The economy of nature and the case for big government

Poster from the WPA

I am an economist. As a professional ecologist I have been trained in the economy of nature. It is only those economists that service the financial industry who treat the human economy as if it is separate from the economy of nature. Since the time of Adam Smith the evidence has been overwhelming that they are tragically wrong.

I continue to be impressed by the twisted economic logic that has been applied to the mitigation of climate change and now to the management of COVID-19. In both cases governments and the financial industry have acted on the assumption that growing the economy, or in the case of COVID-19 rebuilding it, will fix these problems. Yet in both cases it obvious to most scientists that failure to address the underlying dysfunction makes it impossible to maintain a healthy economy, or for that matter, a functioning civilization.

In the case of climate change, the neoliberal capitalist argument is that economic growth will ameliorate or even obviate the damages from climate change. Of course, economists say, we will simultaneously pursue some measures to reduce emissions (e.g., clean coal through CCS), although the evidence is clear that continued additions to the greenhouse gas burden of the atmosphere will hasten the wholesale transformation of the Earth System. We are already on the happy road to hell and…