The U.S. Economy is a Dysfunctional Ecosystem

Economies might do well to emulate at least some aspects of biological ecosystems. Our American economy has somehow managed to magnify the undesirable characters of ecosystems while failing to adhere to the fundamentals that make such systems work. Meanwhile, our economy is undermining natural ecosystems that are the foundation for the economy.

Before I proceed farther, in accordance with a recently self-imposed personal law, I must disclose that I fall into the category of white privilege. It is important to remind myself that however I perceive my own circumstances and point of view, my status, for lack of a better term, is still greater than it should be when compared to other demographics that are not Caucasian nor male nor straight, and so forth. We need to hear those voices also.

How can one claim that economies are in any way like ecosystems? There are many similarities, but the most obvious is the idea of niche. Ecosystems are full of niches, each occupied by one or more species. Some, mostly plants and marine algae, are producers that take energy from the sun and convert it to biomass. Other organisms consume those plants, while still others feed on the first tier of consumers in what is properly known as the food web. Decomposing organisms help recycle deceased organisms back into the soil.

Economies are full of niches, too, but all of those niches are filled by one species: Homo sapiens. Niches in economies are called “jobs,” but it goes beyond that if only because, increasingly, one person may hold more than one job such that they can have the ability to consume more (or break even). Further, machines are filling more and more niches formerly occupied by persons as a result of automation. Society functions best when we do not limit the definition of an individual to their occupation. Human economies are more than simple transactions involving goods and services, they involve investments of intangibles like emotions and social capital.

The most profound similarity between ecosystems and economies is currency. The currency of ecosystems is energy, pure and simple. The currency of an economy is money. The only way an ecosystem functions properly is if energy flows freely, cycling ceaselessly for the benefit of all organisms. There is very little banking of energy, at least in the short term. Look at water and carbon in the natural world and they cycle endlessly.

Meanwhile, in the American economy at least, money is not viewed as energy. It is seen as power, and therefore hoarded, failing to flow as it should, despite the claims of those who subscribe to “trickle down” economics. The tap is perhaps dripping randomly. Worse yet, it is often only those in the white privilege category that receive any sustenance at all. This causes a cascade of negative effects that further erodes the economy. Entire segments of society are left without niches to fill, and therefore no way to participate in any part of the economic cycle, from production to consumption.

Among the negative side effects of an exclusionary economy is the rise of predators, parasites, thieves, and other criminal enterprises. While predators, for example, are one category of niches in natural ecosystems, there should be no place for them in an economy. When crime becomes a survival strategy, it is time to re-think the structure of our economy, question our aspirations to gratuitous material wealth, and tolerance for continued economic injustices.

One insistence of capitalist economies that is completely incompatible with natural ecosystems is the idea of infinite growth as the ideal. There can be no such thing, as human history has demonstrated repeatedly with the collapse of one civilization after another. Failure to accept the finite nature of natural resources, and/or partition them responsibly, has led to the fall of many empires, and it would appear that this is now a genuine threat to the entire globe.

Markets, like the biosphere, are also finite, despite efforts to expand them. Furthermore, while we claim allegiance to the idea of the “free market,” there is in reality no such thing. Were it true, then the U.S. auto industry, multinational banks, and other American corporations would have failed by now. Instead, we prop up those businesses artificially through government bailouts, tariffs, and other subsidies as corporate welfare that is deemed acceptable while social safety nets are allowed to unravel or are intentionally dismantled.

What does all this mean? It means that we need to look more critically at how we live our lives, what constitutes our premiums (Convenience? Value?), and perhaps seek to align our economy more with the functioning of the natural world. It is not a question of prosperity versus austerity, unless you are the ultra-privileged and your idea of austerity is one less yacht.

Chasing Money

At this particular moment in time, I am secure enough in the fiscal sense that I do not need to chase projects for the money. That has not always been the case, and it will surely be a fleeting sense of relief. The welcome respite gives me pause in another way, more restless and disturbing than gratifying. It calls into question the idea that money should be a motivator, that everything be framed in the sense of income and expenditures.

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The constant implication in our lives is that we have a responsibility to earn an income, a responsibility to spend it and invest it to keep the economy going, and that taxation is the villain that keeps us from fully realizing our financial potential. Those directives come from those already wealthy, who attained their power by hoarding money. We think that money is the matrix that holds our lives together, and we need to free our minds of that foolish belief.

We think that money is the matrix that holds our lives together, and we need to free our minds of that foolish belief.

The only currency of any relevance and importance is energy. Some may equate energy with love, or some other emotion or notion, but what I am talking about is metabolic energy. That is the currency of living ecosystems, and it flows freely among all organisms. There is minimal banking of metabolic energy. Plant tubers might be one example. Bears putting on fat for the winter is another. These situations are the minority, though. Energy usually passes quickly through the food web.

Economies can be viewed as redundant and inefficient ecosystems in which every niche is filled by only one species: Homo sapiens. Energy flow is disrupted as some individuals hoard money instead of releasing it to continue flowing to other niches. Nature is strict in its demand that energy flow.

Perhaps the worst aspect of money is that it has allowed us to assign arbitrary value to everything. "Precious" metals and stones are precious only because we say they are. There is a fine line between priceless and worthless. Arguably, they are two sides of the same coin. The lives of other species are priceless until we decide that the monetary value of the land they occupy can be increased by developing a shopping center....and we arbitrarily decided what the land was worth to begin with.

Money limits our creativity because we think only in terms of how we will benefit financially. We dismiss important endeavors before they get off the ground because [whining] "that's too costly," or "we can't make any money doing that." A cost-benefit analysis too often destroys potentially great achievements.

Money also actively encourages the invention of unnecessary products and services. The marketplace is full of disposable goods, mass-produced decorative objects, and all manner of substances passing themselves off as food and drink that are destructive to our individual and collective health. We are all children in the face of advertising, so easily convinced that we cannot live without a given item. Money fuels the conflict that filmmaker Ken Burns describes as the "I want versus we need."

Money allows us to judge one another not by the content of our character, but by the sum of our bank accounts, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Wealthism should be as repulsive as racism, but instead we collectively aspire to be financially excessive. More importantly, we want to exclude others from our sense of entitlement and privilege. We want a very tangible expression of our success, but ironically define success by tangible expression. We never arrive in this scenario. It is the treadmill of status, nothing more. It is a process that erodes society instead of elevating it.

We can no longer afford (and I use that word deliberately) to allow ourselves to be conditioned to believe that money is a limiting or freeing element of our society. What is priceless? Empathy. Respect. Honesty. Patience. Persistence. Volunteerism. Be examples of those things. Add to that list, because it will get you thinking about what is truly value-able. Meanwhile, I challenge you to imagine a world without money. What would it look like? Could we operate more justly and more efficiently without it?

Economies Are Warped Reflections of Ecosystems

If ecosystems are what the planet is made of, then economies are the funhouse mirrors that wildly distort the principles the two have in common. A diversity of species fill all the niches in a natural ecosystem. Humans fill most of those roles in urban ecosystems. Humans fill all of those roles in economies.

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. The elimination of apex predators, parasites, and competing species do not leave voids. Those niches are filled by human equivalents. This becomes abundantly clear in urban ecosystems, but we do not think of it that way. We prefer to think we are civilized, that we can somehow rise above the laws of nature, that in fact we do not even need natural systems to flourish. Should we regress to the village living in fear of lions, to an era before medications rendered disease merely a chapter in history books? No, of course not, but the marvels of our modern age have conveniently allowed us to imagine we are now immune to ecology.

We have further complicated matters by overlaying economics on top of nature, failing to acknowledge that economies are themselves a type of ecosystem, in which all the niches are filled by people. The currency of nature is energy. That energy is parceled out into three basic categories: organismal growth (metabolic), movement (kinetic), and rest (potential). The currency of economies is money. It, too, has several functions, including growth (interest and investment), movement (the marketplace), and rest (savings, retirement). The ideal form of economics would operate much like a natural ecosystem in terms of energy flow, but this is not what is happening. The predatory lenders, the parasitic scam artists, the diseases of poverty and addiction, among many other villains, derail economies time and time again. Capitalism and socialism alike are prone to rampant corruption, resulting in the hoarding of wealth (financial currency) that starves the system.

The energy of nature is requisite, finite, and circulates freely. The currency of man is arbitrary in the value it assigns to objects and resources, and it does not flow as freely as it should. "Precious metals" and "precious stones" are only so because we say they are. Nature assigns equal value to all of its components. Our human economies now look at everything from land to certain categories of humans in terms of whether they can produce financial profit. This is in direct conflict with natural laws and so we see deforestation, desertification, poverty, climate change, endangered species, pollution, invasive species, mass incarceration, and racism and genocide. These are just the intolerable conditions that come immediately and randomly to mind. You can probably add to the list.

Our final failure lies in a stunning denial of the fact that no matter what we do, we answer to the whims of planet Earth. We started to see the effects of our economic practices on nature shortly after the Industrial Revolution, but now that we are in the digital age, we believe that technology can save us. Computers and cell phones still rely on the extraction of natural resources, which leads not only to pollution with the disposal of the outmoded generation of products, but to ruthless competition to harvest materials for the components, among other complications we conveniently turn our heads away from.

Ultimately, the future of nature comes down to the willingness of Homo sapiens to exercise restraint, in our sheer numbers, and in our economic impact. Every species dreams of being in our shoes, able to eliminate mortality factors, eliminate competitors, reproduce astronomically, and thoroughly dominate the landscape. It is an impossible "success" story, however, when you erode the foundation of your castle. We will adapt and truly evolve only if we recognize value beyond financial profit. The marketplace is artificial. The Earth is not.

Book Review: Never Home Alone Embraces the Wild Indoors

The New York Times review of Rob Dunn's new book Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honey Bees, the Natrual History of Where We Live (2018, New York: Basic Books, 307 pp.), calls it "a book that will make you terrified of your own house." To the contrary, it is a celebration of the biodiversity of the indoors. Presented here are solid scientific arguments for re-thinking how we approach our daily lives.

Dunn is among the most prolific science writer of our time, but the rigor and research he applies to each book is beyond reproach. He is also captivating in his delivery, a master at never talking down to the reader, but instead elevating the reader into a participant role in the storytelling. Indeed, my reaction to some passages was "why didn't I get invited to help with that study?" or "how do I get to help in the next research project?" Dunn's enthusiasm and sense of wonder are far more contagious than any of the pathogenic microbes he discusses in Never Home Alone.

About those bacteria, yeasts, molds, fungi, and viruses. Turns out that there is untold diversity among them, and the overwhelming majority are beneficial to us rather than malignant. In the course of surveying homes around the world, from his own neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina to Russia, and even the international space station, Dunn and his minions discovered new species of microbes. Probably new genera and families, too. How is it that we still have so much to learn about the places we spend ninety percent of our lives? He has a theory, but you will find no spoilers here.

Dunn puts the "history" in "natural history" in all of his books, and it is often a history we do not learn of in school, certainly not to the depths that various historical figures and episodes deserve. Here, that history demonstrates where science has been confronted with choices, and how civilization has progressed, or potentially strayed, as a result of the paths we have taken.

The overall message of Never Home Alone is a positive and encouraging one. It is always the disasters and exceptions that make the headlines. How black mold turns homes into lethal chambers for the human residents. The latest epidemic of Staphylococcus bacteria in the local hospital. Not publicized are the numerous microbes, insects, fungi, and other organisms found in the average home or workplace that are essential to our human lives. We are overzealous in our efforts to rid our homes of harmful creatures, eradicating the helpful and inert species with far greater success, albeit inadvertently. The dangerous critters prosper through evolved resistance to chemical treatment, and the absence of the good creatures that would outcompete them if we did little or nothing to intervene.

Dunn stops short of stating the ultimately obvious: "Product" and "service" are rarely the answer to any problem, especially an ailing household. Something is already out of balance, and applying chemical treatments is only going to exacerbate the situation rather than solve it. Your home, workplace, and even your body are ecosystems, mostly at a microscopic scale, and failure to treat them as such, to cultivate the beneficial species, is asking for trouble.

Never Home Alone concludes with a chapter about bread, specifically sourdough, which results from fermentation processes conducted by yeasts in concert with other microbes. Bread is a living thing, or more properly a collection of living things, like an orchestra, bread being the musical product. It is an apt metaphor for how we should approach every aspect of our lives. We should be striving to be a complement to other species, fostering diversity at every level. When we seek to understand, ask questions first, and hesitate before reaching for the cleansing fluid, we begin to truly flourish. Our potential as stewards of the planet begins, literally, at home. Stop with the apologies, the "excuse the mess" greeting you give your guests. You are not a messy housekeeper, you are promoting biodiversity. Read this book and free yourself.

World Malaria Day

My standard answer to the question “What good are mosquitoes?” is “Ask a Plasmodium.” The quip is both flippant and profound. Plasmodium is the parasitic organism that causes malaria. It cannot complete its life cycle without the help of certain mosquitoes. We tend to collectively frame other living things by their relevance to ourselves only. Today, on World Malaria Day, I challenge you to think differently, and ask if deadly tropical diseases like malaria can be eradicated without rendering extinct either vectors or microbes.

Many parasitic diseases have driven human evolution over the eons. Sickle-cell disease is our unfortunate evolutionary answer to malaria, but who knows what future immune responses might be, and how they will become encoded in our genes?

Diseases can also have an impact on ecosystems. African sleeping sickness, caused by parasites called trypanosomes, and transmitted by the infamous tsetse flies, is a case in point. Wildlife is essentially immune to trypanosomyasis, but in livestock the parasite manifests itself as “ngana.” Avoiding the disease and its vectors is largely what has driven the nomadic lifestyle of certain indigenous tribes. Cattle are moved with the fluctuating “fly belt” to territory not occupied by tsetses. This seasonal migration has allowed livestock and grazing wildlife to co-exist on the savannah to a much greater degree than would be the case if ngana was eliminated. Subsaharan Africa would become, more or less, one big cattle ranch without the fear of flies and disease.

Our response to human mortality factors in general has left a long trail of unintended consequences, and we should be cognizant of the potential to repeat those mistakes. Please, by all means purchase a net or two to insure the safety of those in remote villages that risk nightly exposure to bites from malaria mosquitoes. Continue to contribute to organizations seeking to end poverty across the planet through improved housing, water quality, and education. We need to be both generous and cautious human beings.