Economics began as a branch of moral philosophy.  Its founders, including Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, focused on social ethics.  Economics gradually became more formal and mathematical.  Physics became the ideal for economists to emulate, a systematic field divorced from moral content.  

Ever more abstract and divorced from the culture that guides and constrains peoples' behavior, some economic studies resemble recreational mathematics. Fortunately, Professor Bob Nelson of the University of Maryland is one of the most insightful commentators on the intersection of ecology, ethics, and economics.  Ironically, Bob started as a mathematical economist with a Princeton Ph.D.  

I am indeed pleased to share a small part of his recent article, "The Secular Religion of Progress" (The New Atlantis, # 39, pp. 39-50).  I've know Bob for thirty years and often invited him to speak at FREE's Montana conferences.  After reading his "FREE Insight", you'll understand why.  

-John

The Environmental Challenge to Growth

By Robert H. Nelson

The dark shadows of the twentieth century—two world wars, the prospect of nuclear annihilation, ecological degradation—suggested the possibility that the human race conceivably could even extinguish itself. If the progressive utopians and the Marxists believed we would inevitably see heaven on earth, one of the most influential economic philosophies of the last half century has suggested the opposite: that we might be rushing toward hell on earth instead. This idea, that economic progress is destroying significant parts of the plant and animal kingdoms and even threatens human existence, is the essence of the secular religion called environmentalism.

On a wide range of policy debates—from the fight over DDT to the crusade against nuclear power, from the alarms about the “population bomb” to the grim tidings about climate change—environmentalism has proclaimed that much of the scientific knowledge on which we have founded our project of economic growth was actually a double edged sword.   The progressive goal of the human mastery of both nature and society might be a dangerous delusion; collective human efforts to assert such mastery might well turn out to be more harmful than beneficial. Many environmentalists hold special scorn for the economists who so confidently promote growth as our highest goal; one environmentalist academic, Georgia Tech philosophy professor Bryan Norton, even penned an article in 1991 on the good reasons “why environmentalists hate mainstream economists.”

Despite the professed distance between environmentalists and the secular religions of progress, environmentalism nevertheless has something important in common with them: some of its messages are similar to, and even sometimes draw large inspiration from, Judeo-Christian themes (and more loosely from various Eastern religions and philosophies). Environmentalists warn that, in our drive to assert complete mastery over nature, human beings are “playing God” with the world. Implicit in much environmental rhetoric is a kind of mythic belief that, in an era long past, humanity lived in peaceful union with nature—a notion strikingly reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Moreover, environmentalists condemn our modern wasteful consumerism as a kind of worship of false idols.

In the Hebrew scriptures, God’s punishments for those who repeatedly and obstinately violate His instructions sometimes take the form of floods, droughts, famines, pestilence, and other environmental calamities. Similarly—and whatever the scientific realities may be —environmentalists now warn moralistically that a warming climate will bring rising seas, spreading malaria, severe shortages of food, and more destructive hurricanes, all on a truly Biblical scale. If the work of Marx can be said to parallel Revelation, contemporary environmentalism exhibits parallels to Deuteronomy and the other prophetic books in which failure to adhere to God’s law and mistreatment of the land result in divinely wreaked devastation.

There is, moreover, a deeply ascetic side to contemporary environmentalism. Its strongest supporters share the pessimistic view of human nature most characteristic of Calvinism: our depravity, especially our pride and greed, if given free rein, will result in the ruination of soil and society. The continual accumulation of goods and services is seen, not as the path to greater individual and social happiness, but as a destruction of virtuous, simple living. The effects of unbridled economic growth on cities and on the land warrant a call for frugality in place of economic growth.

One could even argue that environmentalism holds out hope for a kind of quasi-religious salvation. If we follow the teachings of the environmentalists, repent from our wasteful and greedy ways, and adopt the practices they recommend like using green energy, recycling waste, and limiting our diets to sustainable food grown organically and locally, we will be able to return to a state of Edenic harmony with the natural world. (For more on this theme, see Joel Garreau’s essay “Environmentalism as Religion” in the Summer 2010 issue of this journal.)

Most economists are ill equipped to address the concerns of environmentalists. When they do address them, it is typically in traditional progressive economic terms. They fail to recognize that environmentalism fundamentally challenges the very idea of economic growth and progress—a notion so deeply engrained in professional economics that it is difficult to bring it to the fore, let alone question it. Economists have faced similar challenges before, often from Christian critics of consumerism and other aspects of capitalism. Now, however, the challenges are coming from an ostensibly secular system of belief, thus posing a greater competitive threat.

This excerpt was originally published in its entirety as "The Secular Religion of Progress" in The New Atlantis, # 39, Summer 2013, pp. 39-50.