How do you feel about debt?
The general rule I learned in business school was that debt enables growth.
Take etee for example - if we want to develop a new type of body lotion, but we don't have the cash to pay for the R&D, we could take on some debt.
In this case, debt can be a useful tool.
But what if we took out a large loan to make 1 trillion bottles of lotion, but there was only enough ingredients in the world to make 1 billion bottles???
That's essentially what Nate Hagens, author of "Economics for the Future — Beyond the Superorganism", argues we are doing with our economy and our environment.
You see, he claims:
Infinite financial expansion is impossible on a planet with finite energy, materials, and ecological resilience, making debt both an enabler and a risk factor for systemic instability in the "superorganism" model.
Put climate change aside for a moment and consider this: at our current consumption rates, we are on pace RUN OUT of existing reserves of oil and gas within our life time (50 or so years)...
Unless of course we 'drill baby drill'.
But as catchy as the slogan may be, we've already discovered the cheap and easy to extract oil, so exploring, drilling and extracting new sources of petroleum are likely to get more and more expensive, which leads to... you guessed it, MORE DEBT!
The same is true of food production or wood / pulp and paper extraction that has resulted in mass deforestation.
So Hagens' asserts that most existing financial claims (debts) represent future claims on energy and resources, which are unlikely to be honoured as supplies decline or become more expensive.
- Change Cultural Values: a shift away from the relentless pursuit of “more” and towards valuing “enough”—is essential. He draws on concepts like “degrowth” and “sobriety,” where society recognizes the need to use less energy and material for a sustained period.
- Economic Policy Shifts: Hagens proposes pricing non-renewable inputs according to their long-term scarcity and ecological cost, giving inventors and investors incentives to work within real biophysical constraints rather than chasing fictitious growth.
- Redistribution and Resilience: He often notes that major financial or ecological shocks could trigger necessary policy shifts, such as redistributing wealth (like Universal Basic Income) to increase social stability while bringing consumption more in line with planetary boundaries.
It's not about perfection - we'll never get there - it's about trying to do more with less.
