Ecology & the Politics of Scarcity Revisited by William Ophuls & A. Stephen Boyan, Jr.

Published in 1992 but still worth the time.

The first question to ask about this book is why anyone would want to read a book that was originally published in in 1977 and then revised in 1992 about topics such as the environment and ecology, about which we've gathered so much new data and written so much in the intervening years.  Haven’t things changed a great deal since then?  Won’t the information contained in this book prove ridiculously out of date?  The answer to these questions is both yes and no, but the gist of the book remains remarkably pertinent to our current situation.  My intention in reading this book was to further mine the insights of its primary author, William Ophuls.  I have already read the five books that Ophuls has published since Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited (1992), but I’m eager for more.

In this work, which is an updated version of his 1977 original, Ophuls and coauthor A . Stephen Boyan, Jr. continue the original project that Ophuls undertook: to come to terms with the implications of the science of ecology and the environmental degradation that had gained public and political attention in the 1960s and 1970s.  I’m not aware of any other work that so directly addresses the political implications of adopting an ecological mode of thinking and our need to confront our environmental sins.  Ophuls comes to the project with a doctorate in political science from Yale, but he’s done his homework in the science of ecology as well.

The first part of the book addresses the premises of ecological thinking and the current state of our environment.  As Ophuls himself notes in his Afterward to this updated edition, facts and circumstances have both changed and not changed. However, the fundamental dilemmas remain virtually unaltered since 1977 (when his work was first published) and even since the “revisit” of 1992. I  believe that in the 27 years since the publication of this book—although the particulars have changed—the fundamental dilemmas remain and have become starkly apparent.  One benefit of reading Ophuls’s book is that it takes my mind off of the increasingly frightening realities of climate change. It forces me to appreciate that we face a host of other environmental dilemmas that include pressing issues of scarcity and pollution.  And when one thinks systematically about these issues, the number of challenges that we continue to face—no doubt even more compelling than in 1992--leaves me with a sense of foreboding.  Ophuls never glosses over problems or provides comforting bromides or easy solutions.

So the first part of the book remains useful, although particulars are different today than in 1992.  The second part of the book addresses the political implications of ecological scarcity. The political analysis and vision that Ophuls provides are the hallmarks of his work, and these insights make the price of admission (time and money) well worth the expenditure. This book and Requiem for Modern Politics (1997)  provide insights that his later works, Plato’sRevenge (2011), Immoderate Greatness (2012), and Sane Polity (2013), and Apologies to the Grandchildren (2018) don’t address as thoroughly, such as the realities of American politics. The later works explore the need and the possibilities of a new political order, while Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity spends more time on current political realities. (Sadly, those realities remain as real now as they did then—albeit in worse shape.) Thus, even as many of the factual particulars at the beginning of the book are dated, the book is worth reading to receive the benefit of Ophuls’s understanding of American politics and the degree to which our politics depends on an economy of abundance and growth.  As we move toward the 2020 election cycle, we can see that the underlying premise of American political life hasn’t changed, although it is badly frayed by new realities. Candidates must talk about economic growth and expansion—it’s a much easier and comforting sell then talking about the stark realities of climate change and environmental degradation. But if the economic pie can no longer expand (and will likely shrink), what will happen to American politics?  Even vexing national issues, like the role of labor unions, civil rights, and women’s rights were resolved (in some measure) via a tacit understanding that the national economic pie would expand. This frame allowed more groups into the American dream of material abundance without impinging significantly upon those who already hold wealth and power.  But as the decline of the white working-class has continued, we see the politics of fear and desperation coming to the forefront. How can we channel our whole enterprise in a completely new direction?

 In this early work, Ophuls provides the first draft of an alternative politics that he believes the realities of ecological scarcity and limits will impose upon us.  And as we see in his later works, Ophuls draws much of his inspiration and insight from some of the great names in the Western political tradition: Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Burke, and from the American tradition, Jefferson and Thoreau. (He also draws, although to a lesser extent, on the Asian traditions.)  From his references to these thinkers and others, we readily discern that Ophuls’s thinking defies any current popular categories of political thought.  He is at once conservative, liberal, reactionary, and anarchist if one would attempt to classify him. Ophuls’s project is not so much about new political institutions as the need for a whole new political culture and consciousness.  Ophuls uses that Gospel term, “metanoia,” which indicates a change—or conversion—of the heart-mind of a person; to wit, a complete reorientation of values.  Ophuls argues that our entire culture needs to undergo a metanoia that will involve a  new way of experiencing the world ( ecological) and a new way of acting in the world that will replace the dominant paradigms of modernity, including those of upon which our economy and our politics currently operate.  

This new (best case) political order will call upon ways of decision-making that will realize Rousseau’s “the general will” as opposed to “the will of all.” I've been exposed to writers (such as Robert Nisbet) who attribute Rousseau’s “general will” and his injunction that men must be “forced to be free” as the root of hideous modern tyrannies. Thus, these references caused me to pause. But Ophuls never posits a position on the assumption that we humans will become angels--although we’d find ourselves much better off if we learned to curb our appetites. Ophuls’s position, following Rousseau, addresses fundamental issues of game theory that any collective undertaking must resolve to reach some level of success. Given the extreme anti-“collectivist” feeling in the U.S. (and the attendant immiseration of public goods and services that we experience), we realize what a long way we will have to go if we are to achieve the best-case scenario that Ophuls promotes.

For me, going back into this first effort by Ophuls to bring the issues of ecological thinking and environmental realities was well worth the time and effort. It’s not comforting—little that Ophuls writes is reassuring—but it’s good to know the enemy. And through reading Ophuls, we have met the enemy. And it is us.