Deep Economy Bill Mckibben Summary

Paper 2 ' Deep Economy 080700730
Book By Bill Mckibben
Essay by Kevin Malone “More and better,” states Bill Mckibben ' in his national best selling book Deep Economy ' “are two birds roosting on the same branch.” Within traditional economic values these two birds could be taken out with one stone synonymously in every attempt. However, in our age of endless economic growth, expanded populations, and industrial centralization, “the greater wealth no longer make us happier.” (Mckibben, 2) Not only this, but “more” ' more money, more consumerism, more fuel ' succeeds in adding momentum to the course of environmental destruction that we, as North Americans, are responsible for putting in motion. This is the underlying metaphor
Mckibben perpetually draws from the princaples of modern economics established by Adam Smith. Smith was the first to publicly recognize, in The Wealth of Nations, that “it is not the actual greatness of national wealth but its continued increase.” (Mckibben, 6?) It is this principle that has developed into the “religious growth and efficiency” (Mckibben, 6) that is apparent in North American culture. This mandate was made perfectly clear by Lawrence Summers, Bill Clinton 's secretary of the Treasury, when she proclaimed that “the democratic administration will not accept any 'speed limit ' on American economic growth.” (Mckibben, 9) And it didn 't: as we witnessed, during Clinton 's presidential term, the highest growth rates in American history. Mckibben quickly puts to rest any sort of promise held in these statements with an endless stream of facts which attest to the truth that “the real income of the bottom 90% of American taxpayers has declined steadily: they earned 27,060 in 1979, and 25,646 in 2005.”(Mckibben,
Not only this, but “the farmers profit margin dropped from 35% in the 1950 's to about 9% today.” (Mckibben, 54) This means that “to generate the same income as it did in 1950, a farm today would need to be roughly four times as large.” (Mckibben, 55) As a result of this perpetual growth and centralization, problems like “huge sewage lagoons, miserable animals, vulnerability to sabotage and food-born illness”(mckibben, 61) have become commonplace. Not only this, but “we are running out of the two basic ingredients we need to grow food on an industrial scale: oil and water.” (Mckibben, 62) The situation has become so dire that “we are now facing a near simultaneous depletion of the underground aquifers which have been responsible for the unsustainable, artificial inflation of food production.” At this point of realization, Mckibben begins indulging the reader in a large number of facts that promote a more localized form of farming as the solution to a seemingly endless number of issues. Initially the point is raised that “sustainable agriculture leads to a 93% increase in per-hectare food production.” (Mckibben, 68) The next idea raised is that, “since World War 1, it has been cheaper to use