A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth

Rating:
Summary: An insightful and short read
Review: The author of this book is beginning the arduous task of reassessing ideas that have pervaded economic and social thought since Malthus. This book attacks the idea of "sustainable growth" as illogically based and harmful to developing and developed countries alike. The anti-"sustainable-growth" movement has been growing in the past ten years (and even longer), sparking a serious if somewhat hidden debate by academics fearful of the indoctrinated masses. The author brings together some of the most compelling arguments against "sustainable growth". He does not present the entire argument for any of his points, but rather presents us with a book that should spark intellectual thought, as opposed to environmental fear mongering. The author's style is not particularly lithe; but, it is functional without being too stodgy.

Some of the authors main arguments include:
1.) From an economic perspective, it may be cheaper to deal with the costs of pollution (such as levies to prevent rising ocean water from swamping cities etc) than to pay the cost of abating pollution.
2.) The environmental benefit of ideas such as the Kyoto treaty may be next to nothing while the financial costs are great.
3.) Future generations will most likely have much higher income than we will; therefore, it is immoral to afflict today's population, especially in developing countries, with costs that could best be borne by future generations.
4.) The precautionary principle is an illogical one. Paranoid scientists will then be able to cost the global economy trillions on a whim.
5.) Once countries reach a certain per capita income threshold they begin to improve their own environments. Therefore, retarding growth is . . . unadvisable.
6.) Future generations have no rights, as they do not exist.
7.) Limiting the pollution of developing countries impedes growth and delays expansion of average lifespans.
8.) Most interestingly, he alludes to the idea that environmentalism may be a new form of imperialism. The rich countries impress their values of clean environments on those who would rather have enough clean food or drinking water (resources are not unlimited).

(reviewer's note): While many people mention that those who write in favor of companies are bought off by capitalists, it is also important to note that many environmental organizations as well as international organizations (such as the UN) depend on the public perception of unacceptable environmental conditions to further their agenda as well.

This book got a 4 and not a 5 because it is a compilation of many existing ideas with the added flair of a few new insights. It is more of a workhorse than a show horse.

Rating:
Summary: There are two types of people....
Review: This book is written by the type who speaks from the head - an intellectual rather than a humanist. The central theme to the book is that restraining industrial and corporate predation in the name of planetary stewardship is causing and/or excaberating social inequalities which the author would like us to see as single issue problems. This is, of course, a naive and dis-ingenuous way to present highly complex issues such as over-population and the decline of subsistence agriculture in marginal lands. I have only two conclusions from reading this book, and they are both founded on the motive of it's author. These conclusions are: either Wilfred Beckerman is a hopelessly indoctrinated special interests lobbyist, or he is too academically rational to see the spiritual side of the arguements against unrestrained capitalist expansion. And I'm a fully paid-up member of the Capitalist Pigs, so I'm not unsympathetic to the stance he tries to promote. I have, however, a firm belief, not shared by Mr Beckerman, that some of the most important aspects of humans and their psycological needs are not dollar-quantifiable so cannot be factored into a system of economics.
By the end of this book, I was impressed only by the selective and incredibly mechanistic supporting arguments. I was sadly unable to either on-lend my copy or recommend anyone else to read this because it says only what we have already heard from pro-development apeasers - the assumption that the spread of Western values and attitudes is 'religiously' correct in all cultures, and that to refute the proposed development potential of third world cultures is a selfish and patronising vision of 'unqualified idealists'. There is much to dislike in the attitude of the author, not least his contention that critics of development are either 'unqualified' or 'uninformed' (how's that for patronising?) but my main review point here is that he has not addressed the crucial pivot-point of the debate - we are knowingly gambling with huge risk to our ecosystems and our diversity of cultures and all for the real benefit of profit-hungry corporations and political power bases. The real losers in the fight to preserve diversity and beauty (two concepts that the author places no dollar value on) should be these mindless and remorseless entities.
The alternative scenario, boosted by the author using selective and disturbingly simple 'facts' will see the powerless of the third world move into a different and more unpleasant bondage, to a system that is even less interested in self-monitoring or spiritual values than the one they are being 'saved' from. Read this book only to see the dry and brittle hand of the older generation, still sure that it's money and military cancers are helping people live a better life. One wonders what the author does when confronted by wilderness, or wet earth after rain, or any one of a huge number of reminders to most of us that we hold a precious and vital responsibility to act at all times as if we were borrowing this planet from our grandchildren, not inheriting it from our parents.

Rating:
Summary: There are two types of people....
Review: This book is written by the type who speaks from the head - an intellectual rather than a humanist. The central theme to the book is that restraining industrial and corporate predation in the name of planetary stewardship is causing and/or excaberating social inequalities which the author would like us to see as single issue problems. This is, of course, a naive and dis-ingenuous way to present highly complex issues such as over-population and the decline of subsistence agriculture in marginal lands. I have only two conclusions from reading this book, and they are both founded on the motive of it's author. These conclusions are: either Wilfred Beckerman is a hopelessly indoctrinated special interests lobbyist, or he is too academically rational to see the spiritual side of the arguements against unrestrained capitalist expansion. And I'm a fully paid-up member of the Capitalist Pigs, so I'm not unsympathetic to the stance he tries to promote. I have, however, a firm belief, not shared by Mr Beckerman, that some of the most important aspects of humans and their psycological needs are not dollar-quantifiable so cannot be factored into a system of economics.
By the end of this book, I was impressed only by the selective and incredibly mechanistic supporting arguments. I was sadly unable to either on-lend my copy or recommend anyone else to read this because it says only what we have already heard from pro-development apeasers - the assumption that the spread of Western values and attitudes is 'religiously' correct in all cultures, and that to refute the proposed development potential of third world cultures is a selfish and patronising vision of 'unqualified idealists'. There is much to dislike in the attitude of the author, not least his contention that critics of development are either 'unqualified' or 'uninformed' (how's that for patronising?) but my main review point here is that he has not addressed the crucial pivot-point of the debate - we are knowingly gambling with huge risk to our ecosystems and our diversity of cultures and all for the real benefit of profit-hungry corporations and political power bases. The real losers in the fight to preserve diversity and beauty (two concepts that the author places no dollar value on) should be these mindless and remorseless entities.
The alternative scenario, boosted by the author using selective and disturbingly simple 'facts' will see the powerless of the third world move into a different and more unpleasant bondage, to a system that is even less interested in self-monitoring or spiritual values than the one they are being 'saved' from. Read this book only to see the dry and brittle hand of the older generation, still sure that it's money and military cancers are helping people live a better life. One wonders what the author does when confronted by wilderness, or wet earth after rain, or any one of a huge number of reminders to most of us that we hold a precious and vital responsibility to act at all times as if we were borrowing this planet from our grandchildren, not inheriting it from our parents.

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstanding Beckerman's Purpose -- Response to Balfour
Review: Though it is unorthodox to do so, I believe I need to respond to Mr. Balfour's review because he appears to misunderstand the purpose of Prof. Beckerman's book as well as the substance of the environmental idea that Beckerman is challenging.

Beckerman is criticizing the notion of "sustainability" -- that the planet's development rate cannot be sustained in the future because resources will not be extractable at a rate that would keep up with future demand. Hence, sustainability isn't an aesthetic argument, but an economic one. Balfour's criticism that Beckerman does not consider the aesthetic arguments for environmentalism is misplaced because that is not Beckerman's project. Balfour's comments thus are akin to criticizing a military history book on Napoleonic tactics for not discussing the romance between Napoleon and Josephine.

For people intrigued with the arguments concerning sustainability, Beckerman's book is a must-read. It offers short but very thoughtful examinations of several apparently problematic assumptions that lie at the heart of the sustainability philosophy. The sustainability notion emerged about two decades ago when environmentalists were forced to retreat from their "finite resources" argument (i.e., the world will run out of resource X) because, as highlighted by the famous Julian Simon-Paul Weyrich bet, the idea that the planet would simply "run out" became too untenable for all but the most radical environmentalists to hold. The more thoughtful environmentalists shifted to the Malthusian/Ricardoian notion that extraction rates will one day be unable to keep pace with consumption -- in part because resource extractors in the future will constrict supply to further drive up prices.

Unlike the finite resources argument, the sustainability has good thought behind it. But does that theory hold up? Beckerman offers some pretty good arguments that it does not, and he also points out some very worrisome side-effects of the sustainability philosophy -- side-effects that could produce serious near-future ecological and human disasters.

Balfour is correct that we must give serious thought to future generations when we set current resource policies. Unfortunately, he does not appear to realize that his philosophy puts those children at risk, nor does he seem to appreciate that the environmental catastrophes that he laments -- overpopulation, subsistence farming -- occur in the Third World whose ecological ethic he cherishes instead of the First World whose ethic he derides. Fortunately, Beckerman -- as well as his future challengers and their respondents -- will promote a better world for the generations to come.