One of the easiest ways to explain complex issues is with a good chart. A picture is worth a thousand words. Most people can readily understand the distribution of resources, or financial expenditures, or sources of energy, or a hundred other issues, by looking at a colorful pie chart. A third of something is for this purpose, another half for that, and a fifth for the other thing. It is also a clever way to explain why there isn’t enough to go around, but that isn’t always right. Especially regarding economic resources, it divides up the pie, but ignores the other possibility – getting a bigger pie.
Free enterprise, free trade, and the ability to profit from creativity, have resulted in a larger economy, and ever-growing resources, in many parts of the world. Pessimists often say available resources are limited, shrinking, and will soon be exhausted. It is almost never true.
Best-selling author and MIT research scientist Andrew McAfee has published several books on how digital technologies are changing our world. His new book is his most eye-opening, called “More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources…” He makes a persuasive case that people have finally learned how to increase prosperity, while enhancing their environment, not destroying it.
During the industrial age, environmental devastation, such as clear-cut forests, polluted air and water, were all too common. Concern about rivers catching fire and the near extinction of bald eagles prompted development and growth of the conservation movement, especially in America. The environment is cleaner and healthier as a result – or is it? McAfree actually argues that mankind’s greatest improvements are less the result of government regulation, and more the result of continuous improvements in technology, enabled by freedom.
The government approach is always based on punitive regulation, attempting to force people to reduce production, and especially consumption. But McAfee says solving environmental problems does not require significant lifestyle changes. People simply need to continue what is already happening – increasing technology and growing market-based economies. In fact, government-controlled economies are counterproductive, because they hinder the growth of technology.
He shows that America, which represents a fourth of the world’s economy, is using less of most resources every year, while its economy and population grow. The U.S. also produces less pollution in the air and water, and emits fewer greenhouse gases annually.
Such progress should not surprise anyone. Free people motivated to get more from less, and therefore improve their lives, have always found new ways to do so. Consider the phenomenon of declining acreage producing increasing crops. Cropland in America has declined nine million acres since World War II, while corn production has quadrupled, thanks to new farming technology like hybrid corn, synthetic fertilizers, and better machinery. McAfee offers several other examples, citing that between 1950 and 2015, US milk production almost doubled, while the herd shrank from 22 million cows to 9 million – a 330 percent increase in productivity. Similarly, he shows that aluminum cans that weighed 85 grams in 1959 now weigh only 13 grams.
Anthropologist Matt Ridley points out that “A car today emits less pollution traveling at full speed than a parked car did from leaks in 1970.” Technological advances have also resulted in a billion fewer people living in extreme poverty, just since 1999. “Hundreds of millions fewer people are living in poverty now than in 1820, when the world’s total population was seven times smaller than it is today.”
The federal government reacted to the 1973 Arab oil embargo by mandating better gas mileage in cars. But by the time the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were adopted in 1978, setting a requirement of 18 miles per gallon (MPG), the free market had already overtaken government’s best idea. The Toyota Corolla was already getting 32-39 MPG, and Honda Accord 30-37. 1978 Dodge Challengers got over 30 MPG, and Chevettes 34. Even Camaros, Firebirds, and Mustangs beat the CAFE standard. Americans began buying small pickups in record numbers – 100,000 Chevy Luvs and Ford Couriers each year for over a decade. Both exceeded CAFE standards by 10 percent. Smaller cars began to dominate the market, and within four years Ford’s smallest car, the Escort, became the best-selling car in America, far exceeding mileage requirements. Tesla sales topped a million this year, without any government requirement for electric cars.
Free and prosperous people do not look at problems and see only shortages, rules, and sacrifice. They see opportunities to make the pie bigger.
This column originally appeared in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel July 10, 2020.
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