THE POSITIVE WORTH OF WASTE: A REPLY TO DANIEL W. BROMLEY Julian L. Simon Please consider this paragraph which is an illuminating though representative sample of Daniel W. Bromley's recent comment. By emphasizing that inventive (i. e. "profit-minded") people create new technology Simon would have us believe that the side-effects of technological change are socially and economically benign. This is a position to which few thoughtful individuals can subscribe. The apparently-silly proposition which Professor Bromley attributes to me -- one "to which few thoughtful individuals can subscribe", he says -- is one to which I do subscribe, though in fact I did not say so in my original article. This creates an interesting opportunity for discussion. Professor Bromley, along with many "environmentalists", worries that the unintended by-products -- the "externalities" -- of humankind's economic activities (especially those that affect the environment) are malign even if the direct effects of production and trade are benign. But I believe that a case can be made that even activities that are not intentionally constructive more often than not leave a positive legacy to subsequent generations. That is, even the unintended aspects of humans' use of land and of other raw materials tend to be profitable for those who come afterward. Please notice that Professor Bromley offers no evidence that the proposition is unsound; he simply uses a 50-million-Frenchmen statement, the kind of argumentation that has no place in responsible scientific discourse. Nor does Professor Bromley even suggest what kind of evidence would throw light on the matter. Though I cannot bring to bear a body of systematic research, I believe that a few illustrative examples will demonstrate that the issue is at least an open one, even if the reader does not accept the conclusion at which I arrive. Let us begin with Robinson Crusoe, the focus of the original article on which Professor Bromley commented. And let us consider only what are conventionally considered the bad side effects of technology -- wastes and pollutions, bad by definition. Now ask yourself: Would Crusoe have been better off if there had preceded him on the island a group of people who had produced and consumed, and left the trash in a dump that Crusoe could uncover? Consider how valuable that dump would have been to Crusoe. If his predecessors had had a low-technology society the trash would have contained sharp stones, bones, and other animal parts that could be used for cutting, binding, carrying, and so on. If the preceding society had had high technology, the dump would have contained even more interesting and useful materials -- metal utensils, electronics parts, and so on -- which a knowledgeable person could have used to leave the island or summon help. Crusoe's example illustrates the general principle that what is waste to one community at one time is usually a valuable resource to a later community that has greater knowledge about how to use the material. Many acts that we think despoil the land actually bestow increased wealth upon subsequent generations. Ask yourself: which areas in the Midwest will seem more valuable to subsequent generations--the places where cities now are, or the places where farmlands are? Another example are the "borrow pits" by the sides of turnpikes, from which earth is taken for road-building. At first look the pits seem an insult to nature, a scar upon the land. But after the road is finished the borrow pits turn out to be useful for fishing lakes and reservoirs, and the land they occupy is likely to be more valuable than if the pits had never been dug. Even a pumped-out oil well -- the empty hole -- probably has more value to subsequent generations than a similar spot without a hole. The hole may be used as a storage place for oil or other fluids, or for some as-yet-unknown purposes. And the casing that is left in the dry well might be re-claimed profitably by future generations. One sees evidence of delayed benefit in the Middle East. For hundreds of years until recently, Turks and Arabs occupied structures originally built by the Romans 2,000 years ago. The abandoned ancient buildings saved the late-comers the trouble of doing their own construction. Another example is the use of dressed stones in locations far away from where they were dressed. One finds the lintels of doorways from ancient Palestinian synagogues in contemporary homes in Syria. Humans' activities tend to increase the order and decrease the randomness of nature. Production brings like elements together. This concentration can be exploited by subsequent generations. Consider lead batteries in a dump, or the war rubble from which Berliners built seven hills which are now lovely recreational spots. Furthermore, humans perceive order, and create it. One can see this from the air if one looks for the signs of human habitation. Where there are people (ants, too, of course) there will be straight lines and smooth curves; otherwise, the face of nature is not neat or ordered. Still more generally, humans have for tens of thousands of years created more than they have destroyed. That is, the composite of what they sought to produce, plus the by-products, has been on balance positive. This is evidenced by the increasing standard of material living from one generation to the next, the decreased scarcity of all natural resources as measured by their prices throughout history, and -- the most extraordinary achievement of all -- longer life and better health. Other evidence is found in the treasuries of civilization that our ancestors bequeathed, each century's inheritance greater than the previous one. The aforegoing is just one of many points Professor Bromley raised wherein my argument runs against the common wisdom, and which he criticizes by simply suggesting that most people think otherwise. I hope that this issue will lead the reader to wonder whether, when they are considered seriously, others of the points Professor Bromley raises also turn out to be different than they seem to be on the surface. My 1981 book The Ultimate Resource (Princeton: PUP) is a compendium of discussion of such issues that are at variance with obvious common sense but where common sense may be quite wrong. I hope that the interested reader will pursue the matter there. *** Postscript. There is a sub-issue revealed by Professor Bromley's paragraph quoted above. Please consider its style, which epitomizes Professor Bromley's criticism of my original article. His first sentence suggests that I equate inventiveness with profit-mindedness. In fact, I do not consider the two characteristics to be equivalents. Though there is often connection between them, the connection is by no means invariable; many people invent for reasons other than material profit, and many people seek profit who do not care to invent. Then Professor Bromley imputes to me something that I do not say in the piece -- that "the side-effects of technological change are socially and economically benign" -- and then either ridicules that non-statement (as in this case) or uses it as a peg to talk about his own ideas (elsewhere in his comment). This kind of writing, along with the many ad hominem words that he uses, is really discussion by dirty tricks rather than fair criticism. It is characteristic of conventional majority views in general (see the discussion of this matter in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty). And in particular this style seems to be the hallmark of the environmentalist and population-control movements in the United States at present. While material waste tends to be valuable in the long run, the same is not true of this sort of pollution of human thought and intercourse, which of course we all contribute to both in our private relationships and in our public utterances. Now that's a problem worth our attention. I just wish I could feel as hopeful about its outcome as about the outcomes of other waste problems. page1 /article9 bromley/February 24, 1989