(I hate Axl Rose and not fond of Guns 'n Roses, but the guitar solo is irresistible.)
An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (Robert L. Heilbroner)
This begins a series of posts to develop some ideas about our future, utilizing past studies of the question of our collective future, what they knew and didn’t know, and what we can learn from their analyses, This first one was written some 50 years ago; most of the others will be from the time around 2000, when the question of the future figured prominently in popular culture.
Heilbroner was a prominent professor of economics at the New School in New York. He branched out into areas of the history of economics, philosophy, and political economy. He wrote at a time like ours in many ways, when various national proxy-type wars were being experienced, internal strife in the US was strong, and anxiety was high. I note also the similarity between the so-called Generation Gap of the time, between the young Baby Boomers and their parents, and the modern gap between those same Boomers, now aging, and the younger Gen Z and Millennials.
Heilbroner's Theses
In terms of threats to humanity, he named 1) population growth; 2) the potential destruction caused by wars; and 3) environmental limits to growth and its effect on quality of life. The fourth development, the rapid progress in scientific and technological prowess, he identified as both an enabler to solve problems and a catalyst for accelerating them.
In particular, he saw as probable that the relatively easy path to nuclear proliferation raised a likelihood that underdeveloped countries would use their ability to produce them in order to blackmail the developed ones with the threat of nuclear terrorism, in order to demand major economic concessions.
In terms of our internal capability to address these threats, he was quite pessimistic, seeing human nature as basically unchangeable and the framework of nation-states as also next to permanent. In full recognition of the seemingly unstoppable momentum of industrial growth and of the accelerating pace of scientific and technological achievements of recent decades, he nevertheless asserted that these could not continue, due primarily to approaching environmental disaster and exhaustion of primary resources needed for industry. In particular, he named climate change as something that would arise and threaten the continuation of humanity, along with exponential population growth.
The volume I re-read for this post was copyrighted 1975 (W.W. Norton), which reprised his original 1972-73 work but included his own postscripts written shortly afterward. In these, he noted how events immediately after the initial publication-- the Arab-Israeli War and the oil embargo imposed by OPEC, and the expansion of the nuclear weapons club with India's first successful test-- gave his warnings additional public impetus, but his perspective was much more long-term. While admitting that he fully partook of the benefits of advanced industrial civilization, his point of view was that, while events in the short-term or even medium-term might vary trends, the long-term reality remained that industrial growth, augmented by the inevitable development in the Third World, could not continue apace. He mentioned the possibility that conversion toward service industry and that improvements like solar energy could ameliorate the crisis and lengthen the term of our progress, yet he remained pessimistic for the long run.
His conclusions included the thought that strong authoritarian governments--such as the Maoist China of his time--might be able to both stem population growth and control popular demand for economic growth. He admitted that he loved being in a democratic society with free speech, etc., but didn't find it conducive to the changes that must come. He acknowledged that people do not think about the long-term result of their daily lives and even might question the need to do so, but he urged us to bear the burden of keeping on with doing the right things for posterity. In the aftermath of the convulsive end to our headlong race to self-destruction, he saw the possibility for something like nationalistic, religious societies to emerge in a "monastic" future civilization.
The View from 50 Years Beyond
It seems now that his pessimistic views of human nature and societal flexibility are more in tune with today's reality than the hugely optimistic view prevalent at the millennium. Three or four big changes came that he did not fully anticipate:
1) The collapse of the Soviet Union, with its follow-on developments for Eastern Europe and the evolution of the European Union have been game-changers over the past few decades. One hugely positive result has been a period with less wars between the powers, conducted through proxy contests. Of course, few if any saw the fall of the Iron Curtain coming until the years just before those events at the end of the Eighties. This changed the status of socialism; I would point out that the movement toward Euro-Communism, or "socialism with a human face", that was rising in the Seventies, had also faded by then, with capitalism emerging dominant in most of the world.
Even China found its way toward economic development more like that of capitalism though the Communist Party retained its exclusive hold on power there. In that sense, modern China has become even more like the kind of political force that can successfully influence the course of society and domestic economy, through coercion combined with massive investment. On the other hand, the supreme power position of the US, leading the so-called Western nations, has endured longer, though its unchallenged reign seems almost over, MAGA notwithstanding, and even assisting in its eclipse.
2) Resource limitations do exist and are apparent in some areas, but the continuing identification of extractable fossil fuels has been a surprise which has allowed ongoing growth of things like heavy industry (in many parts of the world), the transportation vehicles using them, and the industries that make and distribute those vehicles of individual transport. This result thus continues environmental degradation.
3) Population growth has slowed in most parts of the world, so that we can now foresee a leveling off of population--it is still on the order of 10 billion, as compared to the 3 billion of Heilbroner's time. The ability to provide food for all the world's people is real--which would surprise some of his time-though economic inequality makes its distribution to all a real challenge. Heilbroner asserted that exponential population growth must end, and that appears to be the case; it may have happened faster than expected. Some of that was through coercive policies in China and India, but just as much through a natural reduction in the birth rate as more societies achieved full modernization and greater economic security.
In terms of the environmental threat, there is some of the progress that he foresaw as possible, but also setbacks, due to the reason of continued industrial development facilitated by the availability of resources. An unanticipated effect in a negative sense resulted paradoxically from the reduction of air pollution due to cleaner fuels, as greater absorption of solar energy on land and sea due to clearer skies has actually accelerated global temperature increase. One challenge that he mentioned doubtfully was successfully addressed internationally: the elimination of the production of the most damaging chlorofluorocarbons.
4) In terms of technology and how it affects the human prospect, the greatest change has been the development of immense digital capability, as computing power has increased exponentially, along with data storage capacity and the density of electronic microsystems. The effects on consumers of electronic devices have been a combination of greater capabilities, especially in communication, but also societal changes which we do not fully understand yet. The advent of artificial intelligence, which was merely theoretical fifty years ago, has resulted from greater computing power and enormously greater data to train AI programs upon; it presents a frontier in which we are only taking the first steps forward.
And What This Means for Our Own Future...and Beyond
Heilbroner specifically mentioned the 1.5 degree Celsius increase--even then!--as a known threat to our quality of life and the planet's biology. That threshold now seems to have been reached or surpassed, with little doubt that the mean global temperature is still on the rise; we do not have a firm idea how much more will be coming, or even that clear of an idea of all the consequences. There is some reason to believe we can slow that growth, through voluntary means or possibly with the assistance of some technological fixes, despite the current trends in some nations (speaking to you, USA under Trump 2.0) to ignore or go against the needed changes.
The USA is just one part of the problem, though; some parts of the world are still industrializing and using dirtier means than necessary to do so. China is both rapidly advancing in solar energy and building more polluting coal plants. There is a real possibility of sea level rise producing dramatic, if gradual, threat to the huge portion of our planet's human population living near coasts. Ecologies are being disrupted, and climate change is also taking the form of more severe storm systems. Our progress in feeding the world could be at risk, too, if our agricultural capability deteriorates. One can envision a future where many or most societies have to "hunker down"into safer areas and reduce activity, along the lines that Heilbroner suggested, but also a different, worse one where relatively few, well-off societies or subgroups within societies can hide from the devastation experienced elsewhere.
The threat of nuclear annihilation remains, through wars between nations--now re-emerging in comparison to recent decades--or terrorism. The club of nations with nuclear weapons has expanded some, with North Korea being an especially threatening new member, and that expansion could easily accelerate if, for example, Iran tests a nuclear device. The limited progress of the past in preventing unlimited expansion of strategic weapons development seems to be receding rapidly, and warfare is becoming ever more mechanized and less restricted.
Heilbroner was surely correct in his assessment that social, economic, and political structures of the time would be unable to adapt successfully to the threats posed by war, exponential growth, and climate change. So, where do we go from here? My inspiration is the relative success the world has had in slowing population growth; it has not happened everywhere, but it has happened enough that we can see the light. I disagree strongly with those who feel there is some crisis because the wealthier countries' birthrates have dropped below replacement level--there are plenty more people to fill the gaps, and the pig in the python will pass through eventually.
There is a way forward without coercive or oligarchic survival mechanisms. We must first reverse the negative trends in our confidence and find our voice to make smart choices, democratically. We must figure out how people--all people--can earn a decent living in a capitalist, or mixed, economy in which so many jobs will be eaten up by artificial intelligence programs and robots. Some nations will make more progress toward a successful path to the future, some less, and we must tolerate both.
The greatest disappointment of the past decades to me is the absence of transnational cooperation. The United Nations has failed under its current charter in its primary role of ending warfare, though it accomplishes much in humanitarian areas and does provide some means of participation for smaller countries. The climate change conferences produce agreements, agonizingly constructed, that are not respected. Crimes against humanity continue, and the US "exceptionalism" has been exceptionally uncooperative when it comes to international treaties designed to have accountability for them. I have not lost hope for progress, but it will likely come far into the future. Until then, our dreams of interplanetary exploration are a sad joke.
Heilbroner thought religion could help make the necessary transitions. My response was initially skeptical, when I read his book decades ago: I am a confirmed agnostic, in that I know that I don't know. I have seen enough of all the religions to know that they converge on certain ethical and moral principles, ones that, from a game theory or business model point of view, are necessary to share: how could a belief system that encourages harm to one's neighbor, theft, and deception survive for long?
I am encouraged by some progressive trends in the Catholic church, and I believe the new pope Leo XIV may make his mark toward reducing warlike behavior, and follow his predecessor's steps in recognizing the validity of other religious beliefs and their followers. The fact that he is a US citizen (also one of Peru) is significant and may make a real difference in a movement among us toward tolerance, respect for the natural beauty of our planet, and reduced militarism (and, I might add, excessive nationalism). The church's stance on "allowing" women to have multiple children has been harmful in some regions--it is not alone in that antisocial stance--but has also been overcome, broadly, and as I say, population growth is not the huge problem it appeared to be in the past.
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