Julian Simon’s and the climate skeptics’s positivism and the market fundamentalism
José Eustáquio Diniz Alves1
Positivism and market fundamentalism, using scientific language, end up fooling many people. With a
pseudo-technical discourse they try to identify themselves with great scientists of the past, but they are,
in fact, their misleading versions. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the false similarities between
serious scientists and climate skeptics.
Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century and the utopian socialists in the early nineteenth
century, believed in progress and in "human perfectibility." Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), the
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and Saint-Simon (1760-1825) were three revolutionary
exponents who believed in the evolutionary ability of human beings, gender equity, social
transformation, peace, the end of prejudice and improvement in living standards for the world
population.
Some historians classify Condorcet, Wollstonecraft and Saint-Simon as precursors of positivism.
However, as shown by Michel Löwy, there is a very big difference between these thinkers and true
positivists, such as Comte (1798-1857), Durkheim (1958-1917), and more recently, Julian Simon (19321998) and Bjørn Lomborg (1965 -). The first three - Condorcet, Wollstonecraft and Saint-Simon - shared
a critical-revolutionary utopia and were against the privileges of the nobility and the clergy (dominant
classes of their time). On the other hand, the positivists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have
a conservative ideology, identified with the established capitalism and with the fundamental
mechanisms of the law of supply and demand.
In other words, positivism, since Auguste Comte, became a conservative ideology identified with the
established order. Positivists inherited Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) world view that considered science
as a kind of knowledge that can be used to dominate and control nature. But modern positivism, based
on Newtonian-Cartesian’s scientificism, went beyond empiricism and started interpreting nature as a
machine, and the human being as the driver that manoeuvers it in favor of humankind’s interests. As
Fritjof Capra said: "The world machinery became the dominant metaphor of the modern era, and today
science and technology produce deeply anti-ecological results."
Positivists hypostatize human ingenuity and progress. For them science and technology are Deus ex
machina, a panacea to solve all societies’ and the environment’s problems. They ignore all criticism by
authors such as Marx, Weber, Adorno and Foucault who showed how instrumental reason enables
capitalism to use science and technology to maximize profit, to dominate ideologically portions of the
population without access to technology and to strengthen domination at macro and micro biopower
level.
1
Doutor em Demografia e Professor titular da Escola Nacional de Ciências Estatísticas - ENCE/IBGE. Apresenta
seus pontos de vista em caráter pessoal. E-mail: ([email protected]). Artigo publicado no dia10/06/2012 em
Aparte Inclusão Social em Debate: http://www.ie.ufrj.br/aparte/
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Some positivists - with an environmentalist cornucopian view – advocate that the natural world is an
infinite source, affluent and abundant enough to meet all the demands of humankind. Julian Simon is a
typical example of modern positivism, in addition to being an advocate of market fundamentalism (let
us not forget that he was one of the founders of free-market environment). His books are a blind
defense of indefinite population and economic growth. He believed that the price of commodities and
fossil fuels would permanently fall to the extent that market forces could be deregulated and economic
freedom would enable a more efficient allocation of production factors. He became famous by winning
a bet against Paul Ehrlich in the 1980s, arguing that some metals and oil prices would fall along the
decade. If instead the bet had been made in the first decade of the twenty first century he would have
lost by a large margin.
Simon was a skeptical environmentalist, i.e. he did not believe that human activities were the cause of
global environmental problems such as the destruction of the ozone layer, acidification of the oceans,
and especially he disagreed that global warming was caused by the emission of greenhouse gases from
burning fossil fuels, methane, etc. He defended the idea that the infinite resources of human ingenuity,
enabled by technology, could circumvent all the world's environmental problems, without
compromising the foundations of capitalism accumulation at local and global scales.
In the book "The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment", Julian Simon argues, already
in the introduction, the idea that natural resources are becoming less scarce: "natural resources have
been becoming less scarce over the long run, right up to the present" and the world is less polluted: "But
we now live in a more healthy and less dirty environment than in earlier centuries". In chapter 6, he
affirms that there is no limit to food production: "What are the limits on food production?". And in
chapter 11 he maintains that the world’s oil supply is infinite: "When will wer out of oil? Never!". And so
on and so forth.
To make his reactionary and anti-environmentalist proposals more palatable, the positivist Simon
attacked a supposed neomalthusian enemy, stating the following: "People are the most valuable
resources in the world, the human brain is the key resource to solve any economic, social and
environmental proble; the larger the population the better". For him, each new baby is like production
good: "From the economic point of view an additional child is like a laying chicken a cacao tree, a
computer factory, or a new house. A baby is a durable good in which someone must invest heavily long
before the grown adult begins to provide returns on the investment".
With this anti-neomalthusian discourse, Julian Simon won the backing of the public opinion and support
by leaders of religious fundamentalism, market fundamentalism and moral conservatism in reproductive
issues. Simon was the inspiration for the neoliberal policies of the Reagan administration (1981-1988)
and for all types of defenders of pronatalist policies: "And there is compelling reason to believe that
human nutrition will proceed to improve into the indefinite future, even with continued population
growth".
On top of his pronatalist and anti-environmentalist discourse, the true intention of Julian Simon is
defending market fundamentalism: "The key elements of such a framework are economic liberty, respect
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for property, and fair and sensible rules of the market that equally are enforced for all. The world's
problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom". Writing before the
economic success of mommunist China, Julian Simon makes a defense, without solid foundations, of the
success of Taiwan’s capitalist economy: "In each case the centrally planned communist country began
with population less 'pressure', as measured by density per square kilometer, than did the marketdirected economy. And the communist and non-communist countries also started with much the same
birth rates. But the market-directed economies performed much better economically than the centrallyplanned economies. This powerful demonstration cuts the ground from under population growth as a
likely explanation of poor economic performance".
Such apologetic positioning of the market which disregards negative environmental impacts of human
footprint, had several followers, among them much of the group known today as climate skeptics. The
Danish writer Bjørn Lomborg, who wrote the book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" is one of the best
known disciples of Julian Simon. He uses methodologies based on the theory of economic welfare and
on the cost-benefit analyses to defend neoliberal positions against state regulation and in favor of the
free market forces. Lomborg defends subsidies for the oil industry and he believes that burning fossil
fuels is cheaper than producing renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.).
He opposes the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to reduce carbon emissions in the short term and he
argues that the world should adapt to new temperatures, as an inevitable phenomenon, which is not
caused by anthropic activities. If sea level rises, the solution to the population of countries such as
Tuvalu is to emigrate. I.e. for Lomborg it is more efficient to follow the logic of the market than
regulatory policies which, according to skeptics, distort the efficient allocation of productive resources.
To make his positivist and market fundamentalist positions more acceptable, Bjørn Lomborg says –
similar to Julian Simon - the whole world population will have a very high standard of living at the end of
the current century and that the world does not need to worry about measures of universal
reproductive health and even less with the decline in fertility, but one needs to worry with the problems
of mortality and dealing with more urgent matters, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and malnutrition.
In other words, authors such as Julian Simon, Bjørn Lomborg and climate skeptics argue that the model
of production and consumption of capitalist society is the most efficient and that it contributed to
remove millions of workers from poverty, and also raising the standard of living of large parts of the
world population, as has never before been seen in human history. They consider that occasional
environmental problems can be solved with the ingenuity of the human brain and with respect to the
invisible hand of free market. They also consider that environmentalists are little more than catastrophic
prophets.
The positions of "scientific" ideological and Julian Simon and Bjørn Lomborg serve as inspiration for
today's anti-environmental policies of the Republican Party in the United States, and the mobilization of
the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement. Positivism and market fundamentalism tend to attack
reproductive rights and the main flags of the feminist movement, as they have a patriarchal view of the
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world. Of course, these positions only hinder multilateral negotiations to mitigate the effects of global
warming, as well as weaken attempts to advance the environmental agenda at international
conferences. Not surprisingly, the Zero Draft of the Rio + 20 ignored the recommendations of the
Conference on Population (ICPD Cairo, 1994) and Women (Beijing, 1995).
However, in view of ecodevelopment or biocivilização - by Ignacy Sachs (1927 -) and several other
authors - there is a real threat of global environmental collapse if not adopted conservation measures,
based on forms of rational use of the environment, combating global warming and promoting an
equitable socio-economic development through environmentally sound strategies and with respect for
the rights of the earth and biodiversity. The world must overcome the anthropocentrism and walk
ecocentric perspective.
Both the population and the economy need to contain within the planetary boundaries. As shown Elinor
Ostrom (1933 -) - the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in economics - co-operation brings better
results than the competition. For her, the regulation of the commons must take precedence over
positivism and market fundamentalism.
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