Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C - PDF document

Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 48 Garrett Hardin, Ph.D., wasProfessor of Biology at theUniversity of California,Santa Barbara, when thisessay was published bySoundings, 59 :120-137, Spring1976, at which time he wasseen as “one of the principalprovocateurs of currentdiscussions of lifeboat ethicsand triage in relation to worldfamine.” Carrying CapacityAs an Ethical Conceptby Garrett HardinL ethics is merely aal application of thelogic of the commons. Theclassic paradigm a pasture as common property by a and governed by thefollowing rules: First, eachherdsman may pasture as many as he wishes on thecommons; and second, the gainfrom the growth of cattle accrues tothe individual owners of the cattle.In an under populated world thesystem of the commons may do no and may even be the mosteconomic way to manage things, management costs are kept to minimum. In an overpopulated (oroverexploited) world a system ofthe commons leads to ruin, because herdsman has more to gainindividually by increasing the size ofis herd than he has to lose as asingle member of the community of lowering the carryingcity of the environment.Consequently he (with others)overloads the commons.E if an individual fulperceives the ultimateconsequences of his actions he is unlikely to act in any otherway, for he cannot count on therestraint his conscience mightdictate being matched by a similarrest on the part of all theothers. (Anything less than all is notenough.) Since mutual ruin isinevitable, it is quite proper to speakof the tragedy of the commons.Tragedy is the price of freedom the commons. Only by changing some other system (socialism or enterprise, for example) canruin be averted. In other words, in acrowded world survival requiresthat some freedom be given up. have, however, a choice in the to be sacrificed.) Survivalis possible under several differentpolitico-economic s — butnot under the system of thec When we understad point, we reject the ideal ofdistributive justice stated by Karl a century ago, “From eachaccording to his ability, to eachaccording to his needs.” This idealmight be defensible if “needs” weredefined by the larger community than by the individual (or political unit) and if were static.3 But in the quar with the bestwill in the world, somehumanitarians have been asserting rich populations must supplythe needs of poor populations eventhough the recipient populationsincrease without restraint. At the Na conference on in Bucharest in 1973,spokesmen for the poor nationsrepeatedly said in effect: “We poorpeople have the right to reproduceas mu as we want to; you in therich world have the responsibility ofkeeping us alive.”Such a Marxian disjunction of and responsibilities inevitably toward tragic ruin for all. It isalmost incredible that this position issupported by thoughtful persons, but is. How does this come about? In I think, because language us. When a disastrous lossof life threatens, people speak of a“crisis,” implying that the threat istemporary. More subtle is theimplication of quantitative stabilitybuilt into the pronoun “they” and its Let me illustrate this pointwith quantified prototypestatements based on two differenpoints of view. Crisis anal “ poor (1,000,000) are starving, of a crisis (fl drought, the like). How can we refusethem (1,000,000)? Let us feed them Once the crisis is pasthose who are still hungry are few(say 1,000) and there is no further Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 49 need for our intervention.”Crunch analysis: “Those( who are hungry are We send food to t Their lives (1,020,000)are saved. But since theenvironment is still essentially thesame, the next year they ask for more food. Wesend it to them (1,045,000); and thenext year they (1,068,000) ask for more. Since the need has notgone away, it is a mistake to speakof a passing crisis: It is evidently apermanent crunch that this growing face — a growing disnot a passing state of affairs.”“They” increases in size. makes no allowance for a pronoun. Thus we can be deceived by language. Wecannot deal adequately with ethicalquestions if we ignore quantitativem This attitude has be by James Sellers, who prophets of doom from to Meadows5 as“chiliasts.” Chiliasts (or millenialists,to use the Latin-derived equivalentof the Greek term) predict a end of things athousand years from somereference point. The classicexample is the prediction ofJudgment Day in the year 1000no Domini. Those who predictedit were wrong, of course; but the that this specific prediction waswrong is no valid criticism of theuse of numbers in thinking.Millenialism is numerolog notIn science, most of the time, it isnot so much exact numbers that areimportant as it is the relative size of and the d of the magnitude of them. Muchproductive analysis is accomplishedwith only the crude quantitation of“order of magnitude” thinking. First second derivatives are of with no finer aim than to out if they are positive or Survival can hinge on thecrude issue of the sign of change, of number. This is a fry from the spurious precision ofnumerology. Unfortunately, thechasm between the “two cultures,” C. P. Snow called them,6 keeps in the non-scientific culturefrom understanding the significanceof the quantitative approach. One is to wonder also whether anadditional impediment tound may not be themortal sin called pride, which sometheologians regard as the mother ofall sins.Returning to Marx, it is obvious the each in “to eac according his needs” is not — despite the — a unitary, stable entity; is a place-holder for a va Before we ourselves to saving the lifeof each and every person in needwe had better ask this question:“ then what? That is, wut tomorrow, what aboutposterity? As Hans Jonas haspointed out, traditional ethics hasalmost entirely ignored the claims of In an overpopulated world cannot long endure under regime governed by posterity- ethics. It is the essence ofe ethics that it paattention to posterity.Since helping starving peopl that we who are rich giveup some of ou wealth, any refusal do so is almost sure to beattributed to selfishness. Selfishnessthere may be, but focusing on is likely to be non- In truth, a selfish motivecan be found in all policy proposals.The selfishness of not giving isobvious and need not be elaborated. the selfishness of giving is noless real, though more subtle.8Consider the sources of support for Law 480, the act ofCongress under which surplusfoods were given to poor countries,or sold to them at bargain prices(“co terms” is theeuphemism). Why did we give foodaway? Conventional wisdom says itwas because we momentarilytranscended our normal selfishness.Is that the whole story?It is not. The “we” of the abovesentence needs to be subdivided. farmers who grew the graindid not give it away. They sold it tothe government (which then gave it Farmers received selfishbenefits in two ways: the direct sale grain, and the econom support farm prices given by thisgovernmental purchase in anotherwise free market. Theop of P. L. 480 during thepast quarter-century broughtAmerican farmers to a level ofprosperity never known before. Who else benefitted — in aselfish way? The stockholders andemployees of the railroads that Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 50 “Even judging anact by itsconsequences isnot easy. We arelimited by the basictheorem ofecology. ‘We cannever do merelyone thing.’” moved grain to seaports benefitted. also did freight-boat operators(U.S. “bottoms” were specified bylaw). So also did grain elevatoroperators. So also did agricult scientists who werefinancially supported in a burgeoningbut futile effort “to feed a hungry And so also did the largebureaucracy required to keep the P. 480 system working. In toto, several million peopl benefitted fr the P. L.480 program. Their labors cannot becalled wholly selfless.Who did make a sacrifice for P. 480? The citizens genera two hundred million of them,paying directly or indirectly through But each of these manymillions lost only a little, whereas of the million or so gainersgained a great deal. The blunt truthis that p pays — if you hired as a philanthropist. Thoseon the gaining side of P. L. 480 a great deal of money andcould afford to spend lavishly topersuade Congress to continue theprogram. Those on the sacrificingside sacrificed only a little bit percapita and could not afford to spendmuch protecting their pocketbooks philanthropic inroads. Andso P. L. 480 continued, year afteryear. we condemn philanthropywhen we discover that some of itsroots are selfish? I think not,otherwise probably no philanthropywould be possible. The secret ofpractical success in large-scalepublic philanthropy is this: See to itthat the losses are widely distributedso that the per capita loss is small,but concentrate the gains in a few pe so that these will have the economic powernee to pressure the legislatureinto supporting the program.I have spent some time on this because I w like toe once and for all ofcondemnatory arguments based on” As a matter ofprinciple we should always assumethat selfishness is part of the of every action. Butwhat of it? If Smith proposes a public policy, it is far moreimportant to know whether thepolicy will do public harm or public than it is to know whetherS motives are selfish orselfless. Consequences (“ends”) be more objectively determinedthan motivations (“means”).Situational ethics wisely usesconsequences as the measure ofmorality. “If the end does not justifythe means, what does?” asks Fletcher. The obsession of ethical systems with me motives is no doubt in part aconsequence of envy, which has athousand disguises. (Though I am this is true, the situatioshould not dwell on envy very long,for it is after all only a motive, and such not directly verifiable. Inany case pu policy must beprimarily concerned withconsequences.) judging an act by itsuences is not easy. We arelimited by the basic theorem of “We can never do merelyone thing.” The fact that an acthas many consequences is all themore reason for de-emp as we carry out our ethical Motives by definitionapply only to intendedconsequences. The multitudinous ones are common by the term “side-effects.” But “The road to hell ispaved with good intentions,” so let’shave done with motivationalevaluations of public policy.Even after we have agr toew motivational analysis,foreign aid is a tough nut to crack.The literature is large andcontradictory, but it all points to the conclusion that a of a century of earnesteffort has not conquered worldrty. To many observers thethreat of future disasters is morecing now than it was a of a century ago, and the are not all in the future3 Where have we gonewrong in foreign aid?We wanted to do good, ofcourse. The question, “How can wehelp a poor country?” seems like asimple question, one that should a simple answer. Our failure answer it suggests that thequestion is not as simple as wethought. The variety ofcontradictory answers offered isdisheartening. can we find our way Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 51 through this thicket? I suggest wetake a cue from a mathematician.The great algebr Karl Jacobi had a simple stratagem he recommended to stude found themselves butting theirheads against a stone wall.Umkehren, immer um — always invert.” Don’t ju asking the same old question and ov Turn it upside down ask the opposite questio The you get then may not be theone you want, but it may throwuseful light on the question youstarted with.Let’s try a Jacobian inversion of food/population problem. To the issue, let us take a example — say India.The question we want to answer is,“How can we help India?” But that approach has repeatedlythrust us against a stone wall, let’spose the Jacobian invert, “How canwe h India? After we’ve this perverse que we return to the original (andproper) one.As a matter of method, let usgrant ourselves the most malevolent motives: Let us ask, “How canw harm India — really hher?” Of course we might plasterthe country with thermo-nuclearbombs, speedily wiping out most of 600 million people. But, to thetruly malevolent mind, that’s notmuch fun; a dead man is beyondharming. Bacterial warfare could bea bit “better,” but not much. No: Wewant something that will reallymake India suffer, not merely for aday or a week, but on and on and How can we achieve tinhumane goal?Quite si By sending India a of food, year after year. United States exports about 80million tons of grain a year. Most ofit we sell. The foreign exchange it we use for such neededimports as petroleum (38 percent ofour oil consumption in 1974), iron bauxite, chromium, tin, etc. Butin the pursuit of our malevolent goallet us “unselfishly” tighten our belts,make sacrifices, and do withoutthat foreign ex Let us give 80 million tons of grain to theIndians each year. On a purely vegetable diet ittakes about 400 poun of grain to one person alive and healthyfor a year. The 600 million Indiansneed 120 million tons per year; their nutrition is less thanadequ presumably they are a bit l than that now. So 80 million tons we give themwill almost double India’s per capitasupply of food. With a sIndians can afford to vary their diet growing some less effici they can also convert someof the grain into meat (pork and for the Hindus, beef andchickens for the Moslems). Thee nation can then be suppliednot only with plenty of calories, buta with an adequate supply of quality protein. The peoples’eyes will sparkle, their steps will more elastic, and they willbe capable of more work.“Fatalism” will no doubt diminish. so- fatalism is merely consequence of malnutrition.)Indians may even become a bitoverweight, though they will still begetting only two-thirds as muchf as the average inhabitant of arich country. Surely, we think a well-fed India would bebetter off?Not so: Ceteris paribus, they ultimately be worse off.Remember, “We can never domerely one thing.” A generous gift food would have not onlynutritional consequences, it would have political and economicconsequences. The dif of fr food to a poor is well known. Harbor,storage, and transport inadequacies in great losses of grain to ratsand fungi. Politic corruptiondiverts food from those who need itmost to those who are more More abundant suppliesdepress free market prices anddiscourage native farmers from food in subsequent years.arch into better ways ofagriculture is also discouraged. look for better ways to growfood when there is food enoughalready? are replies, of sorts, to all above poi It may be that all these evils areonly temporary ones. In ti sense will be broughtto the distributional system andthe government will crack down oncorruption. Realizing the desirabilityof producing more food, for export not else, a wise government subsidize agricultural researchin spite of an appar surplus. does not give muchort to this optimistic view, butlet us grant the conclusions for thesake of getting on to moreimportant matters. Worse is toThe Indian unemployment rate iscommonly reckoned at 30 percent,but it is acknowledged that this is a figure. Under Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 52 rife. Check into a hotel inCalcutta with four small bags andfour bearers will carry your luggageto the room n with another man tocarry the key. Custom, and a of what the traffic willbear, decrees this practice. Inaddition malnutrition justifies it in Adequately fed, half as manymen would suffice. So one of theearly consequences of achieving ahigher level of nutrition in the Indianpopulation would be to increase thenumber of unemployed. India needs many things thatfood will not buy. Food will notdiminish the unemployment r the contrary; nor will it the supply of minerals, clothes, automobiles,gasoline, schools, books, movies, ortelevision. All these things requireenergy for their manufacture and course, food is a form ofenergy, but it is controvertible toother forms only with great loss. Sowe are p justified in energy and food asmutually exclusive goods. On this the most striking differ poor ad rich countries is in the food they eat but in theenergy they use. On a per capita rich countries use about threetimes as much of the primary goods— grain and the like — as do poorcountries. (To a large extent this isbecause the rich convert much of grain to more “wasteful” an But when it comes to rich countries use ten times much per capita. (Near theextremes Americans use 60 timesas much per person as Indians.) By standards much of thisenergy may be wasted (e.g., in themanufacture of “exercycles” forsweating the fat off people whohave eaten too much), but a largeshare of this energy supplies thegoods we regard as civilized: transportation, someluxury foods, a variety of sports,clean space heating, more thanade clothing, and energy- arts — musi visual electronic auxiliaries, eMerely giving food to a people doesalmost nothing to satisfy the for any of these othergoods. a well-nourished people ister fitted to try to wrest moreenergy from its environment. Thquestion then is this: Is the nativeenvironment able to furnish moreenergy? And at what cost?In India energy is already beinggotten from the environment at afearful cost. In the past two millions of acres of In been deforested in thestrugg for food, with the usual degradation. TheVale of Kashmir, once one of thegarden spots of the world, has beendenuded to such an extent that thehills no longer hold water as theyonce did, and the springs supplyingthe famous gardens are drying up. desperate is the need forcharcoal for fuel that the Kashmirinow make it out of tree leaves. Thiswasteful practice denies the soil ofneeded organic mulch.Throughout India, as is wellknown, cow dung is burned to cook The m of the dung arenot thereby lost, but the ability ofthe dung to i soil tilth is. of the nitrogen in the dung off in the air and does not to Indian soil. Here we see aclassic example of the “viciouscircle”: Because Indians are poorthey burn dung, depriving the soil ofnitrogen and making themselves stillpoorer the following year. If wegive them plenty of food, as they this food with cow dung they lower still more the ability oftheir land to produce food.Let us look at another exampleof this counter-productive behavior.Twenty-fi years ago western brought food andmedicine to Nepal. In the summerof 1974 a disastrous flood struckBangladesh, killing tens ofthousands of people, by governmentadmission. (True losses in that partof the world are always greaterth admitted losses.) Was there connection between feedingNepal and flooding Bangladesh?Indeed there was, and is.14 ne among thelayas. Much of its land isprecipitous, and winters are cold. Nepalese need fuel, which theyget from trees. Because moreNepalese are being kept alive now, demand for timber is escalating. trees are cut down, the soilunder them is washed down theslopes into the rivers that run India and Bangladesh the absorptive capa offorest soil is gone, floods rise faster to higher maxima. The flood of1974 covered two-thirds ofBangladesh, twice the area of“normal” floods — whichthemselves are the consequence of in previ centuries. bringing food and medicine Nepal we intended only to savelives, but we can never do merelyone thing, and the Nepalese lives saved created a Nep Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 53 -famine. The lives we savedfrom starvation in Nepal a quarter a century ago were paid for inour time by lives lost to flooding andits attendant evils in Bangladesh.The saying “Man does not live bybread alone” takes on newmeaning.Still, we have not described whatmay be the worst consequence of afood-only policy: revolution and civildisorder. Many kind-hearted peoplewho support food aid programssolicit the cooperation of “hard-nosed” doubters by arguing thatgood nutrition is needed for worldpeace. Starving people will attackothers, they say. Nothing could befurther from the truth. Themonumental studies of Ancel Keysand others have shown that starving are completely selfish. are incapable of cooperatingwith others, and they are incapable laying plans for tomorrow andcarrying them out. Moreover,modern war is so expensive thateven the richest countries canhardly afford it.The thought that starv people forcefully wrest subsistencefrom their richer brothers mayappeal to our sense of justice, but it ain’t so. Starving people fight among themselves, and thatinefficiently. what would happen if we ample supplies of food to a that was still poor in else? They would still beincapable of waging war at ace, but their ability to fightamong themselves would be vastlyincreased. With vigorous, well-hed bodies and a keen senseof their impoverishment in otherthings, they would no doubt sooncreate massive disorder in their land. Of course, they mightcreate a s and united country, what is the probability of that?Remember how much trouble thethirteen colonies had in formingthemselves into a United States.Then remember that India is by two major religions,many castes, fourteen majorl and a hundred dialec partial separation of peoplesalong religious lines in 1947, at thetime of the formation of Pakistanand of independent In cost millions of lives. The budding of Bangladesh (formerly EastPakistan) from the rest of Pakistanin 1971 cost several million more.All these losses were achieved on a level of nutrition. Thepossibilities of blood-letting in a of 600 million well-nourished people of manylanguages and religions and no tradition of cooperationstagger the imagination.Philanthropists with any imaginationat all should be stunned by thethought of 600 million well-fedIndians seeking to meet theirenergy needs from their own the answer to our Jacobianquestion, “How can we harmIndia?” is clear: Send food o the Jacobian by re-inverting the question, we now ask,“How can we help India?” we see that we mustnever send food without a matchinggift of non-food energy. But before go careening off on an new program we hadbetter look at some more quantities.On a per capita basis, India usesthe energy equivalent of one barrelof oil per year; the U. uses sixty. world average of all countries,rich and poor, is ten. If we want tobring India only up to the presentworld avera we would have to India about 9 x 600 million of oil per year (or itsequivalent in coal, timber, gas, orwhatever). Th would be more five billion barrels of oilequivalent. What is the chance wewill make such a gift?S it is nearly zero. F note that our total y use is seven billionbarrels (of which we import threebillion). Of course we use (andhave) a great deal of coal, too. Butthese figures should suffice to givea feeling of scale.More important is the undoubtedpsychological fact that a fall inincome tends to dry up the s philanthropy. Despite widedisagreements about the future ofenergy it is obvious that from nowo for at least the next twentyyears and possibly for centuries, our capita supply of energy is goingto fall, year after year. The food weve in the past was “surplus.” Byno accounting do we have anenergy surplus. In fact, theperceived deficit is rising year byyear. has about one-th as land as the United State has about three times as mu If her people-to-landratio were the same as ours shewould have only about seventymillion people (instead of 600million). With the forested andrelativ unspoiled farmlands offour centuries ago, seventy millionpeople could probably make it incomfort and dignity — provided Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 54 “For posterity’ssake we shouldnever send foodto any populationthat is beyond therealistic carryingcapacity of itsland. The questionof triage does noteven arise.” they didn’t increase!To send food only to a countryalready populated beyond thecarrying capacity of its land is tocollaborate in the further destructionof the land and the furtherimpoverishment of its people.Food plus energy is andable policy; but for a population under today’s this policy is defensibleonly by the logic of the old saying,“If wishes were horses, beggarswould rid The fantastic amount energy needed for such a is simply not in view. (We mentioned nothing of the monumental “infrastructure” political, technological, andeducational machinery needed tohandle unfamiliar forms andquanti of energy in the poor In a short span of time infrastructure is as difficult tobring into being as is an adequatesupply of energy.)In summary, then, here are themajor foreign-aid possibilities thattender minds are willing to entertain: Food plus energy — aconceivable, but practicallyimpossible, program.b Food alone — a conceiva possible program, but one whichwould destroy the recipient.In the light of this analysis the of triage8 shrinks to importance. If a gift of to overpopulated countries more harm than good, it is not to decide which countriesget the gift and which do not. Forp sake we should never food to any population that is the realistic carryingcapacity of its land. The question oftriage does not even arise.Joseph Fltecher neatlysummarized this point when he said,“We should give if it helps but not ifit hurts.” We would do well tomemorize this aphorism, but wemust be sure we understand thepro object of the verb, which is recipient. Students of charityhave long recognized that animportant motive of the giver is tohelp himself, the giver. Hindus to secure a better life in thenext incarnation; Moslems, to a richer paradise at the endof this life; and Christians in a day no doubt hoped toshorten their stay in purgatory by generosity. Is there anyonewho w say that contemporary is completely free of theself-serving element?To deserve the name, charity must justify itself primarily,perhaps even solely, by the good itdoes the recipient, not only in them of giving but in the long That every act has multipleconsequences was recognized byWilliam L. Davison, who groups thesequences of an act of charityinto two value-classes, positive and True charity, he said,confers benefits, and itrefrains from injuring…Hence, charity maysometimes assume an austereand even apparentlyunsympathetic aspect towardits object. When that object’sreal good cannot beachieved without inflictingpain and suffering, charitydoes notshrink from the infliction…Moreover, a sharpdistinction must be drawnbetween charity andamiability or good nature —the latter of which is aweakness and may bedetrimental to true charity,although it also may beturned to account in itsservice. the ecologically-min of ethics, most traditional look like mere amiability,focusing as they do on the manifest of the present generation tothe neglect of the more subtle butequally real needs of a much largerposterity. It is amiability that feeds Nepalese in one generation and Bangladeshis in anot It amiability that, contemplating thewretched multitudes of Indi “How can we let them implying that we, and only have the power to end their Such an assumpsurely springs from hubris.Fifty years ago India and Chinawere equally miserable, and their prospects look bleak. the past generation we have India “help” on a massive Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 55 scale; China, because of politicaldifferences between her and us, has no “help” from us and little from anybody else.Yet who is better off today? Andwhose future prospects lookbrighter? Even after generouslynting the reports of the firststarry-eyed Americans to enterChina in recent years, it is appa China’s 900 million arephysically better off than I600 million.All that has come about withoutan iota of “help” from us.Could it be that a country that iseated as a responsible agent doesbetter in the long run than one thatis treated as an irresponsible which we must “atedly? Is it not possible thatrobust responsibility is a virtueamong nations as it is amongindividuals? Can we tolerate acharity that destroys responsibility?Adm China did not reach present position of relative without great suffering, loss of life. Did millions die?Tens of millions? We don’t know. Ifwe had enjoyed cordial relationswith the new China during the birth no doubt we would, out ofa rich store of amiab have seen it that China remained asirresponsible and miserable as India. day-to-day decisions, with theirde devastation, would havebeen completely justified by ourtraditional, posterity-blind et seems incapable of askingthe crucial question, “ then most ethical thoughtat present is the assumption that life is the summum bonumPerhaps it is; but we need to inquire into what we mean by life.” Do we mean the lifeof each and every human beingnow living, all 4,000,000,000 ofthem? Is each presently existinghuman being to be kept alive (andbreeding) regardless of theconsequences for future humanbeings? So, apparently, say amiable,individualistic, present-oriented,future-blind western ethicists.A ecologically-oriented ethicist “And then what?” and insist the needs of posterity be given weighting commensurate withthose of the present genera economic prejudice that leadsto a heavy discounting of the futuremust be balanced by a recogt the population of posterityvastly exceeds the population of the We know from experiencethat the environment can beirreversible damaged and thecarrying capacity of a landpermanently low Even a little multiplied by an almost posterity should weigh in the scales against theneeds of those living, once ourcharity expands beyond the limits ofsimple amiability.We can, of course, increasecarrying capacity somewhat. Butonly hubris leads us to think that ourty to do so is without limit.Despite all our technologicalaccomplishments — and they aremany — there is a potent germ oftruth in the saying of Horace (65-8B.C.): Naturam expelles furca,tamen usque recurre “Drivenature off with a pitchfork,nevertheless she will return with arush.” This is also the message of Carson, which has beecorroborated by many others.20The morality of an act is aion of the state of the systemat the time the act is performed — is the foundation stone ofsitu ecological ethics. A absolute ethical principle that implied by the shibboleth,“the sanctity of life” leads togreater suffering than itssituationist, ecological alternative — ultimately and paradoxically,even to a lesser quantity of life overa sufficiently long period of time.The interests of posterity can bebrought into the reckoning of ethics we abandon the idea of thesanctity of the carrying capacity.Those who would like to makethe theory of ethics wholly rationalmu look with suspicion on any that inclu the word There is a whole class terms whose principal (andperhaps sole) purpose seems to be set a stop to inquiry: “Sevident” and “sanctity” aremembers of this class. I must,therefore, show that “sanctity” isused as something more than a when it occurs in phrase “the sanctity of thecarrying capacity.”Some there are who so love t of Nature (that is, Nature Man) that they regard then of a world withouthumankind as a legitimate objectiveof human beings. It is difficult toe this ideal dispassionately andproductively. Let me only say that I not one of this class of nature-l my view is definite Even so I argue thatwe would do well to accept “Thoushalt not exceed the ca of any environment” as alegitimate member of a new Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 56 When for the sake of gain by human beingsthe carrying capacity istransgressed, the long-term interestsof the same human beings —” meaning themselves and successors in time — aredamaged. I should not say that the capacity is something th i sacred (whatever may mean) but that therhetorical device “carryingcapacity” is a shorthand way ofdealing time and posterity into thegame. A mathematician would, I view “carrying capacity” an algorithm, a subs element with a d from the elements it Algorithmic substi made to facilitate analysis;when they are well chosen they no appreciable errors. Ithink “carrying capacity” me analytical demands of aposterity-oriented ethics.In an uncrowded world therem be no ethical need for theecological concept of the carryingcapacity. But ours is a crowdedworld. We need this concept if weare to minimize human suffering inthe long run (and not such a verylong run at that). How Westernmanhas pretty well succeeded in lockinghimself into a suicidal course of by developing and clinging toa concept of the absolute sanctity is a topic that calls for deepinquiry. Lacking the certainknowledge that might come out of a scholarly investigation, I this essay with a personalview of the significance of —CARRYING CAPACITY (to Paul Sears)A man said to the universe:“Sir, I exist!”“However,” replied the universe,“The fact has not created in meA sense of obligation.”— Stephen Crane, 1899So spoke the poet, at century’s end;And in those dour days when schools displayedthe world,“Warts and all,” to their reluctant learners,These lines thrust through the layers of wishfulness,Forming the minds that later found them to be true.All that is past, now.Original sin, then mere personal ego,Open to the shafts of consciousness,Now flourishes as an ego of the tribeWhose battle cry (which none dare question) is“Justice” — But hear the poet’s shade:A tribe said to the universe,“Sir, we exist!”“So I see,” said the universe,“But your multitude creates in meNo feeling of obligation.“Need creates right, you say? Your need, your right?Have you forgot we’re married?Humanity and universe — Holy, indissoluble pair!Nothing you can do escapes my vigilant response.“Dam my rivers and I’ll salt your crops;Cut my trees and I’ll flood your plains.Kill ‘pests’ and, by God, you’ll get a silent spring!Go ahead — save every last baby’s life!I’ll starve the lot of them later,When they can savor to the fullThe exquisite justice of truth’s retribution.Wrench from my earth those exponential powersNo wobbling Willie should e’er be trusted with:Do this, and a million masks of envy shall; createA hell of blackmail and tribal warsFrom which civilization will never recover.“Don’t speak to me of shortage. My world is vastAnd has more than enough — for no more thanenough.There is a shortage of nothing, save will and wisdom;But there is a longage of people. Fall 2001THE SOCIAL C 57is — that was the Greeks’ word for what ailsyou.Pride fueled the pyres of tragedyWhich died (some say) with Shakespeare.O, incredible delusion! That potency should have nolimits!‘We believe no evil ‘til the evil’s done’ —Witness the deserts’ march across the earth,Spawned and nourished by men who whine,‘Abnormal weather.’Nearly as absurd as crying, ‘Abnormal universe!’…But I suppose you’ll be saying that next.”“Ravish capacity: reap consequences.Man claims the first a duty and calls what followsTragedy.Insult … Backlash. Not even the universe can breakThis primal link. Who, then, has the powerTo put an end to tragedy? Only those who recognizehubris in themselves.” agedy of the Commons,”Science, 162:1243-48.2. otha Program.”(ReprintedThe Robert C. Tucker,editor. New York: Norton, 1972.3. den (in press), M s Robert Malthus, 1798: A on the Future Improvement ofSocie. (Reprinted, by Michigan Press, 1959, and the Modern Library, 1960).5. Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, JorgenRanders, and William H. Behrens, 1972.: T (New York: Universe Books).6. The o Cultures; and a Second Look(New York: Mentor).7. on Social Research, William and Paul Paddock, 1967: FLittle, Brown & Co.).9. Garrett Hardin, 1975: “Greg’s Law,” BioScience, 25:415.10. 1966: SWestminster Press).11. 1969: Envy& World).12. Ethics for Survival(New York: Viking).13. Western Aid,” Science, 185:234-37.14. holm, 1975: “The Deterioration of MountainEnvironments,” Science, 189:764-70.15. 1950: The Biology of HumanStarvation, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: University. ofMinnesota Press).16. on and Ethics, Vol. III, pp.387-89(New York: Scribner’s).17. 19and Vol. III, p.373 (New York:Scribner’s). al Foundation ofConservatism,” North American Review, 259 (4): 14-17.19. lent Spring Milton, editors, 1969: T atural HistoryPress).