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Economic growth can mean ecological improvement,
not ecological destruction. A market system can be prosperous and sustainable. This is not an oxymoron.
We don't need
either new inventions or social upheaval to make it happen. Here's a plan for sustainable prosperity based on the democratic
adoption of new 21st century market rules....
The concept's simple. End all taxes on income. Instead, tax pollution,
depletion, and ecological damage. I'll say it again. Abolish income taxes and the IRS. Phase in new ecological consumption
taxes on all good and services. The more polluting, depleting, and ecologically damaging the good or the service, the higher
the tax....
If we must do but one thing, and that one thing above all else, we need to make what is polluting, depleting
and ecologically destructive charge its true costs. It will therefore become more expensive than sustainable alternatives.
In capsule summary, for markets to work sustainably, we need to get the prices right....
Ask free market avatar Milton
Friedman, and he'll admit that the one flaw in the market ointment is what economists call externalities. These are the costs
not borne by the sellers of or services, but shifted to others, whether it's those down wind of polluting smokestacks or to
future generations that suffer the effects of pollution....
Markets themselves are not the problem. But the rules governing
our current industrial market are. Existing market rules allow polluters not to pay or charge their true costs. We have ignored
what markets do best, that is, the powerful relationship between price and demand that can be the primary instrument for sustainable
prosperity.
It seems a wonkish question amidst the warnings of looming climate catastrophe, peak oil induced economic
collapse, habitat destruction, and species extinction, with some suggesting that homo sapiens may be added to that list. All
we need to do is get the prices right? Not mandate technological marvels, or apply a postal manual of regulations to all aspects
of human behavior, or lay mine fields along the borders and build a missile shields in the sky above....
Get the prices
right, we won't have to argue about the wisdom of Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Make what is polluting, depleting, and
economically damaging more expensive and maybe we someday can say with a straight face, "I'm looking for bargains as part
of my work to help to save the planet."
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