Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401230176
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by JUSTIN ASKINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"How Business Will Thrive and the Earth Survive in Years to Come" is the subtitle and thesis of this fascinating yet severely circumscribed volume. Silverstein genuflects before the God of Business on almost every page, seeing commercial enterprise - as opposed to any emotional, aesthetic or spiritual desires or needs - as the end-all of human existence. He may be right, but for the Earth's sake I hope not.
Silverstein uses the term "enomics" to label "a set of changes so profound, they can literally be said to constitute a second stage of the Industrial Revolution." These changes, "well-advanced, largely market-based rather than regulation- based . . . constitute a new economic reality that today, not in some distant unsustainable future, make synonymous environmentally and economically sound behavior."
This sounds wonderful, but in the real world, where population growth is devastatingly out of control and consumer demand is all too often for wasteful and unnecessary products, "enomics" is a fairy tale.
Silverstein briefly traces the history of the battle between mainstream environmentalists and commercial interests, concluding that both groups "went along with the single premise that . . . we had to make a fundamental choice between environmental protection and economic well-being."
I believe that this crucial decision is still there: we cannot have environmental protection and continue our unabated right to consume, which is inherent in Silverstein's definition of economic well-being.
Silverstein cites an impressive array of statistics to support his claims that big business is changing, but besides making no reference to the population question, he forgets that the history of technological solutions to environmental problems is a dismal one (for instance, look at how nuclear power was first heralded as a clean and virtually eternal source of power). Because of this myopia, Silverstein is able to conclude that "Late-twentieth-century growth is far more environmentally sensitized and, for that reason (at least in theory), infinitely sustainable."
What nonsense.
The simple facts are that the Earth is a very finite planet, and any human strategy which involves endless growth is reckless and unsustainable, period.
A deeper problem with this book is that it tremendously underestimates the value of preservationist thinking, the idea that we need wilderness to survive. Only a writer who had no sense of what is sacred could write, "This planet's ecosystems are in the process of being saved not by a surge in international ethical standards, but because the marketplace has found good economic reasons to save them."
I admit that market pressures are, in certain instances, helping to protect ecosystems, but to assume that they are the critical factors denies millions of years of human evolution and contact with a rich and varied natural world. We come from the Earth, not from the Management Institute at New York University (where Silverstein teaches). In terms of business, population and hard technology, no growth is progress. It's as simple as that.
ustin Askins teaches at Radford University.
by CNB