"Conventional
economics is a form of brain damage."
- David Suzuki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Se55CCdfaOA
- David Suzuki
David
Suzuki explains the fallacy of conventional economics, in an
interview done for the BBC.
"Conventional
economics is a form of brain damage." ~ David Suzuki
Anytime
any being takes an action, there are both intended and unintended
consequences, also called externalities. When a forest is cut for
lumber, the intention is to use that wood to build houses, boats,
etc. (oh yeah, and make a profit). This is the intended consequence
and these usually are far fewer in number than the unintended
consequences. This action of clear cutting an entire forest has huge
numbers of devastating externalities such as soil erosion, disruption
in rainfall patterns, desertification, species and habitat
destruction, as well as a loss of something intuitively sacred.
Conventional
economists do rightly speak of externalities in textbooks and how
serious they can be. But many have ignorantly assumed an
inexhaustible supply of natural resources to fuel economic growth
indefinitely. They also assume the Earth has an infinite capacity to
absorb externalities. In such a world of infinite resources and
infinite capacity to absorb pollution, externalities have little
consequence. It is when the cumulative effect of all those
externalities begins to erode the capacity of the planet to support
life that we start to see the real threat externalities pose to all
of life on Earth.
This
inspiring video points out the fallacy of conventional economics - a
belief that there are no limits - and provides a hopeful model with
which to frame our vision for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.