Sustainable Economics

We need to find what kind of economy can 
provide people's needs without making 
too much pollution and without running 
out of resources rapidly. Our present 
consumer economy has many nice features, 
yet it is basically at odds with 
resource stewardship. 

The consumer economy is popular, but 
many people are worried about the wisdom 
of consuming so much. There is a way to 
maintain our security and comfort 
without the high consumption required by 
our present consumer economy. Our plans 
already include partial answers for how 
to build a sustainable economy. We have 
come to recognize the need to use 
increased efficiency and recycling as 
parts of any sustainable economy. But, 
efficiency and recycling are not enough 
to make the cuts in consumption we need 
to become sustainable. 

The more difficult and more important 
change we need will require us to stop 
running our consumer economy, because it 
needs waste to function.    War, throw 
away goods, and planned obsolescence are 
good for the consumer economy, but they 
have no place in a sustainable economy. 
If we try to waste even more we will 
will just hasten the day when scarcity 
forces us to conserve, the hard way.  

One missing element in our plan for a 
sustainable society is what to do about 
conserving items that can be reused. 
Items that are not consumed when they 
are used the first time are durable, and 
could be made to last longer. For 
example, if something lasts twice as 
long we will only need to produce half 
as many to meet demand. 

A sustainable economy should do the 
opposite of the consumer economy; it 
should try to make things last longer. 
Increased product lifetime will allow us 
to enjoy the use of durable wealth with 
low resource consumption.  It will be 
easy to learn to love a sustainable 
economy based on durability.  

Products that are designed to be long-
lasting will naturally accumulate. 
Those who have a stock of truly durable 
goods rarely need to replace them. Our 
concept of wealth as a flow is wrong. 
Wealth is a stock, including the stock 
of durable tools that make and recycle 
food items that can't be made durable 
and the durable homes that are energy 
efficient. Our use of durability to 
conserve will allow consumption to drop 
to sustainable levels after people have 
acquired what they need.  We don't 
really need a high flow of goods to 
have a big stock of goods. 

The multiplier effect, so important to 
increasing consumption in the consumer 
economy, also works to cut consumption 
more than might be expected when we 
conserve. When we cut consumption of 
one item all the many support activities 
previously needed to produce that item 
can also be cut back and will consume   
less. Production and consumption can 
then be reduced to the low levels needed 
to introduce innovations and provide 
infrequent replacements. But, cutting 
the need for consumption will also cut 
paid jobs. These cuts will not be such 
big problems as we might expect because 
when we used durability to conserve the 
resulting fall in incomes will be 
preceded by a fall in our needs, and 
there is no reason for us to be totally 
dependent on wages. 

The main function of the consumer 
economy is to provide the demand 
stimulation needed create full 
employment. This growing demand has 
prevented machines from causing 
unemployment, and it has provided vast 
consumer wealth, but it has placed heavy 
demands on natural resources. Thus, we 
have been squandering our, really 
scarce, natural resources to keep all of 
our, assumed scarce, workers busy. 

Wage labor has been surplus relative to 
local natural resources for a long time. 
In today's crowded world migration can 
no longer provide an escape from 
depleted local resources, and imported 
resources are no longer abundant and 
cheap. Even though we face a growing 
shortage of resources we still pretend 
that labor shortage is limiting 
production. Our fear of labor shortage 
is obsolete. Since the dawn of the 
industrial age it has been necessary to 
constantly find ways to increase 
consumption in order maintain full 
employment. 

Most people agree that jobs are the only 
acceptable way to dole out money to the 
masses. Yet, when we create nearly full 
employment our powerful technology and 
out large supply of workers will always 
consume far too many resources for such 
hyper-activity to be sustainable. Only 
in our dreams is there no conflict 
between expanding the economy to make 
jobs and contracting the economy to 
conserve resources. 

Our labor is surplus only relative to 
resources and the production of physical 
goods. Most people need a job that pays, 
and have little time left for the work 
of nurturing, caring and stewardship. 
There is plenty of important unpaid work 
to do, but we can't start doing it if we 
are all working full time to produce and 
consume as much as possible. Today we 
can do the work that makes a short-term 
dollar profit, while unpaid work is 
mostly neglected. 

Our present views rarely include any 
awareness that wealth comes from nature 
and inheritance more than from any work 
we do. To make our system work under 
present conditions we must admit that 
human labor is no longer scarce because 
machines with computer control can 
already replace most paid labor, even in 
services. Our claim on the resources 
which provide the base of both durable 
and perishable wealth can not be based 
on labor when paid jobs are rare. 

We should expect to shift our dependence 
from wages toward unearned income as 
automation replaces more human labor. 
Our system already has unearned income, 
but for now it is only for a few. Ending 
our dependence on wages is one key to 
the locked doors of becoming 
sustainable. Unearned income can end our 
dependence on jobs. 

The resource base of our income has 
always been unearned, because nature can 
not be paid for the resources we take. 
Thus, prices and wages are mostly about 
the division of labor among humans. 
That's why the labor theory of value is 
true. 

Yet, the relation between prices and 
labor costs would be hard to measure if 
machines replaced most human labor. More 
computer automation will make wage costs 
fall along with the prices of 
manufactured goods. If all paid human 
labor could be replaced, then wage 
income would fall to zero leaving only 
income from profit. 

We will need to notice this old trend of 
the industrial age now that is has been 
accelerated by computers. Because the 
consumer economy can't continue, we must 
rethink our assumptions about our 
pretense that everyone should be busy in 
a paid job just to be a good person.  
Yet reaction is taking the opposite 
tack. They would deny the value of 
unpaid work.   We hear that staying home 
to care for children doesn't have the 
dignity of a job. 

High taxes on fuel aren't the best way 
to encourage conservation. High taxes on 
fuel will cause suffering and poverty, 
and people who can hardly afford to heat 
their houses can't afford to replace 
them with an efficient house either. 
Instead of taxing consumption, we need 
to support the low cost replacement of 
wasteful houses and cars with efficient 
models, and to make laws against the 
production of wasteful goods. 

Whether our goal is to preserve the 
present pecking order or to help improve 
the lives of the poor, we must have a 
sustainable system to have hope for our 
families. The need to make jobs and the 
resulting excess growth are the causes 
of our high consumption, and high 
consumption is the reason our economic 
system is not sustainable. Growth is the 
common problem of all classes! True 
conservation cuts consumption and that 
cuts production and that cuts real 
paying jobs and profits. It's not 
surprising that almost no one supports a 
sustainable economy. Without true 
conservation we can continue to squander 
scarce resources to exercise all our 
surplus labor. Without conservation we 
can have our giant SUVs. It is our plan 
to avoid change. But, more growth is 
really no plan at all in the face of 
looming changes. 

Four basic ways to conserve resources 
are: increased efficiency, increased 
durability, recycling and by doing less. 
Conservation of perishables using 
recycling and efficiency are already our 
goals, but the use of durability to 
conserve has had little notice. 
Durability allows doing less without 
having less. Because durability has been 
neglected we have a lot to gain when we 
starting using durability to conserve. 
We can make deep cuts in consumption 
without sacrifice by designing new 
products to maximize their lifetime, 
efficiency and repairability. 

We wouldn't need to encourage growth to 
make jobs if everyone got some small 
share of unearned income. A small income 
could provide a life of luxury in a 
system that doesn't need to be wasteful.  
If we don't shrink real earned income, 
we aren't really conserving resources. 

A stable population using durability to 
conserve will have most wealth coming 
from inheritance, but a growing 
population can't be supported for long 
before it overruns the gains of any kind 
of conservation. If we are to become 
sustainable population must be 
controlled, and we need to act now 
because once resources are depleted and 
population is higher we won't have the 
capacity to build an economy based on 
durability and efficiency. 

Who really believes that our wasteful 
consumer economy will get us very far?  
Although we know it will lead to trouble 
we don't even talk about hyper-
consumption.   On top of too much 
consumption and vast waste we plan to 
consume at even higher rates.  But, so 
long as people are dependent on paid 
jobs it seems impossible to stop wasting 
our wealth and spoiling natural systems.   

Without a need for hyper-activity and 
waste just to make paid jobs, real 
conservation could be allowed to shrink 
the economy and real incomes without any 
loss of living standards.  One form of 
conservation is doing less, not working, 
or not consuming.  Staying home will cut 
energy consumption more than any kind of   
improved transportation ever could.   

When we begin to supply unearned income 
as an suppliment to wages we will 
suddenly be able to cut consumption.  
Unpaid work, which has been neglected 
while we pursue only paid jobs, will get 
done.  Downsizing and the elimination of 
as many  paid jobs as possible will be 
seen as a contribution to conservation.   
Of course the drive to cut labor costs 
is a long established trend, but no 
alternate income or provision for low 
consumption living has been discussed 
for the displaced workers.   

 We can solve our energy problems, our 
unemployment problems,  our pollution 
problems, and reduce the effect of 
climate change without suffering.  It's 
not too good to be true. But, we can't 
do it without faith and courage.  While 
we cling to the consumer economy, 
survival seems impossible.  We assume 
that we can't live without the consumer 
economy, but we know that it will 
consume too much if we let it continue. 
Sustaining our current wasteful consumer 
economy is the least sustainable option 
we have. 

If everyone received unearned income we 
could adjust the amount of unearned 
income to stabilize wages.  Wages would 
remain as a motivation and reward for 
those who choose to work.    Our 
acceptance of unearned income could 
provide a mechanism allowing us to match 
the labor force to the real need for 
labor, instead of making jobs to match 
the labor force. 

It's too common to hear the weird claim 
that our economy needs growth.  That's 
like saying we need cancer. Why don't we 
need growth? If we had unearned income 
we would no longer need growth to make 
jobs. If we had a stable population we  
would no longer need growth to provide 
for more people. If we used durability 
to conserve we would no longer need 
growth to raise our living standards. If 
earnings could regain the role lost to 
speculation we would no longer need 
growth to please the investor. 

Barry Brooks
This page is http://home.earthlink.net/~durable