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of the population in the underdeveloped world has no ambition to reach Western standards — indeed, does
230 not even know that such a thing as «development» is on the agenda. But the elites of these nations, for all
their rhetorical rejection of Western (and especially American) styles of life, do tend to picture a Western
standard as the ultimate end of their activities. As it becomes clear that such an objective is impossible, a
235 profound reorientation of views must take place within the underdeveloped nations.
20.The implications of the ecological crisis for the advanced nations are not any less severe, although
they are of a different kind. For it is clear that free industrial growth is just as disastrous for the Western
240 nations as a free population growth for those of the East and South. The worship in the West of a growing
Gross National Product must be recognized as not only a deceptive but a very dangerous avatar; Kenneth
245 Boulding has begun a campaign, in which I shall join him, to label this statistical monster Gross National
Cost.
21.The necessity to bring our economic activities into a sustainable relationship with the resource
250 capabilities and waste absorption properties of the world will pose two problems for the West, On the
simpler level, a whole series of technological problems must be met. Fume-free transportation must be
developed on land and air. The cult of disposability must be replaced by that of reusability. Population
stability must be attained through tax and other inducements, both to conserve resources and to preserve
255 reasonable population densities. Many of these problems will tax our ingenuity, technical and socio-
political, but the main problem they pose is not whether, but how soon they can be solved.
22. But there is another, deeper question that the developed nations face — at least those that have
260 capitalist economies. This problem can be stated as a crucial test as to who was right — John Stuart Mill or
Karl Marx. Mill maintained, in his famous Principles, that the terminus of capitalist evolution would be a
stationary state, in which the return to capital had fallen to insignifficance, and a redistributive tax system
265 would be able to capture any flows of income to the holders of scarce resources such as land. In effect, he
prophesied the transformation of capitalism, in an environment of abundance, into a balanced economy, in
270 which the capitalist both as the generator of change and as the main claimant on the surplus generated by
change, would in effect undergo a painless euthanasia.
23.The Marxian view is of course quite the opposite. The very essence of capitalism, according to Marx,
is expansion— which is to say, the capitalist, as a historical «type», finds his raison d'etre in the insatiable
275 search for additional moneywealth gained through the constant growth of the economic system. The idea of
a «stationary» capitalism is, in Marxian eyes, a contradiction in terms, on a logical par with a democratic
aristocracy or an industrial feudalism.
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24.Is the Millian or the Marxian view correct? I do not think that we can yet say. Some economic
growth is certainly compatible with a stabilized rate of resource use and disposal, for growth could take the
form of the expenditure of additional labor on the improvement (aesthetic or technical) of the national
285 environment. Indeed, insofar as education or cultural activity are forms of national output that require little
use or resources and result in little waste product, national output could be indefinitely expanded through
290 these and similar activities. But there is no doubt that the main avenue of traditional capitalist accumulation
would have to be considerably constrained; that net investment in mining and manufacturing would
effectively cease; that the rate and kind of technological change would need to be supervised and probably
295 greatly reduced; and that as a consequence the flow of profits would almost certainly fall.
25.Is this imaginable within a capitalist setting — that is, in a nation in which the business ideology
permeates the views of nearly all groups and classes and establishes the bounds of what is possible and
300 natural, and what is not? Ordinarily I do not see how such a question could he answered in any way but
negatively, for it is tantamount to asking a dominant class to acquiesce in the elimination of the very
activities that sustain it. But this is an extraordinary challenge that may evoke an extraordinary response.
305 Like the challenge posed by war, the ecological crisis affects all classes, and therefore may be sufficient to
induce sociological changes that would be unthinkable in ordinary circumstances.
WATER, WAR & PEACE
IN THE MIDDLE EAST
by Peter H. Gleick
Peter H. Gleick is director of the Global Environmental Program of the Pacific Institute for Studies in
Development, Environment, and Security, based in Oakland, California. Partial support for the