Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Customer Reviews

Disturbing? It’s like the doctor telling you that you have cancer. And not just you — you and everyone you know.

The good news: There is a cure. And with the energetic support of business and government, you and everyone you know can be saved.

The bad news: Our economic system is based on a crude, outdated model: More = better. Blinded by the mantra of growth, our leaders will try to make that model last as long as possible — even if they destroy the planet in the process.

The challenging action item: You want to help save the world? Think local. Think community.

Your reaction is mine: No way. Shopping at a farmer’s market: nice, but unimportant. Better bus service: handy, but inconsequential. Solar panels and wind turbines: of anecdotal importance. At best, the “economics of neighborliness” will divert us as the temperature and water rise.

On the other hand, this is Bill McKibben talking. And only a fool doesn’t pay attention to this guy. In 1989, he published “The End of Nature,” the first book to call attention to global warming. He’s written about population control and television and the challenge of remaining human as the world becomes digitized. (And he’s not just a brainiac. In “Long Distance,” the 37-year-old McKibben put himself through Olympic-intensity training to see how good a cross-country skier he could become.)

McKibben has the ability, rare among writers, of identifying a problem, reporting on it, thinking it through and proposing solutions — all in 225 pages. Here the problem he sees is unchecked growth. The usual suspects say we’re in no danger of draining the planet’s resources. McKibben points out that we — that’s Americans — suck resources out of all proportion to other countries.

McMansions: Until 1970, Americans lived in houses about the size of today’s garages.

Food: 75% of the apples sold in New York come from the West Coast or overseas, even though New York produces ten times more apples than its residents consume.

Energy: Americans use twice as much as Europe.

McKibben’s argument gains force when he gets down to examples. His idea of name-dropping is charming: “When I was last in Bangladesh….” Other stops on his travels: Brazil, China, India. And in each place, he discovers some brilliant innovation that saves energy and boosts the quality of life. (But that doesn’t take America off the hook. If rich countries don’t change, he says, the poor ones won’t — they take their dreams from us.)

The great sociologist Philip Slater points out, “The first cure for illusion is despair.” These pages give you plenty to mope about; our earliest prophet of global warming unleashes some gloomy predictions here. One hundred eighty million dead Africans by century’s end if we don’t change our wasteful ways. Twenty per cent of the global economy sheared off. The rich in bunkers, the poor at the gates — it’s not a pretty picture.

But life wants to live. And so, like grass pushing through the cracks in cement, people — nameless, uncelebrated people — find a way to sane living and greater satisfaction. After he scares the hell out of you, Bill McKibben shows you where to look for those people and tells you why you’ll be happy if you join them.

Prepare to be very, very excited.

Among its strengths: it is very well-written. Compared to books with similar themes by Herman Daly (e.g., “For the Common Good”, written with John Cobb), Michael Shuman (“Growing Local”), and Gar Alperovitz (“Making a Place for Community”, with Imbroscio and Williamson), this McKibben book is written in an accessible, engaging style, with plenty of real-world stories of interesting individuals.

Another strength: This book is much fairer than the non-fiction essays by Wendell Berry on similar economic issues. McKibben at places does make a real attempt to acknowledge the arguments of economists about the benefits of economic growth and about the potential for economic adjustments to deal with some of the problems he identifies. This is particularly true in chapter 1, which critiques the mainstream view of economic growth.

A third strength: chapter 3 contains some powerful arguments for putting a greater value on local communities in considering economic policy issues.

However, ultimately I think McKibben shies away from really confronting the difficult issues he raises in a manner that would be convincing to a broad audience. As a result, I think the book is likely to be more of a comfort and support to readers who already agree with the views he expresses, rather than a powerful challenge to readers who disagree.

For example, one of McKibben’s key arguments against economic growth is that economic growth will overuse energy, increase global warming, and damage various natural economic systems. The mainstream view of most environmental economists is that these problems of growth can be dealt with by various specific solutions such as imposing caps on carbon emissions, allowing energy prices to rise or even taxing energy resources, and rigorous environmental regulations to protect ecosystems. These measures may reduce per capita economic growth, but do not require that it be eliminated. McKibben acknowledges these arguments, but does not really confront them.

In fact, McKibben does not really acknowledge the existence of environmental economics as a field within economics. He writes as if the only economists who seriously consider environmental issues are ecological economists. This is a much smaller group of economists who happen to agree with McKibben that economic growth is inherently and inescapably destructive of the environment.

His discussion of “happiness research” is also disappointing. One of McKibben’s arguments against per capita economic growth is that some research on subjective perceptions of happiness indicate that individuals do not seem to become significantly happier beyond about ,000 per year in per capita income. However, is it true that the only goal of public policy is to make people happy? What about increasing the options of individuals? Happiness research also shows that most people quickly adjust to physical disabilities that may restrict their mobility or other activities, so that most people are just as happy a year or two after becoming disabled as they were before. (See, for example, the work of Daniel Gilbert, for example in “Stumbling on Happiness”) Does this mean that society should not try to reduce the incidence of physical disabilities?

Finally, McKibben’s discussion of solutions is interesting but sketchy. He is interested in promoting more local economies, and spends some time describing some specific programs and experiments in local food production, local energy production, etc. I am not really convinced that most of these options would take off and become prevalent even if we tripled the price of gasoline. I suspect that truly relying on local production would require too great an economic sacrifice in standard of living for most people, even if we “got the prices right” for various environmental goods and natural resources.

If I were promoting a discussion group on the issues raised by this book, I might use McKibben’s book, but pair it with a book that gives the other side of these issues, such as Benjamin Friedman’s “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth”.