A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth [Paperback]

Wilfred Beckerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

In this detailed economic investigation of sustainable development, a noted professor of economics argues that many of the alarms commonly sounded by environmentalists are, in fact, unfounded, and that current sustainable development policies should be reconsidered in light of their effects on the earth's human population, such as increased poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries. In a rare balanced counterpoint to popular sustainable development rhetoric, Professor Beckerman forces policy makers to consider whether future generations have rights that morally constrain and trump the claims of those alive today, particularly the masses of people living in dire poverty, arguing that the current sustainable development program is a menace to the prosperity and freedom of both current and future generations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Advocates of ‘sustainable development’ are unlikely to be convinced by all these claims; but they will learn a great deal." -- Cass R. Sunstein, Distinguished Service Professor, law school and department of political science, University of Chicago

"Anyone who believes that ‘sustainable development’ is a meaningful intellectual construct needs to read this clear and concise book." -- Robert Nelson, professor of public affairs, University of Maryland

"Sustainable development has become a shield for special-interest arguments. Beckerman’s careful critique points out [its] crucial ethical and economic shortcomings." -- P.J. Hill, chair of economics, Wheaton College

"We now have an excellent book which carefully examines [the philosophical and scientific underpinnings of ‘sustainable development.’]" -- Donald H. Stedman, professor of chemistry, University of Denver

"Wilfred Beckerman brings wisdom and wit to his examination of major themes found in today’s environmental policy." -- Bruce Yandle, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Economics, Clemson University

About the Author

Wilfred Beckerman is an emeritus fellow of Balliol College at Oxford University. Dr. Beckerman is an economist and the author of many academic articles and several books including In Defence of Economic Growth, Small is Stupid and most recently Justice, Posterity and the Environment (with J. Pasek). Dr. Beckerman has served on Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, and chaired the Academic Panel of Economists for the UK Department of the Environment from 1991 to 1996.

Product Details

• Paperback: 130 pages
• Publisher: Independent Institute (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0945999852
• ISBN-13: 978-0945999850
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,175,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Misunderstanding Beckerman's Purpose -- Response to Balfour, November 19, 2003

By 

Mr. Thomas A. Firey (Alexandria, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth (Paperback)

Though it is unorthodox to do so, I believe I need to respond to Mr. Balfour's review because he appears to misunderstand the purpose of Prof. Beckerman's book as well as the substance of the environmental idea that Beckerman is challenging.

Beckerman is criticizing the notion of "sustainability" -- that the planet's development rate cannot be sustained in the future because resources will not be extractable at a rate that would keep up with future demand. Hence, sustainability isn't an aesthetic argument, but an economic one. Balfour's criticism that Beckerman does not consider the aesthetic arguments for environmentalism is misplaced because that is not Beckerman's project. Balfour's comments thus are akin to criticizing a military history book on Napoleonic tactics for not discussing the romance between Napoleon and Josephine.

For people intrigued with the arguments concerning sustainability, Beckerman's book is a must-read. It offers short but very thoughtful examinations of several apparently problematic assumptions that lie at the heart of the sustainability philosophy. The sustainability notion emerged about two decades ago when environmentalists were forced to retreat from their "finite resources" argument (i.e., the world will run out of resource X) because, as highlighted by the famous Julian Simon-Paul Weyrich bet, the idea that the planet would simply "run out" became too untenable for all but the most radical environmentalists to hold. The more thoughtful environmentalists shifted to the Malthusian/Ricardoian notion that extraction rates will one day be unable to keep pace with consumption -- in part because resource extractors in the future will constrict supply to further drive up prices.

Unlike the finite resources argument, the sustainability has good thought behind it. But does that theory hold up? Beckerman offers some pretty good arguments that it does not, and he also points out some very worrisome side-effects of the sustainability philosophy -- side-effects that could produce serious near-future ecological and human disasters.

Balfour is correct that we must give serious thought to future generations when we set current resource policies. Unfortunately, he does not appear to realize that his philosophy puts those children at risk, nor does he seem to appreciate that the environmental catastrophes that he laments -- overpopulation, subsistence farming -- occur in the Third World whose ecological ethic he cherishes instead of the First World whose ethic he derides. Fortunately, Beckerman -- as well as his future challengers and their respondents -- will promote a better world for the generations to come.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Poverty of Reason; Sustainable Development and Economic Growth, November 21, 2005

By 

Kenneth F. Anderson "kfander" (Millinocket, ME) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth (Paperback)

Will economic growth deplete the natural resources on which it depends? Are we in danger of running out of energy sources? Will global warming bring widespread devastation on the planet? Does unbridled economic growth threaten the balance of nature?

Looking at the evidence on these questions, Oxford University economist Wildred Beckerman finds that many of these fears are unfounded. While billions of people around the world suffer under appalling environmental conditions, such as a lack of clean water and sanitation, these problems are primarily caused by poverty, not unsustainable development.

Despite the fact that so many are touting the wisdom of "sustainable development" as though its meaning and desirability were an established fact, there is no widespread agreement over its meaning, and its desirability is too often not subjected to scientific, economic, and philosophical scrutiny.

The author points out in his introduction to the book that support for sustainable development is based on a confusion about its ethical implications and on a flagrant disregard of the relevant factual evidence.

The popularity of sustainable development is founded on two indefensible propositions, according to the author:

Economic growth will soon come up against the limits of resource availability.
Sustainable development represents the moral high ground.
It is argued that action is required in order to reduce to "sustainable" levels the rate at which resources are used, which, Beckerman argues, is an impossible task unless we were to stop using some resources completely. Also, he asserts, the risk to the human race from climate change is greatly exaggerated.

Sustainable development's place in the moral high ground is questioned, as there are few coherent reasons to believe that sustainable development is an ethically superior goal.

Chapter one focuses on two questions:

What exactly does sustainable development mean?
What is so good about it?
The World Commission on Environment and Development defines the term as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Beckerman contends that this criterios is not very helpful, and for a number of reasons.

First, since not every need of the current generation is being met, why should future generations be any different? Furthermore, he reasons that people at different points in time or at different income levels or with different cultural or national backgrounds differ about the importance they attach to different needs.

Also, this injunction leaves no room for trade-offs. If it is true that future generations will face serious environmental problems, how many of the needs and wants of the current generation are to be sacrificed in order to help future generations meet their needs? Do we eve know what these needs might be?

Another concept of sustainable development relates to the conservation of plant and animal species. What price must we pay to conserve all plant and animal species for posterity? Is this even the natural order of things? Given that approximately 98% of all the species that have ever existed are believed to have become extinct already, how many of us can truly say that we have suffered as a result?

As for the moral high ground, the idea that we have a responsibility to maintain the environment exactly as it is today is morally repugnant. Given the large numbers of people who are living in poverty and environmental degradation, we cannot ignore these real human needs in order to save every single one of the several million species of beetle that exist.

Chapter two concentrates on finite resources and the prospects for economic growth. Resources are either finite or they are not. If they are, then the only way to ensure that they last forever is to stop using them. But of course, even the most fanatical proponents of sustainability don't go that far, and would reasonably have to admit that the human race will eventually find ways of coping with the changes that take place in he balance between demand and supply of resources.

In other words, you can't have it both ways. Either resources are finite in some relevant sense, in which case even zero growth will fail to save us in the long run, or resources are not really finite in any relevant sense, in which case the argument for slowing growth collapses.

Actually, the author contends, not only are resources not finite in any relevant sense, but the evidence of all past history, including even the recent past, shows that there have been no trends toward the exhaustion of any resources that matter. History is littered with predictions of imminent resources scarcity that have subsequently been proven false.

In 1929, a study concluded that the world's resources of lead cannot meet the anticipated demand. Yet for the rest of the twentieth century, no one worried about a lead shortage. In fact, people have been more worried that there is too much of it around.

The same 1929 study concluded that the known resources of tin do not satisfy the increasing demand of the industrial nations, predicting that the supply of tin would be exhausted within ten years. More than forty years later, a 1972 report stated that tin reserves would last us for only another fifteen years. Yet here we are in 2004, still using up that ten year supply that we were believed to have back in 1929.

There are two chief reasons why predictions of imminent exhaustion of resources have proven false. First, they are invariably based on comparisons between existing known reserves and the rate at which they are being used up. Second, they ignore the economic mechanisms that are set in motion when any resource becomes scarce.

Even in the postwar world, with unprecedented rates of economic growth, resources have more than increased to meet demand. In 1945, estimated known copper reserves were 100 million metric tons. During the following twenty-five years of economic growth, 93 million metric tons were mined, yet the reserves were estimated at more than 300 million metric tons - three times what they were at the outset.

Whenever demand for any particular resource begins to run up against supply limitations, a wide variety of forces are set in motion to remedy the situation. These forces begin with a rise in price, which in turn leads to all sorts of secondary favorable feedbacks, including a shift to substitutes, an increase in exploration, and technical progress that brings down the cost of exploration, refining, and processing, as well as the costs of the substitutes.

Sustainable development schemes do not account for the probability that, without unnecessary economic intervention, future generations may be much wealthier than is the current generation. That is the trend. Before asking the present generation, including its poorest members, to make sacrifices in the interests of future generations, shouldn't we take account of the strong likelihood that the latter will be far richer than the former? Where is the high ground in taking from the poor to give to the rich?

Chapter 3 further explores the fallacy of basing predictions on current demands. Will future generations have the same reliance on oil and fossil fuels that we have today?

In addition to the constraints on materials such as food and energy, it is argued that economic growth is leading to mass destruction of biodiversity. This destruction, the proponents of sustainable development allege, has two types of harmful effects:

It deprives the human race of an essential input into our welfare, notably a source of future medicinal remedies;
We are depriving future generations of the environmental inheritance that is their due.
Most of the world's biodiversity is found in tropical or semitropical regions, which happen to be mainly in developing countries. In the past, any loss of biodiversity caused by humans was the result of hunting, but today it is caused almost entirely by the damage done to the habitat of millions of species that live in forests, particularly in tropical and semitropical regions.

These are difficult to measure because we don't know how many species are becoming extinct each year, or even how many there are to begin with. The recorded fact that 641 species have been certified as having become extinct since the year 1600 does not exclude the possibility that many others have become extinct without anyone knowing it, particularly given that the vast majority of all species, including plants and animals, are insects, and about 40% of these are beetles.

Beckerman argues that the most alarming features of the whole debate is the unscientific attitude of some distinguished biologists. There is no empirical basis for the fear that continued economic growth is unsustainable, he says. Even with respect to food or energy supplies, two types of resources that have been most frequently the subject of pessimistic predictions, there is no cause for alarm. The destruction of biodiversity also appears to be exaggerated, although the author concedes that there are some real problems in some countries.

Yet, he argues, slower growth is more likely to perpetuate market failures than to promote their elimination, as faster economic growth makes it easier to compensate those who may lose out from an elimination of market imperfections.

In Chapter 4, Beckerman takes on climate change. While environmental groups claim that unchecked climate change will lead to catastrophic declines in world income, requiring drastic international action... Read more ›

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Rebuttal to "A Poverty of Reason", October 12, 2006

By 

Scott C. Daniel "Scott Daniel" (Fullerton, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth (Paperback)

"A Poverty of Reason" should rightly be called "An Attack on the Concept of Sustainable Development". Beckerman's title implies that opinions other than his own are impoverished, regardless of their qualifications. The central tenant of the book, that sustainable development is inherently confusing, undesirable, and possibly immoral reminds me of a petulant conversation between an adolescent and a parent. On observing the teenager leaving the house the parent might say "Be safe!" to which Beckerman, if he were the teenager would reply "How safe?", "What does safe mean?", "What things are considered safe?", "How do I know when I've achieved safeness?". The frustrated parent knows that his child understands what he means by "safe" and although there are instances in which they might disagree on safe behavior, there are more cases in which they would agree.

It is much the same with the term "Sustainable Development." Beckerman understands full well what it means despite his lawyerly attacks on other writer's attempts to define it. God help us if Beckerman had been participating when the countries founders declared "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" to be rights of man. Had he been alive, he would have attributed all of the ills of society in his day to ambiguity of the word "Happiness".

The fact there is disagreement about a concept's meaning does not make the concept any less valuable. Beckerman should choose the join the debate rather than attacking the debate itself. I found his ideas on climate change to be one of the more reasonable chapters, not because I agree with his conclusion, but because he actually offered an opinion of his own and suggested a policy to fit it.

I would recommend that Beckerman read "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb particularly as it relates to predicting "Black Swan" events. Beckerman claims that predictions of long-term shortages of resources are wrong because some predictions have been wrong in the past. It is like saying "All swans are white" because you've never seen a black one. Observing only white swans, no matter how many you see, does not mean they are all white, while observing a single black swan does prove they are not all white. Historically, we have had numerous "black swan" events relating to resource shortage. We know they exist and that more will occur over time regardless of the accuracy of predicting them.

Beckerman attempts the same philosophical drubbing of the "Precautionary Principal" that he gave "Sustainable Development." He wants more clear definitions of the words "serious", "damage", and "threat" as if these are mystical phrases. He uses as an example of the destructive power of the Precautionary Principal the regulation of the bio-tech industry. This is an industry that has yet to articulate it safety to my father, a PhD in biology, let alone the public as a whole. His claim that developing nations are suffering as a result of the slowdown in bio-tech is a contradiction of earlier claims that there are no real food shortages, only political upheaval that distort food distribution (I happen to agree with him in this case). Clearly more rapid advances in biotech would not solve issues of political inequity.

Although Beckerman has little patience with the moral aspect of environmentalism, he has little problem moralizing in general. His particular platform is the responsibility of developed nations to the developing world. To Beckerman, someone dumping toxic waste into a river is not immoral (simply violating property rights), but insisting that imported goods be held to the same environmental standards as domestic products is not only immoral, but imperialist. What rubbish! Using a tariff to raise the price of an imported good manufactured using a less-costly and more polluting method than we allow domestically is simply placing an economic value on that aspect of the environment, something that Beckerman should understand and appreciate.

Beckerman seems to claim that pollution is an inevitable part of development and that is should be allowed to take its course. He believes that developed countries are less polluted today (true for some resources, not true for others) so we can expect developing countries to see improvements in their environments as they grow. But there is no reason to believe that pollution and the wholesale destruction of natural areas is a requirement for development and it should not be our standard.

I do like some of Beckerman's notions (not original) of placing a market value and assigning property rights to all resources. I should have rights to the air over my home and in public areas and those that dump in it should have to pay a fee that creates a real incentive for them for reduction. The same is true of the pollution caused by mining, waste management and energy exploration to name a few. How this is accomplished without the central planning and tariffs that Beckerman abhors is a mystery to me. Surely he does not believe that these industries will offer up a pollution bounty on their own?

A noted Stanford professor, speaking on global warming, said that perhaps the greatest enemy of environmentalism is the far left of the Green movement, not because their goals aren't worthy, but because their alarmist rhetoric lacks reason causing the entire movement lose credibility. Had Beckerman's book dealt with only the fringes of environmentalism I might have had some sympathy for his arguments. Attacking the goals of "Sustainable Development" as inherently immoral and imperialist is, at best, unreasonable and, at worst, silly.