The Myth of Environmental Catastrophe

During the past few years the objective of continued economic growth has been attacked from two main directions. First, it has been argued that further economic growth is undesirable since it doesn’t really make people any happier. The fact that people in the Western world now live longer; are much healthier and better fed; have more material comfort, education, leisure, opportunities to travel, and so on; have a generally wider range of the cultural possibilities and are less ravaged by such diseases as TB, diphtheria and polio, are of little importance beside the minor inconveniences and loss of privileges which are resented by a segment of society. But this particular line of attack can never be decisively defeated since, in the end, it turns on one’s definition of happiness, and this is not an objective question that can be decided by appeal to facts. It is an ethical judgment and nobody can prove that somebody else’s view as to what constitutes happiness is “wrong” in any way.

More recently, however, a second line of attack on economic growth has developed, one that purports to be highly technical and scientific. This approach is epitomized in the recent Club of Rome report, based on research carried out by a team under Dennis Meadows at MIT using a computerized model originally developed by Professor Forrester of MIT*. This report does not say that economic growth fails to make us happier; it says that in the longer run economic growth is simply impossible, and that unless steps are taken to bring it to a halt now the end will come suddenly and abruptly, as a result of pollution, exhaustion of raw materials, and starvation of the excessive world population. Because the report has the superficial appearance of a scientific study, it has made an impact on a great many people who assume that whatever comes out of a computer must be technically sound.

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Wilfred Beckerman

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During the past few years the objective of continued economic growth has been attacked from two main directions. First, it has been argued that further economic growth is undesirable since it doesn’t really make people any happier. The fact that people in the Western world now live longer; are much healthier and better fed; have more material comfort, education, leisure, opportunities to travel, and so on; have a generally wider range of the cultural possibilities and are less ravaged by such diseases as TB, diphtheria and polio, are of little importance beside the minor inconveniences and loss of privileges which are resented by a segment of society. But this particular line of attack can never be decisively defeated since, in the end, it turns on one’s definition of happiness, and this is not an objective question that can be decided by appeal to facts. It is an ethical judgment and nobody can prove that somebody else’s view as to what constitutes happiness is “wrong” in any way.

More recently, however, a second line of attack on economic growth has developed, one that purports to be highly technical and scientific. This approach is epitomized in the recent Club of Rome report, based on research carried out by a team under Dennis Meadows at MIT using a computerized model originally developed by Professor Forrester of MIT*. This report does not say that economic growth fails to make us happier; it says that in the longer run economic growth is simply impossible, and that unless steps are taken to bring it to a halt now the end will come suddenly and abruptly, as a result of pollution, exhaustion of raw materials, and starvation of the excessive world population. Because the report has the superficial appearance of a scientific study, it has made an impact on a great many people who assume that whatever comes out of a computer must be technically sound.