Small Is Beautiful: Organization and Ownership

The final section of E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful continues his critique of the economic system by scrutinizing the concept of ownership. He also gives real world examples of the ways he imagines an alternative arrangement of the economy working out.

Systems are never more nor less than incarnations of man’s most basic attitudes. Some incarnations, indeed, are more perfect than others. (263)

I think this insight touches on something very deep and basic about our systems, institutions and organizations. I agree that a system is more than the sum of the individuals that make up that system. There is something more at work in the organizations and institutions that we have created. In a very real sense they take on a life of their own. This is what Rauschenbusch referred to as “social sin” which needed a “social gospel”.

However, Schumacher reminds us that these organizations, even while having a life of their own beyond the individuals that constitute them, also are a reflection of the “basic attitudes” of those human beings that created them. It’s easy to just blame individuals for practicing “bad capitalism” or “bad Marxism” and try and maintain the system as something holy and perfect that is untouchable by the errors of our ways. No, the system is a product of our own attitudes towards the world and each other. If some “are more perfect than others”, then it only reflects the better parts of our nature. We should refrain from making idols of systems, because, if we do, Schumacher’s insight reveals that we are making idols and creating God in our own image.

The basis of the capitalist system is clearly the concept of private property. We have discussed this concept in some depth on this blog, but Schumacher has some helpful insights to add.

As regards private property, the first and most basic distinction is between (a) poperty that is an aid to creative work [the private property of the working proprietor] and (b) property that is an alternative to it [the private property of the passive owner who lives parasitically on the work of others]…[quoting R.H. Tawney] “it is idle to present a case for or against private property without specifying the particular form of property to which reference is made.”…It is immediately apparent that in this matter of private ownership the question of scale is decisive. When we move from small-scale to medium-scale, the connection between ownership and work already becomes attenuated; private enterprise tends to become impersonal and also a significant social factor in the locality; it may even assume more than local significance. (263-264)

Schumacher’s thesis, eloquently summed up in the title of his book, is that the scale of things matters. He argues that scale fundamentally distorts the concept and meaning of private property, particularly in terms of relationships, between owners and workers, between owners and property and between the both and their labor. Perhaps one way of describing large-scale capitalism is “extractive capitalism”. This form of economic activity depends not only on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources, but on the extraction of labor from individuals in order to prop up the absentee owner who passively profits from their labor. This, according to Schumacher, is a necessary result of the scale of the economic enterprise.

Just to be fair, Schumacher also points out the problems with the socialist version of large-scale enterprise, nationalization.

In general small enterprises are to be preferred to large ones. Instead of creating a large enterprise by nationalisation…and then attempting to decentralise power and responsibility to smaller formations, it is normally better to create semi-autonomous small units first and then to centralise certain functions at a higher level, if the need for better coordination can be shown to be paramount. (270-271)

While it would be a stretch to call Schumacher an anarchist, the emphasis on small, decentralized units fits within the realm of anarchist thinking and ideas. The anarchist would go further in requiring these small units to be autonomous, whereas Schumacher certainly still sees some role for a centralized authority. Regardless this emphasis on small decentralized units works for the strange bedfellows of both anarchist and libertarian thinking. I appreciate that Schumacher points out that both capitalism and socialism tend toward large centralized authority.

Schumacher uses the example of Scott Bader Co., Ltd. to flesh out some of these ideas. The owner has chosen to forgo the possibility of greater wealth to form a business that is organized and owned by the workers.

“In truth, ownership has been replaced by specific rights and responsibilities in the administration of assets.” (279)

Like other worker-owned cooperatives, this arrangement fundamentally shifts the nature of property and ownership. Rather than the right to simple possession of an object, this arrangement defines ownership in terms of “rights and responsibilities”. This relates to our previous conversations about the biblical concept of ownership and property, and the idea that ownership has more to do with stewardship and right relationship (tsedekah) to material things, including the earth and other human beings. If this other arrangement shifts the relationship of owner to worker and both to material goods, it begs the question what constitutes the nature of the previous arrangement.

Excessive wealth, like power, tends to corrupt. Even if the rich are not “idle rich,” even when they work harder than anyone else, they work differently, apply different standards, and are set apart from common humanity. They corrupt themselves by practising greed, and they corrupt the rest of society by provoking envy. (279)

There is a basic assumption here that the divide between rich and poor itself produces an inequality in relationship that produces a corruption on both sides that is the cause of all kinds of injustice. Can rich and poor be friends? Those who believe religiously in the holiness of the capitalist system might argue that economic inequality between human beings does not create a fundamental division. I, with Schumacher, would argue that this divide is the source of corruption of both rich and poor, producing both greed and envy, a dangerous combination indeed.

Schumacher considers the famous words of Jesus in Matthew 6 with an interesting twist of interpretation.

It is becoming apparent that there is not only a promise but also a threat in those astonishing words about the kingdom of God [Matthew 6:33]–the threat that ‘unless you seek first the kingdom, these other things, which you also need, will cease to be available to you.” (294)

I had never considered the antithesis of these words of Jesus. In light of Schumacher and others insistence on the economy’s dependence on our natural resources, it is clear that when things are not rightly ordered the promise can also become a curse. While human beings have created many different systems to order our lives, from feudalism to capitalism, communism and socialism as well as totalitarianism, democracy, oligarchy and corporatocracy, there are other systems beyond our control and creation which judge the validity of our arrangements, though on a time scale we tend to ignore. I’ll conclude, as Schumacher does, with this thought along those lines.

It is of little use trying to suppress terrorism if the production of deadly devices continues to be deemed a legitimate employment of man’s creative power. Nor can the fight against pollution be successful if the patterns of production and consumption continue to be of a scale, a complexity, and a degree of violence which, as is becoming more and more apparent, do not fit into the laws of the universe, to which man is just as much subject as the rest of creation. (295)

Small Is Beautiful: Urban vs. Rural

I read an article from the Guardian that asked “Which is greener urban or rural living?” Treehugger also picked up the conversation, and the consensus seemed to be that urban life was clearly greener. In the city you often don’t need a car. You live in smaller housing units in tall buildings that take up less space. You have more options for consumer products that are environmentally friendly, organic or otherwise more sustainably produced. There were a few commenters that didn’t want to just throw out the benefits of rural living, but no one really seemed to think rural living could be greener.

I read the whole conversation in light of the section in E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful on development. Schumacher addressed the mentality of much development work which still continues today.

Before we can talk about giving aid, we must have something to give. We do not have thousands of poverty stricken villages in our country; so what do we know about effective methods of self-help in such circumstances? The beginning of wisdom is the admission of one’s own lack of knowledge. As long as we think we know, when in fact we do not, we shall continue to go to the poor and demonstrate to them all the marvellous things they could do if they were already rich. (199)

This could also be applied to this way of thinking about whether urban or rural living is greener. Environmentalism has its own unspoken creed containing dogmas that often remain unquestioned and uncritically swallowed and regurgitated. There are certain assumptions about what is “greener” that attempt to slip the premise by us. One of those is the divide between rural and urban.

Yet it remains an unalterable truth that, just as a sound mind depends on a sound body, so the health of the cities depends on the health of rural areas. The cities, with all their wealth, are merely secondary producers, while primary production, the precondition of all economic life, takes place in the countryside. (203)

This dualism between urban and rural is and always has been a fiction. This was one of the most stunning thoughts for me in reading this book. It is only more relevant as the world continues to urbanize and face the same problems of Schumacher’s time (the book was first published in 1975) on an ever increasing scale.

When Schumacher wrote Small is Beautiful the majority of people still lived in rural areas. Therefore, he argued, we should be putting as much, if not more, emphasis on rural development. That is not what happened. The emphasis on urban development made cities much more attractive places than the increasingly difficult life in rural areas. This drove migration to the cities and the increasing urbanization that continues today. The UN predicts that 70% of the world population will live in cities by the year 2050 and we have just recently crossed the 50% mark (I don’t have a link, but I think it was in a recent State of the World report from the UN). Urban development can’t keep up with the needs of all the rural people migrating to cities as rural economies tank. Yet, the opportunities are better in the cities. Thus we end up with the massive slums that seemed to pop up overnight around Manila, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and all the major urban centers in the “developing” world.

Yet, what is our answer for this problem of urbanization? It is to create better cities that can handle the increase in population, instead of creating rural development that makes it possible for people to stay in rural areas. What the question about whether urban or rural living is greener fails to address is the continuing, dynamic relationship between these two sectors. It’s also evident when we try defining these two terms that they are not very clear. What size community should be considered rural? At what point does a city transition from being rural to urban? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000?

Derrick Jensen defines cities as “a collection of people living in numbers large enough to require the importation of resources” (from a YouTube video on his book Endgame). This definition means that our definition of “urban” will be relatively small compared to the largest cities in the world. However, it does account for what the discussion of how green urban living is neglects. While certain metrics make urban living appear greener, because of the economies of scale, it does not account for the dependence on outside resources to sustain the “greener” urban way of life.

Unless you are living off of your urban/community garden, the majority of your food, no matter how organic or sustainably produced, must come from somewhere else. Likewise for all the other products no matter how organic or sustainably produced that you consume in a city. All of the water you use is imported from elsewhere, as well as the coal, oil and/or natural gas you use to use electricity, drive your car, cook and heat your studio apartment. Another quote from Derrick Jensen undermines the kind of thinking that makes urban living seem “green”.

Rational people will go quietly meekly to the end of the world, if only you’ll allow them to believe that recycling is going to make a difference.

We choose the metrics that make our lives seem “greener” so that we can ignore the reality that we cannot help but participate in an economy based on extraction and the importation of resources to support our preferred lifestyle in communities called cities that require this arrangement. Perhaps there is a balance between urban and rural populations that could be sustainable. I’m open to that possibility, but it would look radically different from the current order.

So, instead of asking which is greener we should be asking which way of life is self-sustaining. Rural living, if it involves industrial monocropping or extractive lifestyles, is not self-sustaining either. But, I would argue that living in smaller rural communities has the potential to be self-sustaining, while cities require an arrangement that imports resources from outside its borders.

Small Is Beautiful: The Modern World

Not only is small beautiful, but old is beautiful too (see Old is the New New). Schumacher wrote his classic Small is Beautiful in 1975, but it still rings true and continues to speak prophetically to our modern context. His book is divided into four sections: 1) The Modern World 2) Resources 3) Development and 4) Organization and Ownership. I love a series of posts. So, I will take each section in turn. The first section attempts to describe the state of our modern world in economic terms, but also in terms of meaning and values. This first quote, I think, sums up Schumacher general view of our modern economic system and the world it creates.

From an economic point of view, the central concept of wisdom is permanence… Nothing makes economic sense unless its continuance for a long time can be projected without running into absurdities. There can be “growth” towards a limited objective, but there cannot be unlimited, generalised growth…The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace…Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war. (33)

As you can see, Schumacher take a wide lens to the effects of our economics, and, I think, accurately describes the cause of conflicts as economic. I don’t think Schumacher or I intend to reduce conflicts to solely economic causes, but it is clear that ethnic, religious or cultural differences are exacerbated where there are conflicts over resources, perceived needs, distribution of wealth or other economic inequalities. The idea that growth and needs can expand infinitely continually creates conflict as it runs up against the walls of limitations due to natural resources, population pressures and unequal distribution of wealth and resources. As I have said before, we must understand the purpose, or end, toward which we desire our economic system to lead us and compare it to the actual trajectory of the course we’re on. Schumacher points out this quote from Lord Keynes, of Keynesian economics, on how the ends justify the means.

“But beware!” he continued. “The time for all this is not yet. For at least a hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.” (24)

It seems silly to me, and perhaps you, that this way of thinking gains any traction and is followed by intelligent men and women, much less the leaders of governments, corporations, etc. Yet, this thinking seems to dominate our economics and our imaginations. “The rising tide of globalization will lift all boats.” This future paradise that our economists continue to promise, if we will just follow their advice, buying more stuff, and going further into debt, is an ever-fading horizon that moves further away as we approach. The means must be congruent with the ends if we have any hope of reaching our goal. If we want peace, we must use the tools of peace, not of violence. If we want economic equality, then we cannot live based on fundamental inequalities. If we want sustainability, then we must begin to act, consume and live in a way that “can be projected without running into absurdities”.

Part of the picture Schumacher paints of our world is one in which we have misunderstood in very basic ways what this life is, indeed, about.

Above anything else there is need for a proper philosophy of work which understands work not as that which it has indeed become, an inhuman chore as soon as possible abolished by automation, but as something ‘decreed by Providence for the good of man’s body and soul.’” (37)

As a Christian, you often hear overtones of Schumacher’s faith in his writing (though one famous chapter in this book is titled “Buddhist Economics”). In our economy work is the means to the end of weekends, vacations and retirement, where we seem to believe real, authentic life is lived. An alternative perspective (and a biblical one) is to see creative, productive work as part of what makes us human. When work is degrading, detached from the product and mechanical, whether it’s in a factory or a cubicle, it detracts from our humanity. In our hyper-capitalist world the entrepreneur is one of the most celebrated individuals. Yet the conditions for people to be entrepreneurs are kept at a minimum. They are the exceptions that keep alive the dream that our lives and work can be productive and meaningful in this system. The truth is that they are the exceptions and the cubicle, the assembly line, the fields and the mines are the rule for the great majority of humanity. Schumacher quotes Dorothy Sayers along these lines,

“War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe…Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations.” (37)

The idea that wars and conflicts are the result of forces extraneous to the system, that they are anomalies, allows us to continue perpetuating the system that is the cause of these conflicts. Our modern world is built on systems in direct conflict with nature, human and non-human. We are getting the results, violence, conflict, inequality, etc. that the system is designed to get. I know I often sound all doom and gloom, but I do recognize that where values like democracy (or even better consensus), human dignity, individual rights and the kind of wisdom Schumacher mentioned above are upheld, honored and practiced we have seen great strides toward the kind of world envisioned by the Bible, most world religions and many great thinkers of justice, equality, happiness and meaningful existence. I just believe that these have been bright spots in spite of the system of exploitation, extraction and oppression to which we have become so accustomed.

If a buyer refused a good bargain because he suspected that the cheapness of the goods in question stemmed from exploitation or other despicable practices (except theft), he would be open to the criticism of behaving “uneconomically,” which is viewed as nothing less than a fall from grace…The religion of economics has its own code of ethics, and the First Commandment is to behave ‘economically’…To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life, because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.” (45)

While there are certainly other factors at play in shaping our modern world, it seems clear to me that economics has succeeded in establishing itself as the trump card, as Schumacher claims in this quote. While many of us long for more than just a job at an individual level, on a government level (community,local, regional, state, federal and international) are made with economics as the primary criteria and motivator. We would look down on any governing body that used other priorities or criteria. In other words, we believe that the other values and priorities we have (family, faith, meaning, time, education, etc.) are best served by putting the value of economics and development first. Surveys and statistics paint a very different picture. The more our economy has grown and the wealthier we have become in the United States the less time we have for these other activities that we claim to value.

There are ways in which economics tries to incorporate aspects of value and meaning outside of the usual parameters of profit and loss statements. Schumacher has this to say about such cost/benefit analysis, “In fact, however, it is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the level of the lower and the priceless is given a price.” (46) In other words, what is beyond and higher than economics is absorbed into the values and parameters of economics and thereby reduced to the level of economics where it does not pose a threat or dictate to economics the way that things should be ordered. If economics is not an end, but rather a means, then this is exactly the reverse of the way it should be. Economics must be made to serve our values and vision of the way the world should be.

Finally, I think Schumacher admirably deconstructs dualisms that continue to perpetuate dichotomous rather than more holistic ways of thinking about human needs and values.

We always need both freedom and order. We need the freedom of lots and lots of small, autonomous units, and, at the same time, the orderliness of large-scale, possibly global, unity and coordination. When it comes to action, we obviously need small units, because action is a highly personal affair, and one cannot be in touch with more than a very limited number of persons at any one time. But when it comes to the world of ideas, to principles or to ethics, to the indivisibility of peace and also of ecology, we need to recognise the unity of mankind and base our actions upon this recognition. (65)

This way of thinking provides a foundation for future vision based on human needs and ecological limitations. It also breaks through some of the arguments about scale (which is particularly interesting from a book titled Small is Beautiful). Schumacher’s point seems to be that there is a proper place for large-scale thinking and names it, the problems of peace and ecology that humanity faces as a whole. In terms of organizing our lives together (which is the realm of economics) we need the freedom of smallness to adapt and connect in the ways in which we are wired. (I wonder how social networking affects the evolutionary reality of the limited connections our brains are able to make and maintain which Malcolm Gladwell puts at about 150 in The Tipping Point.) I believe the idea that there is a proper space for both large-scale and small-scale thinking is helpful in reaching a way forward. Our problems stem in large part from confusing the proper space for each way of thinking and organizing.

This naturally transitions to an understanding of our human and non-human resources, their nature and limitations, which is the subject of the second part of Schumacher’s book.

Collapse: It’s the End of the World As We Know It and I Feel Fine

One of my favorite parts of Jarrod Diamond’s book, Collapse, was the final section where he takes on many of the most commonly heard one liner arguments against any impending collapse:

“The environment has to be balanced against the economy”Diamond says that this is exactly backwards; I agree. Environmental problems are very costly, but our system has tended toward the habit of externalizing certain problems and not accounting for them in the costs of production or sale
“Technology will solve our problems” I’ve spent significant time on this blog talking about this argument in particular. New technology both creates and solves problems. Some technologies succeed and others don’t. Successes take decades to phase in. Diamond says, “Advances in technology just increase our ability to do things which may be either for the better or the worse. All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology.” He uses the example of CFCs which are still being phased out globally even while they have been illegal in the First World for decades. The impact of what is already present in the atmosphere will last for decades longer. CFCs solved a previous problem of dangerous chemicals that were used in refrigerators and other appliances. Predicting the future and the consequences of new technologies seems a risky place to put your faith.

“If we exhaust one resource, we can always just switch to some other resource meeting the same need”This involves many of the same problems mentioned concerning new technologies. There will likely be unforeseen difficulties and transition time involved in switching to new resources including secondary infrastructure needed to support these technologies. Renewable energy technologies will certainly have a role in an energy economy not based on fossil fuels, but predicting what that looks like and what the unintended consequences will be is difficult. It also distracts us from the changes in energy consumption that must be made to make life on this planet possible for everyone.

“There really isn’t a world food problem there is already enough food.We only need to solve the transportation problem of distributing that food to places that need it.” or “The world’s food problem is already being solved by the Green Revolution with its new high yield varieties of rice and other crops, or else it will be solved by genetically modified crops.” Probably because this is my specific area of interest, I thought Diamond unfairly lumped these arguments together. The first statement is true in a global sense, and I think it’s important to recognize that we continue to focus on production issues without dealing with the problem of distribution. However, Diamond clarifies his point by saying, “First world citizens show no interest in eating less so that Third world citizens could eat more.” This points out the connection between population pressures and the issue of whether or not there is enough. It also is a reminder that, though global production will continue to be high for a while, the problem of hunger has local and regional causes, and will need local and regional solutions.
In terms of the second part Diamond points out that the primary four GM crops are soybean, corn, canola and cotton, none of which is eaten directly by humans. The majority of these crops are sold to wealthy farmers in North America. Notice that there has been little work or interest in developing GMO cassava, millet or sorghum which would actually benefit farmers in the tropics, where the majority of the world’s poor live.

“As measured by common sense human indicators like human lifespan, health and wealth conditions have actually been getting better for decades” or “Just look around you the grass is still green, there’s plenty of food in the supermarkets, clean water still flows from the taps and there’s absolutely no sign of imminent collapse.” This is the view from the top. Diamond also points out that lifespan is not a sufficient indicator. An increasing fraction of the population is at the poverty level in the US. He uses the analogy of a bank account. It’s not just the size of the bank account that matters, but the direction of cash flow. If you have $5,000 in the bank that looks great. If you realize that you’ve been spending $200 a month above your income, then you realize that you only have 2 years before you will be broke unless something changes. Our prosperity is based on spending down our environmental capital. One major lesson to draw from the decline of the Maya and Anasazi: “A society’s steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth and power.”

“The population crisis is already solving itself, because the rate of increase of the world’s population is decreasing such that the world population such that the population will level off at less than double its present level.”The problem is not just population, but also per capita human impact. Even if population growth suddenly stopped this year at 7billion we would already be at an unsustainable level based on the per capita impact of our rates of consumption. If the poor in developing countries achieve their aspirations of similar rates of consumption, the problem of population will be moot. I still believe that population growth is a significant part of the equation that is not adequately considered or understood, but I also agree that even with population growth slowing or declining we will continue to face problems of overconsumption of our resources.

“The world can accommodate human population growth indefinitely. The more people the better, because more people mean more inventions and ultimately more wealth.”Diamond seemed to think this was kind of a silly argument, but offered a comparison between two top ten lists. Top Ten countries in population: China, India, US, Indonesia, Brasil, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Top Ten countries with highest affluence above $20,000 per capita: Switzerland, Luxembourg, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada and Nouru. Only country on both lists is Japan. The lists would seem to indicate the opposite; the higher the population of a country the higher rate of poverty. Population growth rate is the difference between the two lists.

“Environmental concerns are a luxury affordable just by affluent First world yuppies who have no business telling desperate Third world citizens what they should be doing.”I sometimes have this sentiment, but for different reasons as I explored in the series on development. Diamond points out that the Third world is more aware of and understands how environmental problems affect them. These issues affect everyone on the planet and disproportionately affect the poorest of the poor, who make their living from the land and live closer to the effects of environmental degradation and climate change.

“We’re managing just fine despite all those environmental problems which really don’t concern them because the problems fall mainly on Third world people.”The rich are not immune. However, this does point out how easy it is for the wealthy and powerful to keep themselves insulated from the effects of their decisions. This was often the case in the examples of collapses where the rich and powerful acted in their own interest to preserve status and power rather than prevent the coming collapse, even when it seems obvious. Diamond points out that the rich and powerful in collapsing societies buy themselves the privilege of being the last to starve or die.

“If those environmental problems become desperate it will be at some time off in the future after I die and I can’t take them seriously.”- The twelve problems that Diamond lists (eight present in historical collapses and four new ones that we face) will become acute during the lives of young adults today. If we do so many things to plan for the future of our young people (insurance, saving, education, etc.), it makes no sense to ignore the very world that they will live in. It’s also important to recognize that these issues are not as far off as we would like to think they are.

“There are big differences between modern society and those past societies of Easter Islanders, Maya and Anasazi who collapsed so that we can’t straightforwardly apply lessons from the past.”The risks are increased rather than decreased in our current situation, because of globalization and the scale of environmental damage. Diamond also imagines asking an ecologist, “Which overseas countries are facing problems over environmental stress, overpopulation or both?” The ecologist lists Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, The Phillipines, Rwanda, Solomon Islands and Somalia plus others. Then he imagines asking a politician, “Which countries are the world’s worst trouble spots?” He then lists the same countries. Such collapses have happened and are happening right now. We are seeing the influence of the five factors Diamond lists in countries as we speak. These things are happening before our eyes, even if we decide to ignore them and say that what happened to those ancient societies can’t happen to us.

Any other thoughts about these arguments or other one-liners that you hear often?

Collapse: When Will It End and How?

I recently listened to the audiobook version of Jarrod Diamond’s book Collapse. I’ve spent some time thinking and writing about societies collapsing, but this was the first time I read something that systematically and academically addressed the question of why societies succeed or fail. While Diamond’s thesis about why societies succeed or fail has met with some resistance, his work seems very thorough, well-researched and subtly nuanced when read carefully. He takes great pains to make clear that his conclusions are not a racist attempt to blame brown people for destroying their own societies. Instead he covers almost the entire globe (five out of seven continents lacking only one that is inhabited) and thus skin tones by looking at examples from Easter Island and Polynesia, New Guinea, Norse Societies on Iceland and Greenland, Mayans, Anasazi, Japan, Rwanda, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Australia. I found the book and its arguments compelling (most likely because they support my own prior convictions, but still).

I could not make his arguments any better than the book, which I highly recommend. Instead I would just state his primary thesis and address some of the conclusions and connections I found most interesting. Diamond points to eight historical categories of collapse: “deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, affects of introduced species on native species, human population growth and increased per capita impact of people.” Then he adds that “the environmental problems facing us today include the same eight that faced past societies plus four new ones: human caused climate change, build up of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages and full human utilization of the earth’s photosynthetic capacity.” He posits five possible contributing factors to a society’s collapse:

1. Environmental damage
2. Climate change
3. Hostile neighbors
4. Friendly trade partners
5. The society’s responses to these factors

He points out that not all of the first four are always present, but the fifth, how a society responds to these factors, is always an important factor. The survey of societies from across the globe and throughout history was both fascinating and convincing, especially with an ear constantly to the present. After enormous detail concerning many different ancient and more modern society’s collapse, Diamond spends a good amount on examples of how societies successfully dealt with challenges, the most hopeful part of the book, including Japan’s forestry management and the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC).

Is Greed Good?

One of the most helpful insights I think Diamond ends up with is that we as individuals are ultimately responsible for the society we live in. It’s too easy to pass blame on to Multinational corporations (which certainly must share some blame particularly for environmental damage, i.e. BP in the Gulf of Mexico or Shell in Nigeria). We, the citizens of our respective societies and ultimately a global economy, make it possible for corporations to behave the way that they do. To expect publicly traded companies, which have a legally binding, fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit, to behave morally and ethically is like expecting a bull to give milk. It’s not in its nature. We have always had to create laws in order to force corporations to behave morally, because they are not moral entities.

We should not expect anything different and should recognize our own complicity in the behavior of corporations. We buy products and live lifestyles that serve the interests and bottom line of corporations that drill for oil (which makes everything from gas and oil to anything plastic) or make products cheaply in China or elsewhere. Just as abolitionists in Britain, the United states and elsewhere demanded an end to an economy based on slavery as a morally reprehensible practice, we have to demand the kind of society that we want to live in. It will not simply fall into our laps from the good intentions of the wealthy and powerful. It seems to me that this is the way it has always been.

Diamond also gives both a good and bad example of an oil company’s impact on society and the environment. The first example, you can probably imagine, involved environmental standards ignored, workers treated badly, destruction to local economy, etc. Perhaps the good example is an exception, but it was instructive. Chevron, working in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, tried to create the most environmentally friendly oil project. The author went with WWF to help observe the wildlife in the area. He was amazed to discover that there was more wildlife in the area where Chevron worked. From the sky he could not see any signs of the project except a very small road winding through the wilderness. This kind of project developed a reputation for the company that opened up new projects which it won based on its environmental track record. The trick is being able to switch from a short term to long term thinking that can account economically for factors outside of the average profit and loss statement, including relationships with governments, reputation, employee satisfaction and pride, not to mention the sustainability of the work itself.

Is Collapse Inevitable?

The argument of this book is partially what drives me to focus on agriculture, consumerism and the environment. I believe that it involves the very survival of our species. Regardless of the particular shape that your doomsday scenario takes, the point is that the indications are that our current global structure is akin to the Titanic steering a course aimed at an iceberg. Maybe it will end with a bang and maybe a whimper, but it cannot continue in the direction we’re headed. The question is whether or not a collapse is inevitable?

I find discussions of these scenarios interesting if not overly speculative. The future is notoriously difficult to predict. Will our globalized system cause collapse on a massive scale? Or will there be lots of mini-collapses as we saw with the ripple effects of the recent financial collapse? Or is it possible for the United States or any individual country to steer a course that misses the iceberg completely? The closer we get to the iceberg the harder it will be to turn any ship as large as government, not to mention one the size of the United States, fast enough to miss completely. Given the fact that we have already seen collapses in places like Rwanda, which he points out had as much to do with population pressure as ethnic hatreds, Diamond points out that it is not so much a matter of if, but when.

So, in some ways I think that some sort of collapse is inevitable. Following Diamond’s five-fold criteria for collapse, it seems that we are balanced on the precipice of the tipping point. Empires, or modern countries that behave like empires, have always risen and fallen the reasons that Diamond gives. This is a long historical trend and it seems like hubris for us to believe that we are an historical exception to this rule while we follow much the same path as those who collapsed before us. Diamond also pokes holes in many of the oft-heard one-liner arguments for why everything will be hunky-dory (which I will spend another post on).

All of this colludes to make Diamond seem like a pessimist. I often seem like a pretty cynical person as well, because of my dour and negative take on the current arrangement of our economic, global, social and ecological order. However, I think Diamond and I are ultimately both optimists. Just the fact that we continue to write about these issues has at least a glimmer of hope. More than that though, I see signs of hope all around me. The work I do with indigenous communities and Low German Mennonites often shows me the possibilities latent in communities and across cultural divides when we find common ground. The hope I find is not in changes made by any government or large institutions, but by small communities that find the dignity of working toward sustainability in every sense of the word and have the vision to connect their situation with the broader challenges that face our global community.