NASA, the Collapse of Western Civilization, and the Free Market

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.