Living Within Ecological Limits
WILD LAW Conference
Queensland Conservatorium 28 September 2013
Southbank, Brisbane
Richard Sanders
richard@quest2025.net
Director, Queensland Chapter CASSE
CENTER for the
ADVANCEMENT of the
STEADY STATE ECONOMY
www.steadystate.org
Introduction

Anthropocene – Planetary emergency where
absolute scarcity is new reality

Think piece on implications of absolute scarcity
for legal, financial, economic and governance
institutions

Not my field of expertise – some thoughts from
the emergent systems view of reality

I will skim through to sow some seeds to spend a
little time on a possible way out of this mess
2
Structure

Absolute scarcity vs. Relative scarcity

Legal, financial, economic and governance
systems of Industrial Revolution assumed endless
growth – consequences for sustainability

Ecological reality and nested systems theory

Thoughts on new institutions for sustainability

A liberating way forward
3
Absolute Scarcity

Relative scarcity is a concept from economics

Economists talk of the scarcity of one thing to
another – price is ratio of relative scarcities

Relative scarcity translates into infinite
abundance of resources – infinite substitution

Reality is absolute scarcity as scale of human
enterprise has grown exponentially creating a
planetary emergency - Examples
4
Theoretical Framework

Nested (holarchical) systems and thermodynamic
(ecological) limits (Nature’s Laws)

Economy is dependent subsystem of society is
dependent subsystem of ecology (biosphere)

Rule – subsystems must not behave in ways that
undermine integrity of greater systems – this has
implications for governance and sustainability

Sustainability Rule – low entropy must be
consumed no more quickly than Nature produces
it – low entropy is absolutely scarce!
5
Institutions - Legal

Guth (2008, 466) identifies the legal system as
the primary driver of unsustainability:

“the legal and economic structures adopted to
promote the Industrial Revolution were grounded
in assumptions of endless economic growth.”

Assumptions reasonable in “empty world”

Invalid in “full world”

The truth about absolute scarcity is that it
renders our current legal, financial, economic and
governance institutions obsolete
6
Institutions - Legal cont’d

Under the legal system individuals and
corporations have the right to pursue profits
through development on the assumption that this
leads to the net benefit of society.

only grounds to reject a development are where
a cost-benefit analysis demonstrates the costs of
the project outweigh the benefits.

2 problems
 Discounting
 Cumulative impacts
7
Institutions - Legal cont’d

Discounting
 benefits generally accrue in the short term and
costs in the longer term so it is mathematically
unlikely that costs will outweigh benefits as
they are much more heavily discounted.

Cumulative impacts
 under law, consideration is limited to the
merits of the single project and it is not
possible to take account of the cumulative
impacts of a large number of developments in
a region or catchment
8
Institutions - Financial System

Fractional reserve banking drives exponential
growth – it’s a pyramid scheme

Private banks create new money as interest
bearing debt

World’s money growing at 6% compounding for
past 300 years – 1c @ 6% for 1992 years

Money is not wealth but a claim on wealth
9
Institutions - Financial System

Sustainability problem = exponentially growing
claims on natural capital realised through
globalised markets

Financial system drives ever increasing inequity

Financial system is a pyramid scheme and will
collapse at some point

This design of financial system will lead inevitably
to ecological breakdown, ever increasing inequity
and eventual financial system collapse no matter
where in the universe it is adopted
10
Institutions - Economics

Economic theory is fundamentally flawed –
economics can in principle deliver neither
efficiency nor maximise the welfare of society – if
anything it does the opposite

Economy does not operate according to economic
theory anyway

Reality is chrematistics - art of making money

The financial and economic systems constitute a
system of power that transfers effort and
purchasing power up the pyramid from the many
to the few
11
Institutions - Governance

Nested systems theory tells us we need
governance to constrain subsystems such that
they don’t undermine the integrity of the greater
systems of which they are part.

Individual behaviour needs to be constrained to
ensure the common good

Vehicles of governance have been hijacked by
those who don’t believe in it




Deregulation
‘Govern’ for vested interests
Disinterested and disengaged public
Propaganda - How Corporations Take the Risk Out of
Democracy (Alex Carey, 1997)
12
Another way is needed

“this much is clear: exceeding the ecologically
sustainable assimilative capacity of the Earth is
the inevitable result of the economic path the
common law has set us on. Neither the current
law nor, the market it shapes, contain any way to
stop it.” (Joseph Guth, 2008)

Indeed, as suggested so far the entwined legal,
financial, economic and governance institutions
structurally drive the multi-dimensional planetary
emergency that threatens the future of human
civilisation

So what are the options for a sustainable world?
13
New Institutions - Legal

Ecological tort
 Guth (2008) proposes a tort of ecological
degradation that places liability for ecological
degradation on the individual and gives
standing to any member of the community to
bring an action for ecological degradation.

Fundamental transformation of the System

Common property

Usufruct title
14
New Institutions - Financial

Financial system is basis of capitalism – private
(privaré) accumulation of wealth is not an option!

100% reserve financial system

100% reserve can fund the transformation of
society to an ecologically sustainable basis

Production and absolutely scarce resources can
be oriented to needs of all rather than biased to
wants of the few
15
New Institutions - Economic

Cooperatives

Permaculturise the suburbs

Meet needs primarily through social relations

National/Continental physical budget constraints

Rationing of the essentials that need to be mass
produced
16
New Institutions - Governance

Based on Earth Law and the primacy of planetary
ecological integrity

Nested system of governance reflecting nested
reality

We can be governed by god, king, corporate or
ourselves - consumers become citizens again

‘We, the people’ reclaim democracy from the
hijackers
17
A Way Forward

Planetary Dialogues – Freirean Dialogue held
globally monthly

Awaken to our enslavement in an evil system of
power rooted in key institutions and seek our
liberation from it

Awaken to ecocide, inequity and collapse

A Liberating Vision of new civilisation to realise
very best of our humanity

Reclaim our systems of governance
18
The CASSE Position



Position statement on economic growth
 Recognises the conflict between growth and
environmental protection
 Calls for the transition to a SSE
Purpose
 Demonstrate the level of support for a SSE
 Advance the SSE in policy discussions
Endorsements
 >10 000 people, >200 organisations
http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/
19
Thank you!
Richard Sanders
richard@quest2025.net
Director, Queensland Chapter CASSE
CENTER for the
ADVANCEMENT of the
STEADY STATE ECONOMY
http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/
Introduction

This is a story about our Survival

All about a shift to a more valid paradigm

Physical impossibility and political impossibility
21
Introduction

We live on a spaceship

A ball of rock hurtling through space cloaked in a
thin veil of life – the biosphere

The web of life continually replenishes the
biosphere and keeps it in a stable far from
equilibrium state unlike the Moon or Mars

The biosphere is like a solar powered factory

It is the primary economy and spontaneously
produces matter and energy that is concentrated,
structured and organised and therefore is useful
22
Planetary Emergency

Most of the ecological and biophysical gauges in
the cockpit of spaceship are in the red zone

We are in a planetary emergency!

Impacts are so great – Anthropocene - a new era

In terms of Ecological Life Support:



CO2 is at 390 ppm. Safe level is 350 ppm
Sixth major extinction event of all time
Humanity has overshot the carrying capacity of the
planet
23
Planetary Boundaries

Study in Nature in 2009 -
Rockstrom et al. 2009, Nature 461: 472-475.

Nine planetary boundaries that define the “safe operating
space” for humanity on the planet

Relate to earth-system processes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Climate change
Biodiversity loss
Nitrogen and phosphorous cycles
Stratospheric ozone depletion
Ocean acidification
Global freshwater use
Change in land use
Atmospheric aerosol loading
Chemical pollution
24
Planetary Boundaries
Source: Rockstrom et al. 2009,
Nature 461: 472-475.
25
Global Ecological Overshoot
The World
1.4

1.2
We are in a state of
overshoot
0.8

0.6
0.4

0.2
Ecological Footprint
2000
1990
1980
1970
0.0
1960
Number of Earths

1.0
Biocapacity
Resources are being
used faster than they
can be regenerated
Wastes are being
produced faster than
they can be assimilated
Economic growth is
liquidating our planet’s
ecosystems and will lead to
the collapse of human
civilisation
Source: Global Footprint Network
26
The Sustainability Problem

The physical scale of the global economy can no
longer be sustained

Decades of economic growth has not addressed
the growing gap between rich and poor

Economic growth is the root of the multidimensional planetary emergency that threatens
the future of human civilisation
27
Steady State Economics

Internationally agreed sustainability criteria are
inter- and intra-generational equity

Intergenerational equity – non declining stocks of
the various forms of critical natural capital
through time = steady state

intra-generational equity
28
Steady State Economics

Herman Daly/ CASSE recommendation Transition to 100% reserve financial system

Impose ecological and equity constraints on the
economy and use the market to allocate
resources within those constraints

Fractional reserve financial system on any planet
would result in overshoot, growing inequity and
GFC (structurally locked in – not because of
greed)
29
Steady State Economics

Can the market allocate within the constraint?

Absolute scarcity cannot be allocated by the
market

Polanyi - economic relations separate us
30
Return to the Commons

A return to the Commons?

Rights for Nature

Usufruct rights for humans
31