“I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen for twenty years the other day. And you know he had changed so much he didn’t recognize me.”
For that bit of wisdom I am indebted to my English friend, Piers McBride. Going against the grain, Piers is a great fan of American football which in his opinion is much superior to English “football,” the game we call soccer. As for myself, I think soccer is more fun to play, but football is more fun to watch. I also think that intellectuals in America often underestimate the value of sports, both playing and watching.
In a way sports are a zero-sum game. As they say in baseball, some days you win, some days you lose, and some days it rains. But in another sense they are win-win. Win or lose, participants gain health, physical and mental, and pleasure. And watchers too gain pleasure and inspiration whether their teams win or lose.
Some economic and scientific activities share this zero-sum/win-win ambivalence with sports. “Green” lifestyles for instance. On the one hand they are win-win. As the old saying goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. A stitch in time saves nine. Better safe than sorry. And every business person knows that a dollar saved on the expenses side is worth ten dollars gained on the sales side. In other words efficiency, frugality, security and conservation are always welcome virtues. Green lifestyles assure these virtues have a future. And of course, in so far as they do actually help the environment, they are win-win.
On the other hand you can’t make a living saving your pennies. You can’t make discoveries unless you venture into unknown waters. Nor can a society grow and prosper by focusing too exclusively on efficiency, frugality, security and conservation. You have to take risks, reach out, use a lot of energy, make mistakes and even waste a lot of resources to gain new knowledge and new wealth. Washington, Adams and Jefferson didn’t found a new country by conserving resources, resting their horses and recycling newspapers. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn’t pioneer a new industry by being frugal, efficient and playing it safe. In other words in the long run win-win growth economics pays off more handsomely than zero-sum green economics.
Those who protest and want to slow or stop growth and globalization might want to consider this interesting bit of history as they celebrate Earth Day, 2010.
From 1405 to 1453 during the Ming Dynasty the Chinese had the largest and most technologically advanced fleet of ocean-going vessels in the world. It was said that all of the ships of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama could have been stored on just one deck of a single Chinese junk. And they had over 300 ships in their fleet. China in the 15th century was the world leader in science and technology, in art and culture, in agriculture, in military might, in wealth, in trade and in world-wide prestige. Indeed, China in those days was the first example of the power of globalization. Then suddenly in the middle of that 15th century the Chinese Emperor made a terrible decision. He turned isolationist, ordered the entire fleet destroyed, made it a criminal offense to sail in the ocean, forbade trade with foreign devils, reconstructed the Great Wall to keep foreigners out, and set to work to protect and perfect his own country. What followed were many centuries of Chinese conservation, isolation and stagnation. Had it not been for that terrible decision by the Chinese Emperors, we would be speaking Chinese instead of English today.
So today, when green activists recommend that we eat only organic foods grown within 100 miles of our home, recycle instead of buy new, return to family farms and restrict or abandon “factory” farms, cut back on our use of resources and energy, buy local and shun foreign, cut back on consumer goods, stop immigration, praise “natural” and denigrate “artificial,” restrict lumbering, mining, and drilling, save endangered delta smelt fish and lose Central Valley California agriculture, move from private to public transportation, travel less, go bicycle and shun SUVs, make do with less water and less light, cut back on the military and concentrate on expanding social welfare programs–we need to be wary. Some of these recommendations may have merit at certain times, in certain places, and for certain people but if we all moved seriously in these zero-sum directions we could end up conserving and isolating ourselves into stagnation as the Chinese Emperors did five hundred years ago.
Bill Stonebarger, Hawkhill Owner/President
P.S. The big 2010 sale will end on June 1. Please take the opportunity now to stock up with top-of-the-line VHS videos and DVD programs at huge discounts. 90% for the videos, 70% for the DVDs. Your students will appreciate it next fall and you won’t be sorry. I guarantee it. Go to our web site: www.hawkhill.com for further information and to place your order.
P.P.S. For more detail on resources, green lifestyles and the relationships of globalization to democracy see some of our latest programs: RESOURCES, POPULATIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE; CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY; and RESOURCES.
P.P.P.S. Late news: I just got a tip from a faithful reader and friend on a web site video that is worth watching. It is a 10-minute speech by a staff writer on the New Yorker magazine, Michael Specter. It is outstanding and quite relevant to the subject in this blog.
The web site itself, TED, is also worth knowing about.