Review of the Book:
The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future
by Tom Wessels
H. William Batt
[This book is published by University of Vermont Press, 2006. This
review
is reprinted from
GroundSwell, September-October 2007]
Tom Wessels is a biology and environmental science teacher at a
small New Hampshire college. He also has a daughter whom he worries
may not be able to enjoy the quality of life that he has known. His
concern for his daughter, his students, and his general fondness for
the earth led him to write The Myth of Progress: Toward a
Sustainable Future. It is a reflective and sobering commentary of
only one hundred plus pages. Without being preachy or self-righteous
it offers a quick discussion about both our worldview and our
behavior. Unfortunately, there is no plan by New England University
Press to issue it in paperback, which means that this twenty dollar
book may never get the attention that it could for less.
It is a very personal book, even though daughter, wife, personal
memories and home only come up a few times in passing. Really it
focuses on the economic paradigm in which we live, one in radical
conflict with our natural world. Our economic system is premised on
open-ended growth and consumption, but we cant live outside of
and independent of a finite world of nature. Our world is only
sustainable if we recognize and appreciate its maintenance as a
dynamic equilibrium, and the neoclassical economic system shows no
awareness of this. The authors knowledge of the laws of
biological proclivities, of other ecosystems, and of thermodynamics
gives his descriptions an extra depth and color. But human social
systems are no different; were subject to the same laws even
though we act differently. So, on we go, polluting our nest and
jeopardizing future life and beauty, all in the belief that our
success and fulfillment should be measured by factors such as energy
and materials consumed, GDP, and experiences notched. The growth he
observes is analogous to a cancer, one which will eventually
overwhelm natures interdependence and balance on which we too
depend and of which we are a part.
What, he asks, drives such insanity? The economic paradigm in
which we frame things is one candidate. But not everyone subscribes
to the indices it offers. Or are we rather forced to go along
to drive cars to carry out our daily lives even if we hate driving,
to rely on food from chemical adulterated farms in often distant
lands even if we dont like the taste, and to work at jobs just
so that we can continue? If we accept this lifestyle, we do so,
perhaps, with reluctance and unease. How much, then, are we trapped
in such an existence, even if we appreciate its falseness and
pointlessness? Perhaps, he suggests in his fourth chapter, The
loss of diversity and the loss of democracy, the market is not
as free as we think. Perhaps it is really a myth, and we are indeed
trapped in a new kind of slavery to a corporate-dominated world that
has its own logic. This chapter explores the significance of
corporate power in our lives, and how it subsumes everything to its
own inexorable rationale. One corporate executive is quoted to the
effect that We want clean air, clean water, good living
conditions, the best health care in the world yet we arent
willing to pay for anything manufactured under those conditions.
Walmarts win. The chapter ends by Professor Wessels saying that An
economy is supposed to serve its people; however, in the world
today, people are to serve the economy. If there are villains,
its the economics profession, but his heroes are Kenneth
Boulding, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, and Herman Daly, all economists
critical of their own colleagues.
And so he calls for cultural change, even if hes not the
first and not perhaps even the most original or poetic. What
distinguishes this book from others with the same message is the
author is very much like the rest of us. He is not like Black Elk
whom he cites at length. Nor is he an ascetic or a mystic. He and
his wife and his daughter, may have some greater awareness, live a
bit more frugally perhaps, and know a bit more about our impact on
the natural world. But we are nonetheless caught up in an economic
system that seems without escape and perhaps beyond reform. The
progress that so many people assume he sees as a myth. The
investment and consolidation that he makes to secure his life, and
those for whom he cares, is still carrying him further out on a
tenuous branch. It is not progress at all, but rather a chimera.
Being a natural scientist, he knows that, ultimately, the
equilibrium of the world and universe itself will be restored, and
we likely wont be a part of it. The ecology of the world and
the economy that exists within it are not sustainable, even perhaps
in the near term. His book is a reflection on that dilemma, and he
does a good job of telling it.