In David Holmgren's excellent 2013 essay,
Crash On Demand, the author makes a crucial observational statement and asks a fundamentally vital question.
The statement is:
“A contraction in the systems that supply wants are likely to see simultaneous problems in the provision of basic needs.”
The urgent related question is:
“Is the commitment to perpetual growth in wealth for the richest the only way that everyone else can hope to get their needs met?”
Keeping in mind that pretty much all of Earth's ecosystems are in decline, and that James Hansen as well as other top climate scientists are calling for a dramatic revision of the whole notion of a "climate budget" (IPCC) and a shift from a 2-degree C upper limit target on global warming to a 1-degree upper limit, Holmgren's statement and question are just about as salient and urgent as any statement and question could be.
Any economic growth which depends upon Business As Usual (BAU) with regards to the energy economy (fossil energy) can only be destructive of
wealth, however understood (as well-being, as a cumulation of "goods" and "services") -- which must be put in scare quotes because it's not so clear that they are ether prior to a true cost accounting and an internalization of the "externalized".
Economics, of course, isn't really a science. But if it were to qualify as a science it would have some serious explaining to do -- in light of the demonstrable factuality of what I have just said, above. George Orwell said "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." I have merely stated the obvious above, not re-stated it. But the point is that were economics a science its paradigm is now utterly obsolete.
The word "wealth" is derived from an Old English word which means "well-being". Economics became a (pseudo-)science by redefining "wealth" as that which can be measured and quantified in the most reductive and abstract of ways. This "solved" what may be called the "problem of commensurability" in economics -- a problem never explained or addressed by economics insiders. The "problem" is that true wealth can only be understood in terms of the well-being of both individuals and communities, with the ultimate scale of community being the biosphere and all of its living inhabitants (present or future). By adopting economistic reductionism, the pseudo-science of economics was born. It's "solution" to the problem of commensurability was to sweep it under the rug. It would leave human health to the doctors (medical science), psychological health to the psychologists and psychiatrists, spiritual health to the clergy, ecological health to the ecologists, social health to.... And it would speak no more of well-being in the broad sense. Its problem became "How can we increase the pile of money?" And it pretended to itself that doing so would provide the "resources" whereby others (externals) could then address these other problems.
What do the kids call it these days? EPIC FAIL!
What I'm announcing here is a fact. Economics as we have known it is utterly, entirely, paradigmantically obsolete. Economists can salvage the situation only by taking the problem of commensurability back out from under the rug and out into the bright daylight of the living world.
It can begin to do so by answering to David Holmgren's above question -- and in the context he provides.
Call this the death and rebirth of economics. It involves addressing the real situation we find ourselves in. A world calling for a pathway beyond growth and into health.