Rebuttal to a Rebuttal

Yesterday, I pitched for a hybrid political system that operates with the juice of Capitalism but with the mentality of Neo-Malthusian conservatism. I argued that, with the increase in the capacity to exploit resources, we need to begin to consider the finite resources that are available on this planet and to channel the Capitalist drive towards a more sustainable direction. After speaking with my teacher, I was offered a convenient solution to the problem of diminishing resources: technology.

I do no doubt that technology can indeed alleviate the issue; however, I feel that my teacher’s reliance on the Capitalistic thrust to drive innovation is too slow a proposition without a Neo-Malthusian mentality. Why do i claim it is too slow? Because changes that impact the world are slow and scarcely felt in daily life and humans are a species that tend to respond to immediate stimuli. Sure, a species is reported to be extinct in the newspapers once in a while and oil prices are bit more pricey than before, but in general, much of the anxieties of an overexploited world are not being felt at an intimate level. Once felt, however, the changes will have gathered enough momentum to set off a rolling chain reaction that even technology cannot stop.

Capitalism is inherently a selfish mechanism. Sure, it benefits the society at large and ultimately ends up being a win-win situation for all, but on the most fundamental level, it is driven by the most powerful incentive: that of selfish gain. In particular, Capitalism promotes the freedom of competition in order to stimulate an almost irrationally efficient market. This freedom of competition takes the idea of Survival of the Fittest to the foreground, eliminating the inefficiencies of an economy that is not completely free in competition and forces all the players to compete to survive. Unfortunately, such competition has little regard for others competitors in the field, let alone the resources that are being consumed–after all, when everything is up for grabs and everyone is grabbing, who wouldn’t be grabbing as fast as they can?

The competition mentality results in creative destruction in which people are constantly innovating to undermine that which was the best. From a consumer’s stand-point, this is a great system to keep quality high and prices low; however, from the perspective of finite resources, this is a system that is callous to conservation in the long term. Because Capitalism is a moving treadmill in which all players must constantly run in order to stay on top, the competitive instinct focuses on existing incentives and not the prospects of the future. Unfortunately, the market runs on incentives and conservation is not lucrative enough an incentive to trigger the power of Capitalism’s innovation. As the lack of resources truly begin to emerge as a problem, Capitalism-as-usual will result in the tragedy of the commons in which everyone fights for resources until there is no more. After all, as Economics dictates, the lesser the supply, the greater the demand. The greater the demand in a free competition market, the fiercer the competition.

To make matters worse, the catastrophe that is diminishing resources enters the stage so slowly that few can feel it quick enough to respond to it in time. The situation is like the boiling pot phenomenon that Al Gore describes: a frog thrown in hot water reacts quickly to survive; however, the same frog left in a slowly cooking pot will remain there, oblivious, until it is boiled into frog soup. My point is, Capitalism works as a system that satisfies pressing needs and current incentives–a business that assumes the prophet in the market speaking on conservation makes little money and will, like Van Gogh, find credibility only in death.

Ultimately, because the force of Capitalism comes through the manifestation of selfish desires, the greater incentive will triumph. This drive accounts for why Capitalism has elevated the Standard of Living of the U.S. to such a level in such a short amount of time. It may also explain why it was possible for GM to successfully (and quite easily, I might add) buy out and dismantle the street car system through the United States in the mid 20th century but so hard for the public to muster the political strength to install a better functioning public transit system in California to mitigate the traffic congestion. Incentives, incentives, incentives–there just isn’t enough incentives for the case of conservation until ‘proof’ for a resources crisis is sufficient. Capitalism has the mechanism to run the innovation needed in producing technology for sustainability, but the motivation isn’t there and in the mean time, the juice will flow to power other special interests who have a stake in persistent consumption. Such is the unfortunate fate of conservation.

Ultimately, my argument turned out to be less about adopting a Neo-Malthusian economic world view than it is about the dangers of Capitalism and the importance of conservation–the Neo-Malthusian conception just happened to incorporate ideas of overpopulation and limited resources as its fundamental principle. Either way, the power of incentives is often directed to satisfy needs. If conservation is made into a significant enough a need, perhaps the Capitalistic machine may consider changing its diet for once and work to preserve the future prospects of the earth rather than follow its usual habit of irrational consumption.