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First Principles

© Larry Winn

When the USSR folded its tent in 1991, some historians called the news "the end of history", since history's prime mover, the conflict of ideologies, had vanished with the supposed triumph of capitalism.

Historians needn't have worried. An older conflict has emerged from the shadows to take the place of the Cold War. It is a clash that has raised and crushed empires, built civilizations and toppled them, made fortunes and beggared nations. It burns in the human soul. It's a Jimmy Durante tune that you can't get out of your head: "Sometimes ya feel like ya gotta go; sometimes ya feel like ya gotta stay. Gotta go; Gotta stay ..."

For a certain Spanish admiral from Genoa, the explorer's side of this conflict was an article of faith. Thomas Jefferson built a political career on it. Karl Marx mistook it for a conflict between labor and capital. Charles Dickens saw it as a clash between want and greed. Most of us probably recognize it as a struggle between those who propose "sustainable development" because it gives them regulatory power and those who just want to be let alone.

Back in 1984 hardly anyone had heard of the "greenhouse effect", and anyone who took seriously the idea that human activity could warm the atmosphere was considered a crackpot. There was no ozone hole. But other things were going on. Toxic plumes from landfills and storage tanks contaminated ground water. Developers built houses and playgrounds over buried drums of poison that leaked to the surface. Cancer-causing asbestos fibers and flakes of polyvinylchloride floated through the air of residential communities. The operative word was "cleanup".

Viewing these developments with alarm, as well they should, environmentalists have taken up the cause of saving the earth. They have developed a formula, which you can find in Al Gore's book Earth in the Balance, that expresses the impact of human activity in terms of the product of population and affluence. It drives Mr. Gore to the conclusion that the industrialized nations must moderate their affluence in order to boost the economies, and moderate the birth rates, of the developing nations.

That's a conflict. People want "stuff". They'll rape the earth to get it. They will moderate nothing, give not an inch, even under the hammer of the law. Will the struggle produce political Armageddon, some kind of deep green terrorism? It's hard to tell. That's what gives this story suspense.

One thing is certain. It's going to get harder to make good. Why? Take a look around you. Chances are, unless you're looking up, virtually everything you see is owned. Not only do most of the things you see belong to someone, but social roles are becoming closed as well. It used to be, and not so long ago, either, that a high school education was adequate to begin an apprenticeship in many careers. You could run for public office without owning a mint or selling your soul. The leading roles are not as solidly cast as they were in, say, the Middle Ages, but they will be.