The online magazine Aeon recently published an essay with the appealing title “We are nature.” Having just published a co-authored essay describing “the process of technological change” as “natural,” I was excited to give it a read. Maybe the author, philosopher Beth Lord of Scotland’s University of Aberdeen, is a kindred spirit? Alas, no. She seems to want greater global centralization of political power, which is, in my view, a tragic error. Lord’s logic is of a sort that seems to be growing more and more important in the world. And I fear it may gain strength from the COVID pandemic. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to give it some close scrutiny.
Lord gets off to a pretty good start, by my lights. Admittedly, I don’t see why we should think of “Gaia” as choosing in the way an individual person chooses. (“Gaia strives to preserve itself.”). But she seems to appreciate the importance of technological progress and the Industrial Revolution. They led, she says, to “universal benefits such as clean drinking water, sewerage and education, creating more opportunities for the enhancement of the population’s knowledge and ability to thrive.” Right on! But then she says, “And yet, of course, we cannot rejoice.” Why not? What’s the problem?
The problem, Lord believes, is the Anthropocence. It’s true, I think, that the same process of technological change that brought us the “Great Enrichment” has brought us potentially catastrophic environmental problems, and we should do something about it. But ecosystem management is a wicked problem. As Ruth DeFries and Harini Nagendra have pointed out, “Wicked problems are inherently resistant to clear definitions and easily identifiable, predefined solutions. In contrast, tame problems, such as building an engineered structure, are by definition solvable with technical solutions that apply equally in different places.” So we need a multi-level system of the sort Elinor Ostrom has called for. We need a polycentric system with, “small- to medium-scale governance units that are linked together through information networks and monitoring at all levels. Global policies are indeed necessary but they are not sufficient.”
Beth Lord seems to want to concentrate more power at the center than is consistent with Ostrom’s polycentrism. Lord wants a “terrestrial state.” She explains, “Like all political structures, the ‘terrestrial state’ is an artificial public thing, a res publica, that must be established by its members and made to work through laws and institutions.” Apparently, the main thing is to have this behemoth. Don’t worry about minutiae such as how to keep it from trampling us all underfoot. She says, “But the procedural detail of how to establish a terrestrial state is less important than its utility as a narrative.”
To view the organization of the state as a “detail” is to implicitly deny that governance is a wicked problem. We should not view the structure of governance as some sort of inessential detail. Part of the problem in Lord’s conception is her apparent desire to see “all humans working together towards common goals.” This is constitutional design on a grand scale. But in “Against Design” my co-authors and I note that, “Constitutional design fails because any constitutional clause, mechanism, amendment, language, passage, provision, or principle becomes a tool that unknown persons will use in unknowable ways for unknowable ends.”
Lord says, “When people commit to this narrative, they act in ways that promote the common good, even if they don’t fully understand why they should do so.” It might seem obvious that if we were all to commit to the common good, then we’d get good outcomes. But we will have different ideas of what the common good is. We will have different ideas even if we all have superabundant benevolence for our fellow humanity or for “Gaia” or for whatever Lord might stipulate. We have, all of us, a partial view. The barber knows about hair clippers, but not teeth. The dentist knows about teeth, but not hair clippers. The barber will recommend a haircut and ignore the toothache; the dentist will recommend caps and ignore the shaggy beard. Thus, Lord’s core inference of good outcomes from some purely imaginary commitment to the common good is false and mistaken.
Nor does Lord indicate how people are to act for the common good when they “don’t fully understand why they should do so.” This is perplexing to me. Surely, I would commit to the common good only out of beneficence. How does the question of “why” arise? I can’t help wondering whether Lord is making an oblique reference to obedience. If you don’t obey, that proves you are not committed to the common good, which transforms you from co-equal citizen into enemy of the state. Whether that threat to the rebellious is any part of Lord’s conscious intention or not, it seems like a necessary consequence of her overall point of view.
Lord envisions ” a citizenry of all living beings.” And who will speak for the non-human citizens? They cannot speak for themselves. If we are to have such “citizens,” some human must speak for them. And that human will have power. That human will have power over other humans. When she calls on us to “stop fearing our own power,” she seems to mean good old-fashioned, raw, political power. I can’t help wondering whether she has imagined herself to be the possessor of such power and forgotten that she might well end up, instead, as its victim.
Lord calls for “a terrestrial social contract” in which “we give up our natural right over other species, and we agree to cooperate with the not-exclusively-human others on whom we mutually depend.” But only humans can form contracts. Some animals practice gift exchange, whether among themselves or with humans. And there is a kind of inter-species “exchange” when, for example, the pilot fish cleans the shark’s teeth. But none of this a proper quid-pro-quo contract in which the two parties agree in advance on quid and quo. As Adam Smith said, “Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that.” There can be no “terrestrial social contract,” and any attempt to implement it would, again, mean some humans exercising power over other humans. It would mean dominating and tyrannizing others. Lord’s is a deeply anti-democratic perspective.
Indeed, consider her remark, “Even the real benefits of increased living standards in India and China give us pause, because those increases lead to greater demands for energy and meat.” It is alarming when persons in India and China consume meat and energy? But not when people in the US and UK consume them? Surely, she would insist upon the equality of all persons regardless of geographical location. I assume her protestations to this effect would be sincere. And yet she wrote this sentence and let it go to print uncorrected and unqualified. I cannot help but suspect, again, that she is imagining herself pushing around the rest of us. And, again, she should consider whether it might be possible that she will end up getting pushed around by others. Certainly, I would not care to be pushed about by her.
Roger Koppl is Professor of Finance in the Whitman School of Management of Syracuse University and Associate Director of Whitman’s Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society (IES).
READER COMMENTS
Thomas Hutcheson
May 13 2020 at 10:38am
But ARE environmental problems “wicked.” Global warming could be fixed pretty easily with a tax on net CO2 emissions. Loss of biodiversity is not so easy because it is harder to quantify its benefits or even define it in an operational way, but how much thought has gone into this?
Jon Murphy
May 13 2020 at 10:56am
I think the work of Coase, Buchanan, Hayek, Ostrom, North (to a lesser degree) Ellickson, Alchian, Demsetz, Tullock, myself, Anderson, the fine folks at PERC, and the current experience various jurisdictions have had with carbon taxes show that environmental problems are wicked, indeed. Hell, as Coase (1960), Dahlman (1979), and Buchanan (1999 [1969]) show, even simply identifying an externality is not clear.
Matthias Görgens
May 13 2020 at 11:21pm
The CO2 taxes are mostly bogged down in political problems at the moment.
Once signed into law, they would be relatively easy to run. (You can use a similar system to what countries do for VAT for import/export.)
Promise to pay out the CO2 tax proceeds equally to all voters, and you might even have a vote winner. Even someone who drives their car a lot probably still produces less CO2 than the average person (just because industrial processes emit so much).
Not saying that it would be easy to introduce. But definitely easier than trying to set up a world government.
Jon Murphy
May 14 2020 at 9:12am
The ease of running a government program is irrelevant. No one argues that government programs can’t be easy to run. Rather, the argument is that solving a problem via government is not a precise and straightforward thing.
Mark Z
May 15 2020 at 2:14am
Better yet, use the revenue to subsidize carbon removal. If we decided on a certain acceptable net emission level, then set the tax rate (and by extension subsidy rate) accordingly, as carbon sequestration technology improves, the tax rate declines. I feel we shouldn’t ignore the carbon removal side of things, and removing a ton of carbon is as environmentally productive as emitting a ton less, so incentives should reflect that.
Don Boudreaux
May 13 2020 at 11:02am
As Adam Smith astutely observed:
Atanu Dey
May 13 2020 at 11:26am
Prof Koppl:
Fantastic article. Thank you for your masterful exposition of a fundamental truth. As H.L. Mencken pointed out, “the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Matthias Görgens
May 13 2020 at 11:22pm
Fortunately, there are a few exceptions. For example Norman Borlaug (of the Green Revolution) and Bill Gates (of malaria fighting fame), I’d say.
Phil H
May 14 2020 at 2:40am
This whole article seems to be founded on a fairly disastrous misreading of the Aeon piece.
“Lord says, “When people commit to this narrative, they act in ways that promote the common good, even if they don’t fully understand why they should do so.” It might seem obvious that if we were all to commit to the common good, then we’d get good outcomes.”
That’s completely the opposite of what Lord’s sentence says. She is explicitly saying that people *don’t* have to commit to the common good. All they have to do is believe in the state. Her argument is that the advantages of the state follow, whether or not anyone in the state makes any effort to be good.
I… would feel more confidence in Koppl (whose own linked articles look good!) if he wasn’t obviously misunderstanding the text that he’s commenting on.
Roger Koppl
May 14 2020 at 7:52am
Maybe I have misunderstood Lord, Phil H. And, in my defense, I did express perplexity on this point in the next paragraph. If I did go wrong and if your interpretation is right, that probably strengthens my concern (expressed in the next paragraph) that Lord may be “making an oblique reference to obedience.”
Misunderstandings are always possible with this sort of thing. Indeed, they’re almost inevitable:
https://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/thing-1-and-thing-2-sit-down-to-talk/
But her next sentence after the one I quoted says, “The terrestrial state is a similarly useful fiction that can bind us together, not just as humans seeking human flourishing, but as ‘terrestrials’ seeking the flourishing of life as such.” That seems to be some idea that a common goal is the key, rather than just believing in the state. But I wouldn’t wish to deny that communication can be difficult and I might be misconstruing her words. There does seem to be some ambiguity is her exposition. Thus, it is possible that Lord is vacillating between the view you impute to her and the view I impute to her. As far as I can tell, my criticism works under any combination of our interpretations of her position. With that remark, perhaps you’ll agree?
Jens
May 14 2020 at 10:47pm
There is a major fundamental mistake in this popular libertarian approach that there is always a danger in shifting tasks to the state or political institutions. You can do evil by action and by omission. If you know with certain clarity that your own omission allows a certain outcome that you consider morally unacceptable, then action becomes a duty.
If you recognize the existence of animal rights (starting points for this could be the works of Jacques Derrida or Gary L. Francione, for example), ignoring them is just as much a problem as the problems that arise during their implementation. (The option to make fun of it remains unaffected). Of course, people – if necessary with violence – must be prevented from doing animals wrong if one wants to condense this morality into a legal norm. (The option to make fun of it remains)
You cannot avoid this fact. Of course, the path is difficult, dangerous and it will be full of mistakes. It is likely that people will be harmed, just as it is certain that animals will be harmed if you do nothing. But if you absolutely absolutistly insist that the problems that arise from the fact that animals cannot speak and cannot represent themselves in a court or a parliament or the problems that arise for methodological individualists when they have to integrate the animal perspective, obstruct the path to animal rights under all conceivable circumstances, then you accept evil. Your kind of evil, but evil. A duty arises to weigh.
I’m actually surprised that libertarians don’t understand there core of this concept: TANSTAAFL.
Jon Murphy
May 15 2020 at 10:10am
Liberals understand your point extremely well. What we are skeptical of is your initial condition:
That if is a huge if. It requires certain knowledge that is impossible to centralize and de-contextualize (see Smith, Hayek, and Koppl).
Fred_in_PA
May 15 2020 at 8:01am
Or perhaps women are comfortable with the idea (ideal?) of being husbanded, and men aren’t.
Phil H
May 15 2020 at 8:06am
Thanks for the reply.
Look, I like that piece about Thing 1 and Thing 2. That’s funny and right. But I still think you’re just misreading that paragraph. The sentence that starts “When people commit to this narrative” is not talking about Lord’s own idea of the terrestrial state. It’s talking about a view she ascribes to Spinoza. The next sentence applies the idea as analogy to the idea of a “terrestrial state,” i.e. a state which includes non-human elements.
Then comments like “only humans can form contracts” seem… I dunno, just silly. Social contract theory is all about how the social contract is different from all other contracts precisely because we don’t enter into it in the same way as we enter into normal contracts. We’re born into it, we can’t escape it. There are lots of ways to critique this, but the argument “animals can’t enter into normal contracts, therefore they can’t enter into the social contract” simply isn’t relevant.
I dunno – I personally don’t have any stake in Lord’s argument. I haven’t thought about it enough to agree or disagree with it. But no, I don’t see how any of your points are relevant to the kind of arguments she is making.
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