A Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 16 “The Greenest Businessman in America”
Foster examines the expression of anti-capitalism through the promotion of environmentalism in this chapter. He focuses on one businessman in particular, but uses him as an example to suggest that the movement can be adopted by those who are seeking personal benefits, whether or not they realize it.
Useful idiots, hypocrites, and anti-capitalists all bound together in their use of “moralistic hyperbole” to reject economics as we know it because they think it needs to be improved. (p. 379) However, their very solutions reveal how they either do not understand economics or that they hate it.
Foster centers the chapter around the carpet industrialist, Ray Anderson. He sounds like a talented entrepreneur who recognized the value of carpet squares way back in the 1970s because they would allow businesses to easily add and update the wiring running under the carpet that would be needed with the adoption of computer technology.
That is some impressive foresight. The carpet square technology came from a British firm and apparently no one in America saw its usefulness the way Anderson did. He initially had to team up with the British firm that he later acquired along with many other carpet firms as he grew Interface into a multi-million dollar business.
By his own admission, he never gave any thought to environmental issues as he built his business. Yet, in 1994 he had a green epiphany.
Foster wondered why — what was the triggering event? Anderson’s answer is to cite a book he read by Paul Hawken, but Foster sees that as a result not the cause.
I read the book that Anderson wrote a couple of years into his conversion, Mid-Course Correction, there it was, right in the prologue. Anderson had effectively been forced to kick himself upstairs following problems at Interface during the recession of 1991–93 and the introduction of a new management team…(p. 393)
Foster notes Anderson wrote another book during the time of this business transition, Face It: A Spiritual Journey of Leadership, that chronicled the conversations between the managers and a psychologist that was brought in to aid the transition, revealing the crisis of purpose Anderson faced.
The book contains some fascinating insights into the obvious problems that any corporate founder has in handing over under such circumstances: the struggle with acknowledgement of inevitable morality, jealousy of the new “savior” and, above all, what to do next. In Anderson’s own words, “…I began to seriously question my own role, what it should be, and indeed if I had one. Then…I discovered an urgent calling and an unexpectedly rewarding new role for myself.” (p. 393–94)
A man with great energy, drive, and talent is left floundering for meaning — a perfect set up to find religion. Instead of a traditional religion, the environmental movement gave him that purpose as he set about this new mission clothed in the moral high ground.
Of course we should be good stewards of our resources and minimize pollution and waste. Economics actually does reward that to the extent that it incentivizes businesses to minimize costs.
To the extent that there are any externalities in production that a less moral business is comfortable dumping on the rest of us, we have laws and regulations for just that reason.
Though it gets little attention, the EPA’s own numbers show that while GDP and population have grown over the last 40 years, both grew faster than our energy consumption or CO2 emissions. And our aggregate emissions of six common pollutants have fallen 73% over that time period.
The laws and regulations we have adopted have made the environment cleaner over these past four decades. Environmental degradation has often accompanied initial industrialization, but the wealth it generates also typically creates the ability to improve environmental regulation.
But those facts are not the basis of the kind of environmental movement Anderson joined. He joined the religion of environmentalism. Any challenge to their beliefs is seen as morally reprehensible.
The book that gave him the epiphany, The Ecology of Commerce, has an anti-capitalist, Malthusian view of the world.
The central theory of Paul Hawken’s book is that the biosphere is in long-term systemic decline. The biggest culprit is the industrial system, and the only way out of this mess is for corporations that are doing the damage to lead the way out. (p. 383)
In Foster’s dialogue with Anderson, he reveals that he sees using our resources as “plundering” and that we are “stealing our grandchildren’s future”. (p. 384)
Anderson dismissed Foster’s comment that the standard of living has increased 30 times in the past 200 years because with his fixed-pie-view, he sees any increase today will lead to disaster in the future.
Foster also pushed back using The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, a former Greenpeace member.
Lomborg’s book had investigated alarmist claims about resources and the environment and found that they were either without substance or grossly exaggerated. His conclusions generated a furor among environmentalist. (p. 385)
Bringing up Lomborg’s book to Anderson was received as well as holding a cross up to a vampire. This gets us back to the idea of the psychology of taboo I discussed in an earlier blog.
Any questioning of Anderson’s assertions is seen as morally reprehensible and not worthy of engagement. No debate can be had.
One side says the world is finite and we are using it up. And that is it. No challenge to that idea is allowed.
Worse, they then want to legislate with this idea in mind.Energy
In his book, Hawken called international, or even long distance, trade bad because of the environmental cost of transportation. Things like Chilean strawberries and Californian nectarines in New York City during the winter need to be stopped. (p. 389)
Indeed, Hawken welcomed the prospect of greater scarcity and declared, “The purpose of all these suggestions is to end industrialism as we know it.” He admitted that “people will not cut back their possessions on their own.” So clearly the cuts had to be made for them. (p. 389)
Build Back Better anyone?
OK, that is inflammatory, and I don’t want to bring in today’s politics here except to point out that the current policies are not anything new. They transcend the current administration.
Also, it lays bare the real intention of restricting the supply of oil and gas is not as much about helping the environment as it is forcing people to cut back.
Nuclear power is zero emission, but it is not up for debate.
Hydropower is zero emission, but instead of building more dams, some of the existing ones are being proposed for deconstruction.
It is the Malthusian thinking that we need to use less that is driving these policies, and the environment is the green wrapping they hope makes it more palatable to get by the people.
Ray Anderson didn’t appear to realize that he had allied himself with people who ultimately aimed at the destruction of the capitalist system. Mark Achbar, one of the producers of The Corporation, said that although he was “impressed” by Anderson, “we cannot rely on the CEOs of the world all having epiphanies while simultaneously reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce…One way or another, corporations must be forced into sustainability, or else we are collectively doomed.” (p. 400–401)
Once again we see that ultimately it comes down to force, an authoritarian movement. People cannot be trusted to make good decisions. They must be forced into the vision of how life should be led by those who know better. For their own good.
Foster turns next to philanthrocapitalism, where billionaire capitalists try to force their vision of how life should be led onto the world using their vast resources while simultaneously wrapping themselves in the guise of philanthropy so they can be praised for their goodness.
Reference: Foster, Peter, 2014. “The Greenest Businessman in America” Chapter 16 of Why We Bite the Invisible Hand, Pleasaunce Press.
