Living Within Limits - Chapter 7

Cowboys Economics vs Spaceship Ecology

Economist Kenneth Boulding was the first to develop the idea of economic systems as two varieties. 

Cowboy Economics...  Resources -> Production -> Wastes

For cowboy economists, their primary focus is on the good that is produced.  This (predominant) priesthood subscribes to those famous statistics GNP (Gross National Product), GDP (Gross Domestic Product), GDP/Capita, etc.  Most of modern-day economics would fall under this category.  The general well-being of a person, or groups of peoples, can effectively be summed up, in the opinion of these economists, in the average value of goods produced.

What they fail to consider are the 'bads' which result.  For example, when a century old forest is demolished in order to make way for a strip mall, GNP takes into account the cost of destruction (which provides employment, adds to GNP, and makes everyone 'better off'), while failing to take into consideration the value of the forest destroyed (aesthetics, habitat for animals, soil erosion, air quality degradation, etc).  Accountants, long familiar with the idea of double-entry book keeping (which essentially maintains balances in financial matters, much as nature maintains balances in physical sciences), would likely recommend augmenting our present form of GNP with a GND (gross national destruction). 

Spaceship Ecology... Resources -> Alteration -> Pollution

Narrow-minded ecologists come from the same species as narrow-minded economists (homo-sapiens).  These individuals would just as quickly 'deplore the exhaustion of the sources and the pollution... while giving scant credit to... the difficult art of shaping potential wealth into actual human wealth (production)'. 

It is important for economists & ecologists (forrmerly sister sciences; Greek root -oikos) to fully appreciate the difficulties of the other's job.  There are different times when one of the three factors will be stressed more than the others.  During the early days of America, when land and resources were plentiful, and cowboys were few, the emphasis has been on production.  Now, the time of the cowboy has come and gone.  With the advent of the spaceship age, its time to restore the empahsis to all three factors of resource, production, and waste.