Analytical Paper II

Over the course of the semester we have been discussing our world and many of the problems with it. The beginning of the semester and the first three books more or less educated us about the problems within our country and in some respects what it happening around the world. The next three books, Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Mid-Course Correction by Ray C. Anderson. These books all talked about problems in the more global sense, they also presented different solutions than we read about before. It is very interesting seeing different perspectives and possible solutions to the challenges we face politically, socially, environmentally and culturally. We also face challenges when it comes to global consumption and our extreme use of natural resources. After reading these books and paying attention to the news you hear and seeing more of the challenges face and by interactively reading these books and then seeing other people talking about it, it really helps the message sink in. Throughout these books we see three different views and three different ways we can try to improve our ways along with everyone else’s to improve this planet for everyone who will live on it in the future.

At the beginning of McKibben’s book he talks about history much like Ishmael and how our economy has evolved over the course of history. He states “Keynes calculated, the standard of living had increased one hundred percent over those four thousand years.” (McKibben, pg. 5) He talks about how before history began humans did not know how to do anything new. We had the basic things down that we had to have in order to survive. In the early 1700’s McKibben explains that something “new” finally happened that would revolutionize the way we do business and transport goods in this country forever. The Steam engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. (McKibben, pg. 5) This produced steam power by burning coal and using the steam to run the pump. We began to produce goods with much less labor and economic growth from here on out grew by huge multiples to where we are now. Increasing efficiency played a key role in the development of businesses and economies. “The dynamic entrepreneurial actors unleashed by the new economic revolution soon showed that businesses could keep improving their operations, apparently indefinitely.” (McKibben, pg. 6) The fact that people were inventing ways to cut cost to make more money and then in turn grow is something that has still not changed now. We are starting to see the same sort of trend all over the world. The statistic the author gives is that eighty countries have seen per capita income fall in the last decade (McKibben, pg. 12) There is no good explanation for this really other than the fact that technology and the disappearance of a strong union base has driven many of the jobs that people would have here in the states overseas because they have figured out a way to produce goods more efficiently and at a much lower cost. McKibben in his book takes the side of fairness when it comes to this topic. He says, “I agree with the argument of fairness, that we should distribute wealth more equitably both here and around the globe.” (McKibben, pg. 14) And he argues on the same page that if we really wanted growth, we would try harder to distribute wealth more fairly so that the economy could benefit from everyone. While this is a problem and might help a little it is not one of the major problems that our economy faces today. These inventions and innovations are commonly looked on as a positive thing but McKibben takes the opposite side and shows us “Three Fundamental Challenges to the fixation on growth.” (McKibben, pg. 11) The first is political: “growth, at least as we now create it, is producing more inequality than prosperity, more insecurity than progress. Basically he is say in that although we have been growing as an economy for hundreds of years that we really do not have a whole lot to show for it other than many material things. The second argument he makes is science based and says that as scientists keep researching they are finding that we do not have the fossil fuels to keep our rate of growth going and that we will not be able to take care of the pollution that it produces even if we did have the supplies. The third argument McKibben makes is that the way we are growing is no longer making anyone happy.

McKibben states in his book “Though our economy has been growing, most of us have little to show for it.” (McKibben, pg. 11) He talks about how the lower 90 percent of American taxpayers have seen their income decline fairly steadily. (McKibben, pg. 11) He gives us some shocking statistics about how even the well educated people have seen their earnings decrease over the recent years. Earnings have been falling for a long time in the