Economics

Rewriting economics - this talk was broadcast at various dates during December 2003 on the World Business Report programme of the BBC World Service, as part of a series of six talks by Edward Goldsmith.

Rewriting economics - "Let us see why modern economics produces such a distorted view of our relationship with the real world in which we live. The main reason is that modern economics has been developed in total isolation from the disciplines that seek to understand the living world ... ". A short lecture delivered to the LSE's Environmental Initiatives Network, subsequently printed in their Journal, February 2003.

The gene for unemployment - There is an growing tendency to blame human ills - physical and psychological - on 'defective' genes. But is it our genes that are defective? Or is it rather the pathological environment in which we live? Deprived of community, eating nutritionally impoverished foods, surrounded by industrial pollution ... the raw conditions of life for billions of people make a healthy and happy existence impossible. How convenient for industry to blame all this on our defective genes - and then to sell us 'solutions' in the form of biotechnology. Editorial for the Doomsday Funbook (February 2006).

Reflection on the 2002 Johannesburg Summit - the World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg from 26 August to 4 September, the tenth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit. This critique, written in advance of the Summit, shows that even in the unlikely event of 'success', the exploitation and destruction of peoples and ecosystems would continue unimpeded. Published in The Ecologist, 22 July 2002.

How can we survive? - 30 years ago in 1972, as the first Envrionment Summit took place in Stockholm, The Ecologist published A Blueprint for Survival. So why, on the eve of the Johannesburg Summit and in the face of mounting environmental crises, has nothing changed? Published in The Ecologist Vol. 32 No. 7, September 2002.

Rediscovering economics - talk given to the London School of Economics, 30 January 2002. " ... where once the whole economy was based on social relationships, as economic growth proceeds, these social relationships are replaced by economic relationships and as each one of these functions is usurped by corporations the community just disintegrates, it loses its raison d'etre. Eventually you end up with an atomised mass society such as we have today ... ".

Can the environment survive the global economy? - "To increase trade is justified because it is seen to be the most effective way of increasing economic development, which we equate with progress, and which in terms of the world-view of modernism, is made out to provide a means of creating a material and technological paradise on Earth ... ". Too bad about the planet. First published as Chapter 7 of The Case Against the Global Economy, June 2001. This extended version appeared in The Ecologist Vol. 27 No. 6, November / December 1997.

The last word: a personal commentary - "the development of the global economy ... will, we were assured, usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity for all. However ... it can only lead for most of humanity to an unprecedented increase in general insecurity, unemployment, poverty, disease, malnutrition and environmental disruption ... ". This essay was written as Chapter 26 of The Case Against the the Global Economy: and for a turn towards localisation edited by Edward Goldsmith and Jerry Mander, 2001.

The Prague summit - In September 2000, Prague was the venue for the joint annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF. This article describes how the "Maoist" economic prescriptions of these twin institutions create poverty and dependence among their client nations. Editorial for The Ecologist Special Report, September 2000.

The fight must go on - Goldsmith looks back to the Blueprint for Survival, published in 1972, and finds that the core messages have only become more relevant and pressing with the passing of time. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 30 No. 5, July / August 2000.

The next thirty years - writing at the turn of the Millennium, Edward Goldsmith predicts that hard times are ahead, failing drastic action to curb the social and environmental evils that beset us.

Exposing the myth of economic growth - Foreword to The Growth Illusion: how economic growth has enriched the few, impoverished the many and endangered the planet, by Richard Douthwaite. Green Books, 15 October 1999.

Profits of doom - Steven Ferry interviews Edward Goldsmith for Government Technology Magazine, May 1999. "Built into the global economy are the seeds of its own disintegration. But the biggest problem we face today, which dwarfs all others, is global warming ... The only thing which may save us is the complete collapse of the global economy, with all the problems that that will create. The choice is between two horrors."

The economic cost of climate change - "Industrialists who continue to lobby governments to prevent them from taking the necessary action to combat climate change try to persuade themselves that inaction is in the best interests of their businesses and the economy itself. Given the enormous financial costs climate change will inflict, such an attitude is short-sighted in the extreme ... ". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 29 No. 2, March / April 1999.

The Crash Programme: a solution-multiplier - "The crash programme required to restabilise global climate can be funded by mobilising funds that are either currently wasted or used in destructive ways. The real cost for humanity is negative since the programme has to be undertaken in any case to solve nearly all the other critical problems that confront us today ... " Published in The Ecologist Vol. 29 No. 2, March / April 1999.

Policing the environment - a talk presented to the Bellerive / Globe "Policing the Global Economy - why, how and for whom?" international conference, held in Geneva 23-25 March 1998, before Sadruddin Aga Khan. "My thesis is that there are no effective institutional methods for 'policing the global environment'. To the extent that the global environment will be 'policed' at all it is only likely to be by mass social movements ... "

Development as colonialism - this important essay exposes modern-day 'development' as colonialism repackaged and ferociously applied through transnational corporations, compliant local elites and global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF - and backed by the threat of military force. It was published in The Ecologist Vol. 27 No. 2, March / April 1997, and as Chapter 1 of The Case Against the Global Economy by Edward Goldsmith and Jerry Mander (Earthscan 2001).

The Tory Record - Introduction - This is the introduction to The Tory Record - an assessment, published by Jon Carpenter Publishing in 1997 on behalf of The Commission for Assessing the Conservative Record. The booklet was inspired by Teddy Goldsmith, who also wrote the introduction, while cartoons were by the incomparable Richard Willson. It contains 18 additional chapters by respected campaigners in their fields.

Work! Work! Work! - the history of industrialism is the story of producing more with fewer people. Teddy Goldsmith looks at the implications. Published in Real World No. 4, Autumn 1994.

A strategy for ensuring the habitability of our planet - a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, London, demonstrating that the interests of the economy, and those of society and the environment, are fundamentally incompatable.

No, the real global threat is the relentless demand for growth - writing in the Sunday Times on 31 May 1992, Edward Goldsmith examines the forthcoming Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro - reaching pessimistic conclusions which have been all too amply fulfilled.

In a vernacular society economic activity is homeotelic to Gaia - chapter 56 of The Way: An Ecological World View, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998.

The vernacular community is the unit of homeotelic behaviour - chapter 60 of The Way: An Ecological World View, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998.

The vernacular economy is localized and hence largely self-sufficient - chapter 59 of The Way: An Ecological World View, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998.

In an ecological economy, money is homeotelic to Gaia - chapter 58 of The Way: An Ecological World View, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998.

Free Trade and GATT - this talk was delivered at the India International Centre on 13 December 1991 as part of a series of lectures and meetings organised by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage in 1991-1992. It was then published by INTACH in Towards Hope - an ecological approach to the future by Vandana Shiva, Jeremy Seabrook, Gunther Hilliges, Upendra Baxi, Edward Goldsmith and Paul Ekins, in December 1992, as part of its "Studies in ecology and sustainable development" series. "When you allow the market to decide our fate, you are actually saying that economic considerations must decide our fate. Then there is nothing to stop us from destroying our planet. It is happening very, very quickly indeed. In my opinion, the only hope we have if we were going to keep this planet more or less habitable is to do precisely the opposite - to make sure our economic activities are ruthlessly and systematically subordinated to social, ecological and climatic considerations. I do not think we have any alternative to doing this."

A currency for every community - "To reconstitute local economies is an imperative if we are to prevent misery and chaos when the global economy collapses. We need them in any case to reduce our environmental impact and to render possible local co-operation and solidarity ... ". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 28 No. 4, July / August 1998. Co-written with Perry Walker.

Aid - enlightened self-interest or gun-boat politics? - a quizzical look at the politics and economics of international aid. Editorial article published in The Ecologist Vol. 18 No. 2, 1988. "Those with a superficial knowledge of the development process often remain convinced that aid is designed to help the peoples of the Third World. Even many environmental institutions still appear to believe this and persist in campaigning for increased aid ... "

You can only be judged on your record - a second Open Letter to Barber Conable, President of the World Bank, calling on him to make good on his and his predecessors promises of progress on the social and environmental impacts of the Bank's lending. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 17 No. 2, 1987.

Changing values (edited version) - From the introduction to Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland by Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard (Polity Press, February 1988). Written in 1986, republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006). "The loss of nature's benefits is not considered a cost. It does not appear to have occurred to economists that if our activities interfere too radically with the workings of nature, then nature might no longer be capable of providing the benefits we now take for granted and upon which our very survival depends ... "

Worshipping at the altar of economic pragmatism - The World Bank has suspended, on environmental grounds, a loan of $256 million for the Polonoroeste Project in Brazilian Amazonia. But the Bank's President, Alden W. Clausen, continues to "worship at the altar of economic pragmatism". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 15 No. 4, 1985.

France - country of the atom - if nuclear power seems cheap in France, it is because half the costs have been ignored. An accurate accounting of costs, direct and indirect, reveals France's massive nuclear electricity programme as a ruinously expensive folly. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 11 No 6, December 1981.

The need for a New Economics - "Economists can no longer predict the course of our economy. The limits of their discipline are now apparent. A broader economic theory is required to deal with the post-industrial age...". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 No. 6, September 1979.

The steady state economy - "A few of our more enlightened scientists and economists have rightly accepted that economic growth is now neither feasible ... nor desirable. Rather than allow growth to come to a halt by itself, we should seek instead purposefully to achieve a 'Steady State Economy' or an 'Equilibrium Society' ... ". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 No. 3, June 1979.

Maintenance: a limit to growth - Editorial article by Edward Goldsmith published in the Ecologist Quarterly, autumn 1978. While we press on with ever-greater expenditures on new capital plant and infrastructure, we are increasingly unable to finance the maintenance of what we already have, and thus "Our growing inability to maintain the physical infrastructure of our industrial society constitutes in itself, yet another limit to growth."

The hammer-bashing society - an allegory of the futility of industrialism. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 8 No. 4, July / August 1978. Republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006).

Naïve correlation - published in The Ecologist Vol. 5 No. 1, January 1975. A discussion of the confusions between causes, effects and coincidences that have guided Government policy on industry, health and other topics - and which have totally failed to produce the desired outcome.

The ecology of unemployment (original version) - A leading article for The Ecologist Vol. 4 No. 2, February 1974. Republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006). As industry becomes ever more capital-intensive, mass unemployment becomes inevitable - unless we reverse the direction of 'development'.

The ecology of unemployment (extended version) - This short essay explains how the industrial system we live under not only creates unemployment, but created the very idea of unemployment. It was first published in The Ecologist Vol. 4 No. 2, February 1974, then in Everyman's of February 9 1975 (India). This revised version later appeared in 1988 as Chapter 3 of The Great U-Turn.

You've never had It so good - a leading article for The Ecologist Vol. 3 No. 11, November 1973. Republished in The Doomsday Funbook (Jon Carpenter Books, February 2006). "We have all been taught since our most tender childhood that science, technology and industry are enabling us to create a materialist paradise on Earth from which the basic human problems of poverty, unemployment, disease, ignorance, war and famine will have been eliminated once and for all. It is increasingly evident, however, that this is not happening ... "

Asbestos and cancer - presenting the overwhelming case for the total prohibition of asbestos. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 3 No. 8, August 1973.

What of Britain′s future? - this prescient article was originally published as the concluding chapter of Can Britain Survive?, published by Tom Stacey, London, 1971, and Sphere Books, London, 1971 (paperback). The book is a selection of articles from The Ecologist, together with original papers and articles from other periodicals, collected and edited by Edward Goldsmith while Editor of The Ecologist. The article was reprinted two years later in The Ecologist Vol. 3 No. 11, November 1973, with the following introductory paragraphs.