An Inquiry into the Human Prospect, by Robert L. Heilbroner

Growth vs. No-Growth
An Inquiry into the Human Prospect. 
by Robert L. Heilbroner. 
W. W. Norton. 150 pp. $5.95.
Only a decade or so ago it was still fashionable to look at the competition between the United States and Russia, between a capitalist society based on a market economy and a planned society controlling the means of production and distribution, as a race between two rival economic systems. Victory would go to the nation which succeeded in exploiting technology to produce the highest growth rate; economic efficiency was taken to be the touchstone of performance by the two competing social systems. Now, however, it looks as though this particular debate will have to be turned inside out. If the world's capacity for growth is indeed finite, if there is going to be a choice between ecological disaster and acceptance of the stationary state, then a rather different test ought to be applied to social systems. The question then arises as to what sort of society can best cope with the consequences of no-growth.
The interest of Professor Heilbroner's book lies in the fact that he addresses himself to precisely this question. Although he shares some of the assumptions of the advocates of no-growth about the inevitability of catastrophe if the world continues on its present course—without falling into the trap of foreshortening time and pretending that one foot is already over the abyss—he does not share the curious innocence of those who persuade themselves that the stationary state is also the problem-less state. On the contrary, he is gloomily insistent—as he well might be—that no-growth would test the adaptive capacities of mankind in an unprecedented way: that what is often seen as a problem of economic management (turning off the tap of growth, as it were) is in reality a problem of social management with profound implications for the political system of every nation in the global community.
No-growth, as Professor Heilbroner recognizes, would transform both domestic and national politics. Domestically, the traditional issue of income distribution—of who gets what—would acquire new edge; no longer would economic growth act as an emollient of social conflict. Internationally, competition for what would be a fixed amount of wealth might well turn into a cutthroat struggle between the poor countries (perhaps equipped with nuclear weaponry) and the rich nations. At best there would be continued tension, erupting occasionally into local conflicts; at worst, there would be nuclear catastrophe.
Given this prospect, Professor Heilbroner sees little hope for representative democratic systems based on a capitalist economy. Since these have failed “to create atmospheres of social harmony” even in conditions of growth, he is pessimistic about the capacity to cope with such problems as an acceptable distribution of a fixed amount of income. Besieged internally and externally, they would become increasingly authoritarian. But Professor Heilbroner's pessimism is all-embracing. He is equally skeptical about the adaptive capacity of planned “socialist” societies like Russia. For, as he sees it, the challenge of no-growth is to industrial society as such, irrespective of whether industry is privately or publicly owned. It is precisely because the American and Russian systems (using these as shorthand for two opposing models of government) both compete in the same terms, because they depend on industrial growth as their justification, that they are equally vulnerable in the long term.
There is only one type of society which, in Professor Heilbroner's view, seems suited to conditions of no-growth: the kind of society epitomized by Mao's China. The reason for this is not, as I understand the argument, because China is a socialist society but because it responds to certain basic human drives. In particular, it meets the need for parental figures—like chairman Mao—and for identification with the tribe or nation. In short, no-growth would mean a return to the political womb (the metaphor is deliberate, since Professor Heilbroner argues that both the desire for authoritarian leadership and for identification with a wider community reflects childhood experience).
It is possible to argue with some aspects of this analysis. For example, even China is a growth society. Income per head has risen significantly over the past twenty years. What is more, there are considerable inequalities in the distribution of income: the most skilled technician may get up to seven times the income of the least skilled worker. So China can hardly be held up as a model of the successful stationary state.
Still, there is little consolation to be drawn from making that point since China could well be the model of the unsuccessful stationary state. In other words, Professor Heilbroner may well be right that Chinese society shows the price, in social and political terms, that may have to be paid for the achievement of no-growth. The emphasis on communal, at the expense of individual, values, the stress on social control as against personal achievement, could well be the hallmark of the stationary state.
It is an exceedingly depressing prospect (those who like the cozy sound of phrases like “communal values” might like to remind themselves that the other side of this particular coin tends to be the repression of dissent; togetherness can shade off all too easily into intolerance). And it is meant as such. For Professor Heilbroner takes no joy in his vision; like myself, he finds it as repugnant as it is persuasive. It would mean, as he points out remorselessly since he is something of an intellectual self-flagellant, the surrender of “political, social, and intellectual freedom” in favor of tradition, ritual, and the acceptance of “communally organized and ordained roles.”
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To accept the diagnosis is not, however, to accept also that the disease must take its inevitable, predestined course, as Professor Heilbroner is inclined to do. For as he himself points out—with more realism than is usually found among the prophets of doomsday—the timetable of the progress toward ecological disaster must be measured in terms not of the next few years or decades but of the coming century or more. Measured against the span of mankind's history, this is admittedly no more than a pinpoint on the scroll of global chronology. But it is quite a considerable period when one considers that the ravenous technology which threatens to precipitate the crisis is itself the product largely of the past century. It is certainly long enough for unexpected, because at this stage unpredictable, developments to prove the doomsday prophets wrong—a possibility which Professor Heilbroner does not appear to take seriously.
From this I would argue—against Professor Heilbroner—that the most immediate danger may lie in overreacting to what is still a problematic danger: in attempting to avert too quickly and too precipitately what is a distant and speculative doomsday. Given a sudden clamp-down on the economic brakes, it is only too likely that the passengers would go through the political windshield—that it would require an authoritarian regime to compel acquiescence. Given an attitude of careful skepticism, it might be possible not only to accommodate to change less catastrophically but also to change direction if present-day assumptions about the future turn out to be misleading.
In other words, I think a social-learning model can be opposed to Professor Heilbroner's social-revolution model. This would imply a process of gradual adaptation, allowing for trial and error and the possibility that the ecological pessimists may be proved wrong by events. As Professor Heilbroner himself mentions, without pursuing the logic of his own argument, there is already a trend toward a service-based, as distinct from an industry-based, society—Daniel Bell's post-industrial society. Although the growth of this kind of economy still shows up in the conventional figures of Gross National Product, it does not make the same demands on environmental resources: a warning about the complexity of the whole concept of no-growth. Societies are still in process, and simply extrapolating from past experience can be extremely misleading. Freudian determinism—by which I mean the extrapolation from childhood experience to political organization made by Professor Heilbroner—would seem to be just as chancy as ecological determinism.
A cautious, incremental approach carries the risk that change and adaptation may be too slow to meet the deadlines laid down by the doomsday prophets. The risk is certainly there, though the spurious precision of some of the deadlines that have been hawked around ought to be a warning against treating them too seriously. But the value of Professor Heilbroner's book lies in its stress on the social and political risks inherent in a no-growth strategy. The situation facing mankind—the human prospect of the title—is therefore not one which allows a simple choice because one danger so dominates all others that there is no option but to plunge in at the deep end without worrying whether there is a life-belt around. Rather it requires a careful mix of policies—a sort of global hedging of bets—which balances one set of risks against another.
This may be an unacceptable conclusion for those who like the reassurance of simple slogans like no-growth and who dislike the prospect of uncertainty. But it is a very comforting one for those who like myself are persuaded that Professor Heilbroner's warnings about the possible consequences of the stationary state are only too likely to prove right if this particular objective is pursued all-out. He is the most useful sort of prophet: the prophet who may be proved wrong precisely because he is persuasive enough to jolt his audience into thinking again about their basic assumptions. If the social and political price of no-growth is indeed as high and certain as he maintains, then it would seem that the speculative ecological risks of a policy of continued growth might well be preferable.

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