04 September 2009

Steady State, Economy of the Future: An Interview with Brian Czech

Excerpt from ecohearth, 29 August 2009

'EH: How did you become interested in and committed to steady-state economics?

BC: During my PhD research in the 1990s, I decided to transition from my earlier career as a wildlife biologist to assist with conservation policy at the national level. I was conducting a policy analysis of the Endangered Species Act; part of this entailed assessing the causes of species endangerment in the US. I noticed that these causes were like a who’s who of the American economy.

Naturally that led me to the study of ecological economics, economic growth theory, history of economic thought, and political economy. Eventually I established CASSE because I noticed there was no other organization focused on educating the public on the need for a steady-state economy...

EH: What happens to jobs in a steady-state economy? The stock market?

Retirement? Healthcare? The standard of living? Poverty? Hunger? War?

BC: Let’s remember, for example, that one of the underlying philosophies of the Third Reich was Lebensraum (living space). That was basically nothing more than an implicit acknowledgement that the Third Reich did not have the resources available to sustain its level of economic activity, so it burst out the seams and rolled into Czechoslovakia and Poland for the agricultural resources...

EH: Would the steady state lead to the collapse of some businesses?

BC: Probably not as traumatically as a bloating economy leads to the collapse of so many businesses...

EH: Would entrepreneurship, creativity, individuality and scientific progress be negatively impacted by a steady-state system?

BC: No, I think we have yet to see our finest entrepreneurship, which would occur in a steady-state economy. I mean that both in the nonconventional sense of policy-making entrepreneurship and in basic business entrepreneurship. As with any economy, there will be competition for market share and we’re starting to see signs—even among industries that would least be associated with sustainability—of some efforts to at least appear green. This is perhaps one of the early signs of entrepreneurship, to marry the goals of a competitive enterprise with macroeconomic stability and sustainability.'

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