On the Equity of a Synarchic Minimal-Regret Population
© 2003 Joseph George Caldwell.
All rights reserved. Posted at
Internet web sites http://www.foundation.bw
and http://www.foundationwebsite.org
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non-commercial use, with attribution.
(7 July 2003)
In earlier
writings, I have proposed a synarchic minimal-regret population of ten million
as a feasible basis for planetary management of Earth. A “minimal-regret” population is one for
which the likelihood of extinction from human causes is low for both the human
species and for the other species of the biosphere. The minimal-regret population proposed in Can America Survive?
consists of two components: a single-nation (city-state, planetary management
organization) high-technology population of five million and a low-technology
population of hunter-gatherers distributed over the planet. The purpose of the high-technology
population is to maintain the planetary population at a level of about ten
million by preventing industrial development anywhere on the planet except
within the city-state. The purpose of
the low-technology population is to reduce the likelihood of human-species
extinction from a local catastrophe or pandemic disease.
The size of
ten million people was arrived at by the following chain of reasoning. First, the planet Earth was able to support
a hunter-gatherer population of 5-20 million people for millions of years, with
no significant damage caused to the biosphere by the human population. Second, since the dawn of agriculture about
10,000 years ago, the planet was able to support a human population of about
200-500 million low-energy-consuming people (e.g., nomadic herders,
agricultural peasant-farmers, very few and very low-energy-consuming city
dwellers) with relatively little damage to the biosphere (extermination of a
number of species of large animals, such as mastodons, but not of tens of thousands
of species per year, as is being done today).
Third, a high-technology person consumes about 100 times as much
human-controlled (“commercial,” or “manufactured”) energy as a low-technology
person (this figure is obtained, e.g., by comparing per-capita energy
utilizations of people in very poor countries vs. those in very industrialized
countries). In view of these
observations, it is posited that if we limit the total planetary utilization of
human-controlled energy to the level that “worked” to maintain planetary
biological diversity for thousands of years, then we have a chance to achieve
long-term sustainability of the biosphere.
It is desired, then, that the total manufactured-energy consumption of
the human population (both the high-technology (high-energy-consuming) and the
low-technology (low-energy-consuming) components, combined) should be
comparable to that level. Let us denote
this level by E.
The
determination of a long-term-sustainable population for Earth depends very much
on the level of living of the population.
From archaeological and historical evidence, we have knowledge of what
sizes and types of populations can and cannot be supported. The planet was able to support 2-20 million
hunter-gatherers for millions of years without damage to the biosphere. It was able to support 200-500 million
low-technology people (primitive agriculturalists, nomadic herders, and a small
number of primitive urban dwellers) for ten thousand years. It cannot support six billion
high-technology people (or even one billion high-technology people and five
billion low-technology people, as presently inhabit Earth) without causing
ecological collapse of the biosphere.
The issue to be addressed is what “mix” of technology-type populations
is supportable and desirable for long-term survivability (of both the human
species and the other species of the biosphere). Under the condition that the total consumption of manufactured
energy be comparable to the amount consumed by 200-500 million low-technology
people, the number may vary from a high of 200-500 million (if the population
is low-technology) to a low of 2-5 million (if the population is
high-technology, using 100 times as much energy per person).
The
“minimal-regret” population proposed in Can America Survive? consists of
a single-nation high-technology population of five million and a low-technology
population of five million hunter-gatherers distributed over the planet. Such a population consumes no more than the
level E of energy. (Note that although
hunter-gatherers consume no manufactured energy, they require natural habitat
of about 25 square kilometres per person.
It is not possible, therefore, to accommodate a population of five
million hunter-gatherers if a low-technology primitive-agriculture/herding
population covers the globe. From the
viewpoint of resource utilization (ranging space, solar energy), a
hunter-gatherer utilizes about ten to one-hundred times as much as a
low-technology person (5-20 million vs. 200-500 million)).)
There are,
of course, many other population sizes and compositions that would be unlikely
to cause serious damage to the biosphere (e.g., no people at all!). As discussed in Can America Survive?,
there are other reasons for recommending the preceding population as a feasible
population size and composition for Earth.
These will not be discussed here, other than to mention that the
possibility of global war is eliminated by having but a single high-technology
nation (planetary management organization) on the planet. In other articles, I have discussed a
proposed organizational structure (synarchy, or synarchism) as the management
basis for operating the planet (i.e., governing the human population).
This brief
article was motivated by a remark made to me a few weeks ago that the
“minimal-regret” population might indeed preserve the biosphere, but “how would
the hunter-gatherers feel about the arrangement?” I must confess that I was initially surprised at this remark,
until it occurred to me that the individual expressing the view had not read
any of my works, including Can America Survive? His preconceived notion of
“hunter-gatherers” was the common misconception that life for hunter-gatherers
was, in the words of Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short.” My friend was of the opinion that the
hunter-gatherers (of the minimal-regret population) were impoverished, deprived
people living in misery, whereas the high-technology urban population were
living a wealthy existence with all material comforts. This representation is totally false.
As I, and
many others, have observed, the life of hunter-gatherers is nothing of the sort
imagined by Hobbes. It is a lifestyle
that is, overall, exciting, meaningful, pleasant, comfortable, and leisurely. It has been estimated that hunter-gatherer
societies can and do provide for all of their needs with about two days’ work
per week. The remainder of the time is
available for a variety of discretionary social and cultural activities, such
as socializing, exploration, discovery, and arts and crafts.
At the same
time, the life of the members of the single-nation city-state (the planetary
management organization) is also, overall, comfortable, meaningful, and
fulfilling. From the viewpoint of the
activities of daily living, however, the two lifestyles are radically
different. It has been said that the
major “paths to God” (paths to spiritual realization and development) are love,
knowledge and action. Not all people
take the same paths, at the same time.
To make life interesting, it is necessary that people and societies are
different, and do different things. The
greater the level of diversity, the greater the level of interest. Both populations of the minimal-regret
scheme are engaged in meaningful and interesting activities. Those activities are, however, very
different.
In the
synarchic minimal-regret population, there is no global poverty and no global
war. There is no global disease: the
risk of a planetary epidemic is minimized, because the planetary
hunter-gatherer population consists, as in the past, of independent and
isolated tribes that intermingle to a very limited degree. There is no global famine. The scourges of civilization – plague,
famine, and war – are eliminated.
A comment
is in order concerning the amount of and kind of energy utilized by the three
types of human populations discussed here (viz., the hunter-gatherer
population, the low-technology population, and the high-technology
population). We shall examine the
energy requirements of four hypothetical populations: (1) a global population
of five million hunter-gatherers; (2) a global population of 250 million
low-technology people (primitive agriculture, nomadic herding); (3) a global
population of five million high-technology people; and (4) a “minimal-regret”
population of five million high-technology people and five million
hunter-gatherers. Since each of these
populations is considered to be about the maximum capacity of that type (without
causing significant change to the biosphere), each of these populations hence
utilizes all of the planet’s solar energy.
A global
hunter-gather population of five million uses no human-controlled
(“commercial,” “manufactured”) energy.
The amount of solar energy utilized to support this lifestyle is,
however, massive. There are about 12.5
billion hectares (125 million square kilometres) of habitable land on the
planet. For a global hunter-gatherer
population of five million, the human population density is about four people
per hundred square kilometres. The
amount of solar energy reaching one hectare each day in the temperate regions
ranges from 15 to 40 million kilocalories (the amount of energy captured by
plants is about one percent of the amount reaching the Earth). (See Pimentel and Pimentel, Food, Energy,
and Society, p. 13, for more discussion.)
Over the course of a year, the average solar energy received per hectare
is about 1.4 x 1010 (14 billion) kcal, which is the equivalent of
about 452 thousand gallons (1.7 million liters) of gasoline per hectare per
year. Each hunter-gatherer is hence
realizing the benefit of 2,500 times this amount (since he requires about 25
square kilometres, or 2,500 hectares, of habitable land), or about 1.13 billion
gallons (4.25 billion liters) of gasoline per year.
A global
low-technology population of 250 million uses the same total amount of solar
energy as the population of five million hunter-gatherers (i.e., all of
it!), so each person utilizes 5/250 = 1/25 as much. They also use a small amount of “manufactured” (controllable)
energy. At the present time, people in
very underdeveloped countries utilize about 80 kilograms of oil equivalent
(kgoe) per person per year of commercial energy.
A global
high-technology population of five million also uses the same total amount of
solar energy as the population of five million hunter-gatherers (i.e., all of
it), and a certain amount of manufactured energy. At the present time, people in highly industrialized countries
consume about 8,000 kilograms of oil equivalent per person per year of
commercial energy. In the single-nation
high-technology population of five million (of the minimal-regret population),
however, the per-capita utilization of manufactured energy will be much greater
than the 8,000 kgoe level of current highly industrialized societies. The 8,000 kgoe figure is an average, and it
is very low. Many of the people of a
modern industrial society utilize relatively little manufactured energy, and
there are high “fixed costs” of energy for a technological society (so that a
small one uses more controllable energy per capita than a large one). The most productive members control vastly
more, e.g., 100 times as much more, than the poor or even the middle-class
members of the society. In a minimal-regret
population, the high-technology nation may control, e.g., 100 times as much
manufactured energy as today’s average for highly industrialized nations.
(It should
be recognized that today, most of the commercial energy comes from fossil fuels;
at current rates of consumption the petroleum will be gone within less than 50
years, and the coal somewhat later (100-400 years). While it is not possible to substitute sustainable (solar) forms
of commercial energy for the amount of oil or coal consumed by the planet’s six
billion people, it certainly is possible to do this for a global population of
250 million low-technology people or five million high-technology people.)
Finally, in
a minimal-regret population of five million high-technology people and five
million hunter-gatherers, the two populations share the solar energy rather
equally, except for the fact that the high-technology population will consume,
in addition, a large amount of human-controlled (“manufactured”) energy. That amount (whether 8,000 kgoe or 100 times
that amount) is negligible compared to the total annual amount of solar energy
divided by ten million, i.e., 12.5 billion ha of habitable land x 1.7 million
liters of gasoline per ha / ten million people = 2.125 billion liters of
gasoline per person.
From the
point of view of energy benefit, the hunter-gatherer is much better off than
the low-technology person (who receives the benefit of 1/25 of the solar
energy, and must work very hard to convert his meagre allotment of manufactured
energy (animal power, wood, water power, wind power, biomass, etc.) into the
things that he needs (e.g., food, clothing, shelter) or which his leaders
demand (bricks, textiles, public buildings, palaces, temples, roads, canals,
aqueducts, weaponry, luxury fabrics, jewelry, and agricultural surplus to
maintain government and the military and provide for lean years).
The
comparison of the hunter-gatherer to the high-technology person, however, is
much more interesting and pleasant.
Both are utilizing (receiving the benefit of) about the same amount of
(solar) energy. Most of this energy is
used the same way, i.e., to maintain the biosphere, but in the high-technology
society a small fraction is used in a very different way: it is converted to
manufactured (controllable) energy for technological purposes. The hunter-gatherer can take food and other
products from an exquisite variety and bounty of plants and animals with a
minimal expenditure of effort and can enjoy an endless variety of spectacular
vistas every day. The hunter-gatherer
works two days out of seven, whereas the high-technology urban dweller
typically works five days out of seven (whether by choice or necessity). While the quality of life may be high for
both the high-technology urban dweller and the hunter-gatherer, it is a
radically different lifestyle. Both
have the wherewithal to enjoy a meaningful and interesting and exciting
existence, but the contexts in which that takes place are very different. From the viewpoint of “paths to God,” the
hunter-gatherer’s lifestyle is dominated by action (hunting, fishing,
socializing, adventure, local conflict), whereas the high-technology person’s
lifestyle is dominated by knowledge. In
today’s terminology, the high-technology society is a “knowledge society.”
My friend’s
gut reaction was that the hunter-gatherer was “getting the short end of the
stick,” in the minimal-regret population paradigm. That is not at all the case.
Both share the planet’s solar energy flux equally. The members of both components of the
minimal-regret population have freedoms and they have restrictions. They both have challenges, and they both
have requirements and obligations.
Their activities are very different.
Some people would prefer the life of a hunter-gatherer to that of a
member of the planetary management organization. It is very clear that most urban dwellers on the planet today,
living in misery, squalor, oppression and deprivation, would choose either the
lifestyle of the hunter-gatherer society (with 25 square kilometres of natural
living space per person) or the lifestyle of a member of the single-nation
city-state planetary management organization as preferable to his present
existence.
That more
people would choose one lifestyle to the other is not at all clear. The preference depends on personality,
values and abilities (i.e., their location on their “path to God”). The hunter-gatherer is in fact much
“wealthier” than the city-state dweller, in terms of freedom to roam and
leisure time (i.e., in terms of freedom in space and time). The challenges in his life may be viewed by
some as less complex, or less “civilized,” and therefore less interesting and
meaningful than those of the city-state dweller, but this is arguable, since it
depends very much on the personality and stage of development of the
individual. The member of the planetary
management organization has an assigned mission (viz., a role in the planetary
management organization), but so too does the member of the hunter-gatherer
society (viz., his role in the tribe).
Both have opportunities for spiritual development, but their life takes
place in very different vocational contexts.
The high-technology person is involved in management, science,
engineering, and all of the other fields of endeavor of technological
society. The hunter-gatherer is
involved in the challenges of life in a natural environment. The high-technology person has far less
leisure time than the hunter-gatherer, and, it may follow, less opportunity for
spiritual development. This may help
explain, as observed by many New Age writers (e.g., Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald
Walsch) why primitive tribal societies appear to be more developed spiritually
than modern technological societies.
An issue
that I have not addressed here, or at length in my other writings, is whether
or how or ot what extent individuals may move from the hunter-gatherer society
to the high-technology society, or vice versa.
That issue was addressed to some extent by Plato (in The Republic),
but was largely avoided by Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in his discussion of
synarchy. In Plato’s (ideal) society,
people could move into leadership positions (the “Guardians”) by merit. In Saint-Yves’ synarchic society, leadership
is restricted to “enlightened initiates.”
Neither writer provided details on the mechanism for social mobility
from the nonleadership class to the leadership class, or vice versa (e.g., how
to measure “merit,” or how to become an “enlightened initiate”). I do not have much to say about that issue
at the present time, but will address it at a later date.
To
summarize, both the members of the high-technology society and the
hunter-gatherer society of the minimal-regret populations are deriving benefit
from comparable amounts of solar energy (that benefit being preservation of the
biosphere). There is much freedom of
action and freedom from want, but their lifestyles (activities of daily living)
are very different. Any comparison
between them must recognize that their lifestyles are multidimensional in
nature, and differ markedly on different dimensions. Since the lifestyles are not single-dimensional, it is not
possible to rank them in simple fashion and declare that a member of one is
“better off” or “worse off” than a member of the other. Both are very well off, but in very
different ways. From a general concept
of “equity,” both populations fare extremely well.
Perhaps my
friend had confused the life of a “low-technology” person with that of a
hunter-gatherer. The life of a
low-technology person is truly miserable (except for the few wealthy
rulers). He has little or no
opportunity to take advantage of nature’s bounty, as does the
hunter-gatherer. He must provide for
his family’s needs on a meagre ration of manufactured energy. He must provide a considerable proportion of
his productive output to the state or to his employer or owner. He has little freedom either in time or
space. He must work hard every day, on
meaningless, repetitive tasks. He
cannot provide adequately for his family.
His vocation destroys natural habitat.
He has essentially no rights or privileges. With poor nutrition and sanitation, he suffers from disease. He may die in a war that is not of his
choosing. His life is a mean one, of
poverty, penury, deprivation, disease, violence, oppression and want. The low-technology society compares very
poorly to either the hunter-gatherer society or the high-technology society of
the minimal-regret population. It is,
however, the way of life for most people on the planet today. (See Thom Hartmann’s The Last Hours of
Ancient Sunlight for more discussion of the advantages of the tribal life
of hunter-gatherers over that of low-technology societies.)