Responsible Liberty, Sustainable Ecology and Modest Prosperity provide the context for wholesome lives.  Within this trinity communities flourish.  Eliminate any one and life becomes problematic.  These were the themes of my talk at Professor Jerry Johnson's Environmental Policy class at MSU last Monday.

Of the three elements of this trinity, modest prosperity is oft underrated.  Especially by Greens with a woke philosophy.   Socialists and other authoritarians fail to understand the linkages among liberty, prosperity and sustainable ecological systems.  

They see economics as a sub set of engineering rather than evolutionary biology.   Hence, they believe that prosperity can be designed and administered by the government through regulations and directives.  Never has, never will.  Why?  

Bureaucratic knowledge is incomplete, and errors are common.   Further, incentives often yield perverse outcomes.  Federal programs to subsidize draining prairie potholes, America’s “duck factories”, offer clear examples.  Bureau of Reclamation irrigation dams, salmon run destroyers, provide others.  Here as elsewhere, political forces trump ecology and economics.  

Prosperity, as contrasted to windfall gains from winning a lottery or finding gold, evolves as individuals discover ways to move resources to higher value.  Our ranch is the example I know best.  We bought abused land and water at a low price.  Over the decades we restored agriculuture, fish and wildlife to sustainable full production.  

Here is an account from the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 4, 1979.  “The Baden ranch…is a pretty place (and) also a productive one….Ten years ago it was all gullies and erosion…That was before John Baden saw opportunity in the ruined land and acquired it.”  Here is the back story.

Our's is a piece of the old Gallatin Ranch Company.  It went into an estate and for many years was run by people who leased the land.  Their incentives were to wring as much out of the land as they could during the time of their short lease period.  Hence, the land was over grazed and steep slopes were farmed creating erosion.   The land slowly decreased in value.  

In 1968 I saw its potential.  The old Montana State Bank loaned me money to buy the land.  They wanted out.  

Today, due to Ramona’s work and mine, the ranch is a beautiful and highly productive piece of property.  Its value is greatly enhanced by America’s changed economy and technology.  And its location in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and between Bozeman and Big Sky, Montana, is a great advantage.

Montana’s prosperity was long hindered by its remote location and adverse climate.  Technology has greatly reduced the cost of distance; I’m guessing by 90%. Fedex and UPS drive by the ranch everyday.  Bozeman-Yellowstone Field has direct flight to several of America’s major cities, Atlanta, Chicago and LA for example.  

Technology also greatly ameliorated the harsh climate.   Today’s clothing, insulation, and transportation is vastly superior to that of the 1960s.  Also, it’s getting warmer with earlier springs and later snowfall.  On net, this is a big blessing, and aridity hasn’t increased.   

Citizens of Ramona’s and my generation are great beneficiaries of progress.  Many of us enjoy responsible liberty, a sustainable agricultural/ecological system, and at least modest prosperity.  We are doubly blessed to live in America, clearly the world’s most successful large-scale social experiment.  

America harbors the fragile trinity of liberty, ecology and prosperity.  I urge you to appreciate, understand, and defend this trinity.  It’s recurrently under assault by authoritarians of several stripes, people who demand ever more government control.  They identify or manufacture threats to justify it.

They assure us that the looming crisis is a huge threat, be it a new ice age in the 1970s or global warming today.  The current threat demands transformational actions mandated by fines, laws and regulations.   The “Green New Deal” is its name.  

Were it to be adopted, this profoundly silly and naïve proposal would be a genuine threat to liberty, ecology, and prosperity.  Be alert, but don’t over worry.   It too will pass and be just another historical example of political theater.