How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (Counterpunch)

by Roberts, Paul Craig

  My summary barely does justice to Orlov. But the point comes across. The U.S., unlike the Soviet Union, is import-dependent for energy and manufactured goods. Americans are dependent on private cars for access to their jobs, food, and medical care. A disruption in gasoline supply automatically disrupts food deliveries to stores and the ability of the work force to show up for work. Americans are not inured to hardship and lack survival skills.

  The development pattern of the U.S. was based on abundant and cheap gasoline. Urban areas became huge metropolitan areas of suburban sprawl, with people traveling large distances on a daily basis in order to earn their keep and to meet their needs.

  Surplus U.S. food stocks that were the products of agricultural subsidy programs have been eliminated. Agriculture is increasingly concentrated in large factory farms, whether for grains or meat. Even dairy farms are falling into concentrated hands. Food output is increasingly centralized in locations distant from most cities. A transportation disruption will disrupt food distribution.

  While there is time, the U.S. should give thought to the energy implications of suburban development, perhaps subsidize, if necessary, food production near population concentrations, require development plans to specify the water resources, create public transportation systems that can be run by renewable energy, and otherwise prepare itself for both the exhaustion of nature’s resources and of the U.S. dollar as world reserve currency. If the future is left to take care of itself, organized society in the U.S. could fail.

  The problem with planning is not only government inefficiency, but also the power of organized interest groups to use planning to elevate their interests above those of society. Much thought would have to be given to preventing planning from becoming just another tool of interest groups. Perhaps giving key roles to bodies of independent experts and scientists could mitigate the political corruption, assuming there are still any experts and scientists who are independent and not corruptible.

  There is no doubt that the efforts of humans, being imperfect creatures, to plan for life in a full world would be beset with errors and miscalculations. But however imperfect the product would be, the result would be better than what would result from the economists’ assumption that man-made capital is a perfect substitute for nature’s capital and that, therefore, resources are inexhaustible. To conclude that our future is a continuation of the past is a death warrant for U.S. society.