Not blind opposition to progress

This article’s title and subtitle are taken from a quote that’s in the book The Limits to Growth.

It was published in 1972 and, while it is of its time, reading it now kind of shows how many things have changed but not a lot has actually happened with the bettering of humanity’s attitudes, approaches, values and efforts.

Reading it one did feel like mankind hasn't really faced these global and national issues very well since its publication 52 years ago (as of 2024), but its commentary by The Club of Rome (a think tank) finishes the good work written and explained (along with the data modelled to help explain the big pictures) by the book’s four authors (and many supporting writers and institutions) is rather decent.

A little of that commentary at the book’s end is quoted below, to show its insight and perspective:

Many reviewers shared our belief that the essential significance of the project lies in its global concept, for it is through knowledge of wholes that we gain understanding of components, and not vice versa. The report presents in straightforward form the alternatives confronting not one nation or people but all nations and all peoples, thereby compelling a reader to raise his sights to the dimensions of the world problematique. A drawback of this approach is of course that – given the heterogeneity of world society, national political structures, and levels of development – the conclusions of the study, although valid for our planet as a whole, do not apply in detail to any particular country or region.

It is true that in practice events take place in the world sporadically at points of stress – not generally or simultaneously throughout the planet. So, even if the consequences anticipated by the model were, through human inertia and political difficulties, allowed to occur, they would no doubt appear first in a series of local crises and disasters.

But it is probably no less true that these crises would have repercussions worldwide and that many nations and people, by taking hasty remedial action or retreating into isolationism and attempting self-sufficiency, would but aggravate the conditions operating in the system as a whole. The interdependence of the various components of the world system would make such measures futile in the end. War, pestilence, a raw materials starvation of industrial economies, or a generalised economic decay would lead to contagious social disintegration.

[…]

The pessimistic conclusions of the report have been and no doubt will continue to be a matter for debate. Many will believe that, in population growth, for instance, nature will take remedial action, and birth rates will decline before catastrophe threatens. Others may simply feel that the trends identified in the study are beyond human control; these people will wait for ‘something to turn up’. Still others will hope that minor corrections in present policies will lead to a gradual and satisfactory readjustment and possibly to equilibrium. And a great many others are apt to put their trust in technology, with its supposed cornucopia of cure-all solutions.

We welcome and encourage this debate. It is important, in our opinion, to ascertain the true scale of the crisis confronting mankind and the levels of severity it is likely to reach during the next decades.

From the response to the draft report we distributed, we believe this book will cause a growing number of people throughout the world to ask themselves in earnest whether the momentum of present growth may not overshoot the carrying capacity of this planet - and to consider the chilling alternatives such an overshoot implies for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.

[…]

Short of a world effort, today’s already explosive gaps and inequalities will continue to grow larger. The outcome can only be disaster, whether due to the selfishness of individual countries that continue to act purely in their own interests, or to a power struggle between the developing and developed nations. The world system is simply not ample enough nor generous enough to accommodate much longer such egocentric and conflictive behavior by its inhabitants. The closer we come to the material limits to the planet, the more difficult this problem will be to tackle.

[…]

[…] With world population doubling time a little more than 30 years, and decreasing, society will be hard put to meet the needs and expectations of so many more people in so short a period. We are likely to try to satisfy these demands by overexploiting our natural environment and further impairing the life-supporting capacity of the earth. Hence, on both sides of the man-environment equation, the situation will tend to worsen dangerously. We cannot expect technological solutions alone to get us out of this vicious circle. The strategy for dealing with the two key issues of development and environment must be conceived as a joint one.

[…]

[…] Our present situation is so complex and is so much a reflection of man’s multiple activities, however, that no combination of purely technical, economic, or legal measures and devices can bring substantial improvement. Entirely new approaches are required to redirect society toward goals of equilibrium rather than growth. Such a reorganisation will involve a supreme effort of understanding, imagination, and political and moral resolve. We believe that the effort is feasible and we hope that this publication will help to mobilise forces to make it possible.

[…]

[…] Although the effort may initially focus on the implications of growth, particularly of population growth, the totality of the world problematique will soon have to be addressed. We believe in fact that the need will quickly become evident for social innovation to match technical change, for radical reform of institutions and political processes at all levels, including the highest, that of world polity. We are confident that our generation will accept this challenge if we understand the tragic consequences that inaction may bring.

We have no doubt that if mankind is to embark on a new course, concerted international measures and joint long-term planning will be necessary on a scale and scope without precedent.

Such an effort calls for joint endeavour by all peoples, whatever their culture, economic system, or level of development. But the major responsibility must rest with the more developed nations, not because they have more vision or humanity, but because, having propagated the growth syndrome, they are still at the fountainhead of the progress that sustains it. As greater insights into the condition and workings of the world system are developed, these nations will come to realise that, in a world that fundamentally needs stability, their high plateaus of development can be justified or tolerated only if they serve not as springboards to reach even higher, but as staging areas from which to organise more equitable distribution of wealth and income worldwide.

[…]

We affirm finally that any deliberate attempt to reach a rational and enduring state of equilibrium by planned measures, rather than by chance or catastrophe, must ultimately be founded on a basic change of values and goals at individual, national, and world levels.

This change is perhaps already in the air, however faintly. But our tradition, education, current activities, and interests will make the transformation embattled and slow. Only real comprehension of the human condition at this turning point in history can provide sufficient motivation for people to accept the individual sacrifices and the changes in political and economic power structures required to reach an equilibrium state.

The question remains of course whether the world situation is in fact as serious as this book, and our comments, would indicate. We firmly believe that the warnings this book contains are amply justified, and that the aims and actions of our present civilization can only aggravate the problems of tomorrow. But we would be only too happy if our tentative assessments should prove too gloomy.

In any event, our posture is one of very grave concern, but not of despair. […]

The concept of a society in a steady state of economic and ecological equilibrium may appear easy to grasp, although the reality is so distant from our experience as to require a Copernican revolution of the mind. Translating the idea into deed, though, is a task filled with overwhelming difficulties and complexities. We can talk seriously about where to start only when the message of The Limits to Growth, and its sense of extreme urgency, are accepted by a large body of scientific, political, and popular opinion in many countries. The transition in any case is likely to be painful, and it will make extreme demands on human ingenuity and determination. As we have mentioned, only the conviction that there is no other avenue to survival can liberate the moral, intellectual, and creative forces required to initiate this unprecedented human undertaking.

But we wish to underscore the challenge rather than the difficulty of mapping out the road to a stable state society. We believe that an unexpectedly large number of men and women of all ages and conditions will readily respond to the challenge and will be eager to discuss not if but how we can create this new future.

[…]

The last thought we wish to offer is that man must explore himself – his goals and values – as much as the world he seeks to change. The dedication to both tasks must be unending. The crux of the matter is not only whether the human species will survive, but even more whether it can survive without falling into a state of worthless existence.

Commentary The Limits to Growth