Social Greens vs. Market Liberals

Thomas Homer-Dixon appears to be torn between the views of market liberals and social greens. He very clearly acknowledges that economic growth is critical to improving the lives of people around the world, a very market liberal perspective. However, he also recognizes that our current methods of economic growth are not at all sustainable. We are running out of natural resources and our fossil fuel based global economy cannot survive in the future without grave consequences for humanity. While he explains the current rut that we are in, he offers no solutions, ending the article by saying “This contradiction is humankind's biggest challenge this century, but as long as conventional wisdom holds that growth can continue forever, it's a challenge we can't possibly address.”

I would have to agree with Homer-Dixon in that the “conventional wisdom” that economic growth will eventually reduce environmental degradation is problematic. However, this market liberal viewpoint is backed up by the Kuznet’s curve and also by academics like Julian Simon who see things like population growth as a positive because it puts more people on the planet to innovate. In essence, the market liberals believe that we can innovate and grow our way out of environmental degradation. Personally, I see this as the wrong way of looking at things. We have already altered our Earth and it currently takes more and more energy to extract the resources we require to keep the global economy running smoothly. At the same time, there are vast amounts of inequality within and between countries. With the rich living lives of overconsumption, and the poorest struggling to survive from day-to-day. This is a mess that we cannot just innovate ourselves out of. What is necessary, and what Homer-Dixon appears to advocate for, is a change in thinking towards a social green viewpoint. As Clapp and Dauvergne explain, social greens believe that we must retreat from the globalized economy and work towards “local, self-reliant, small-scale economics” (16). This is probably the best way to address the current environmental problem. However, without a huge paradigm shift in the way the global economy is thought about, it will never occur. This is probably of the largest challenges we are currently facing; changing the way that people interact with the economy and their environment.