It’s a bit of a stretch perhaps but the news last week that scientists had for the first time constructed a living thing from scratch (from chemicals off-the-shelf that is) got me to thinking in a different way about what I had originally planned to write about for this Hawkhill News. Here goes.
Many people today still believe that the wealth of the country, and of the world, is like a big pumpkin pie. If I get a bigger piece, you will have to be satisfied with a smaller piece. This makes for a zero-sum world. If I win, you lose. If you win, I lose. Actually for quite a few thousand years that view made sense.
Agricultural-age societies for at least ten thousand years past banked on a pie of land, gold and slaves (or serfs or peasants) for their livelihood. Since these all were severely limited the only way one group could get wealthier was to steal from another group. That usually meant war.
When the scientific and industrial revolutions began a few hundred years ago the enormous leap forward in world-wide wealth made this zero-sum economics obsolete. Now instead of war, creative invention and free trade was the best way to get wealthier. But belief in zero-sum wealth did not disappear. Unfortunately it is still alive today and distorting our world views.
Some green activists, for instance, still seem to believe in zero-sum ideas. Jeremy Rifkin, one of the green movement leaders, claims that “we are going to have to learn that the more we consume the less resources are available on the earth for other human beings and other creatures. So if we want to steward this planet for our children’s generation we are going to have to develop a green lifestyle, a green cultural movement, we are going to have to learn to use our fair share of resources and no more, we are going to have to be good neighbors in terms of the rest of the planet.”
Which gets me back to the new invention that J. Craig Venter and his associates announced last week–life. His new bacteria were created from scratch, using only simple common chemicals as the raw materials, the “natural resources.”
What would Rifkin say about this new invention? My guess is he would object as he has to most experimental work in genetic engineering. But suppose we could, as Venter just demonstrated, design bacteria (or a new plant or animal) on the computer, using only the most common simple chemicals. This new “resource” might reproduce rapidly and be able to gobble up carbon dioxide, or oil spills, or create a new fuel for vehicles, or a new material to replace paper or copper wires or lumber, or take down malarial mosquitoes, or attack cancer cells, or repair the molecules in the brain that cause Parkinson’s Disease or Alzheimer’s. Just suppose. All of these are not only possible now, but probably inevitable.
(I can already hear some saying, but what if these new bacteria get away from us and cause havoc, even catastrophic havoc? My answer: yes, we do have to keep up our guard, but would you want to give up automobiles, computers, electricity, etc. just because sometimes they do cause serious problems?)
The main point is, if and when they come (and actually some have already come) would you call the new organisms a “natural resource?” Would you want to buy and sell these resources with our neighbors around the world or corner them for only our own use and prosperity?
The point is, like most of modern resources, like most things we call wealth today, the important thing is not the simple chemicals that come naturally out of the soil, air and water, but what human sweat and creativity has made of them. One of the most important forms of modern wealth, for instance, computers, are made of the most common of chemicals, mostly silicon, which comes from sand. Ventnor’s new bacteria too are made of the most common chemicals, water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and a few other very common elements like nitrogen, sulfur, potassium and zinc.
To be good neighbors to the rest of the planet it seems to me that our best bet would be to share the information needed to create the new wealth, like computers, vaccines, plastics, scientific laboratories, schools, books, blogs. Then we would both benefit. It would be a classic win-win exchange.
Last week I used Korea as an example of a controlled experiment in history. This week I have another experiment in mind that shows in a major way how win-win economics trumps zero-sum thinking. It also shows that there is progress in the world even if delayed.
After the First World War ended in 1917 the allies were still thinking in zero-sum ways. After you win a war, to the winners go the spoils, right? They proceeded to impose harsh revenge on Germany. They took away big chunks of its territory, stole factories and mines, imposed heavy reparations and in general made life miserable for the defeated country. The result was what they could have predicted. Germans rebelled, reorganized and rearmed for the next war. And you got Hitler, World War Two and the Holocaust.
After the Second World War the United States and her western allies took a different tack, based on a different idea, win-win economics. Instead of punishing Germany and Japan we helped them rebuild their devastated cities and economy. This strategy resulted in quick recovery, conversion to liberal democratic ways of life and peaceful win-win competitive trade where both sides became winners.
Today Germany and Japan are among the world’s richest free-market liberal democracies. And the United States, contrary to some critics, is still number one–the world’s richest, most powerful, freest and most creative country. In other words, all sides over the past sixty years, victors and vanquished (with the notable exception of those states that are today still Communist or Radical Islamic) have been winners.
Bill Stonebarger, Hawkhill Owner/President
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P.P.S. For more on the connections between win-win economics and democracy see our well-reviewed program CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY. For more on the history of genetic engineering see STEM CELLS, GENETIC ENGINEERING, THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT, CLONING: HOW AND WHY, and THE GENE ON DVD.