendations made by White
House science czar John Holdren who suggested that “government should limit the
size of the population in order to keep the Earth from becoming unlivable.”
It is disappointing that The Daily Caller would jump to such an
unjustified conclusion. Communism has been a monumental failure in every
possible way, and both its political and economic models are doomed to failure
any time that they are tried. However, is the NASA study really concluding what
The Daily Caller believes it is?
First, the study mentions
population reaching “equilibrium” but does not state that this must be
accomplished through government intervention. Creepy environmentalist
totalitarians such as John Holdren are never shy about coming right out and
stating the nefarious and despotic unconstitutional plans that they wish
government to undertake. In Ecoscience:
Population, Resources, Environment, a 1977 book that Holdren
co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich of “Population Bomb” fame,
Holdren insists that all illegitimate children should be put up for adoption
and that those who do not exercise responsible reproduction should be
sterilized.
The NASA report does not mention
such totalitarian eugenics programs as part of a viable solution to population
growth. Nor should it. The best way for population to reach equilibrium is not
through totalitarian brutality but through economic prosperity which results
from robust free market economies. Economically affluent nations have low fertility
rates compared with poor nations. Thus, the best way to stabilize
population is through economic freedom.
Secondly, the NASA study does not
mention “egalitarian” methods of resource distribution. The language that the
study’s authors use is that resources should be distributed—not redistributed—“
in a reasonably equitable fashion.” This does not imply egalitarian
redistribution. Like Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, The Daily Caller seeks communism where it does not exist. Tucker Carlson, how dare
you sir?
So many who consider themselves
to be capitalists are actually nothing more than corporatists. These
individuals confuse free market capitalism with crony capitalism. Such
corporatists in denial assume not only that economic inequality is an intrinsic
feature of capitalism but that it is desirable. These individuals savor the
idea that there are so many “have nots” in society. For example, such economic
royalists not only rightly oppose minimum wage increases, but they also cherish
the idea that there are many people who earn low wages. Perhaps such people
have low self-esteem and require someone to look down upon the way that many
white Southerners looked down upon slaves prior to the Thirteenth Amendment.
However, the truth of the matter is that free market capitalism does not entail
widespread economic inequality. In fact, where there is massive economic
inequality, it is a hint that a free market is not functioning properly.
One method of measuring economic
inequality is to measure the income share of the wealthiest 10% to that of the
poorest 10% (R/P).
Examining this ratio reveals that wealthy
nations tend to have less income inequality than poor
nations and that economically
free nations tend to have less income inequality than economically oppressed nations.
The ten wealthiest nations for which this ratio has been calculated have an R/P
average of 11.4 whereas the ten poorest nations for which this ration has been
calculated have an R/P average of 23.82. Similarly, the ten economically freest
nations for which this ratio has been calculated have an R/P average of 13.33
whereas the ten economically least free nations for which this ratio has been
calculated have an R/P average of 34.91. Therefore, it is a myth that free
market capitalism creates inequality. Those who savor such inequality are best
advised to move to a poor nation with a Marxist economy.
Therefore, nations which are at
or near population “equilibrium” are wealthy nations, and nations with a more equitable
distribution of wealth are economically free nations. This strongly suggests
that if the NASA study is accurate, then the solution to the problem of
civilization collapse is a free market which will invariably produce wealth in
a more equitable fashion which will in turn lead to population stability.
The United
States has a P/R ratio of 15.9. Among the
wealthiest and economically freest nations, this is lower than that of Singapore
(17.7) and Hong Kong (17.8). However, it must be noted
that neither Singapore
nor Hong Kong is a politically free nation. Among
politically free nations which are wealthy and economically free, the United
States only compares favorably with Chile
(26.2). Other such nations such as Switzerland
(9.0), Canada
(9.4), Australia
(12.5), Austria
(6.9), the Netherlands
(9.2), Ireland
(9.4), Sweden
(6.2), Denmark
(8.1), and Estonia
(10.8) have far less economic inequality than the United
States.
If the United
States has more of a free market economy and
less of a corporatist economy, then there would be far less economic
inequality. Crony capitalism inevitably leads to a powerful and corrupt central
government which “picks” the winners and losers and redistributes wealthy from
the poor and the middle class to the wealthy and well connected. The Federal
Reserve accomplishes this with its “inflation tax.” By “printing” money and
allowing large banks to loan money while only keeping 10% on reserve, the
Federal Reserve allows these banks to give money to the wealthy and politically
well connected who benefit from this “new” money by spending it before prices
rise. An influx of new “funny money” fiat currency inevitably causes prices to
rise. Thus, by the time that this “new” money trickles down to the lower
economic classes, prices have already risen and there is no benefit.
In addition, special interests
such as large corporations and wealthy individuals can “buy” the government by
giving money to politicians for their election campaigns. Given that the
federal government has grown large and powerful, well beyond the scope of what
the Constitution allows, these corporatists can use the government as their own
tool. They often use the government to give themselves an unfair advantage.
Such an unfair advantage is provided by creating business regulations which
stifle small businesses. The large corporations can afford the costs of such
regulations but smaller businesses simply cannot. These corporatists also use
the government to provide them bailouts or cheap loans that small businesses and
ordinary individuals cannot receive.
Crony capitalism inevitably leads
to a smaller economic pie shared among a smaller group of corporatist elites.
In an actual free market, monopolies are nearly impossible whereas in a
corporatist system, monopolies can thrive. One also need look no further than
the collapse of the Soviet Union for empirical evidence
that communism will only quicken a collapse.
If the NASA study is valid, then
what the United States
should do to avoid a collapse is not to read Marx and start carrying pictures
of Chairman Mao. The answer is to end the Federal Reserve, cut the size and
power of the federal government, and allow the engine of economic freedom to
create wealth. This newly created wealth will inevitably and naturally be distributed
in a reasonably equitable manner. It is confusing why The Daily Caller would scoff at a study that essentially prescribes
free market capitalism as the preventative medicine to stave off civilization
collapse. Maybe Tucker Carlson is secretly carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.