“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
-Adam Smith
Self-interest is often spurned in discussions about morals, but it creates the foundation for our economy. As the laissez-faire economist Adam Smith recognized, goods and services aren’t produced out of love for fellow humanity, but rather to make profit. While the motivation is not “pure,” the outcome is beneficial to all involved; the producer (the butcher, brewer, baker, farmer, journalist) makes money, and those who purchase the product (the meat, beer, bread, wheat, or newspaper) enjoy a product they wouldn’t otherwise have. The result — social good from self-interest — is counter-intuitive, but it is also the reason capitalism thrives.
There are times when self-interest does not lead to outcomes that are best for
society. A classic example is called the “tragedy of the commons.” Imagine a community pasture where each family is entitled to graze their cattle. Each individual family can benefit more if they selfishly add an extra cow onto the pasture; it is in their self-interest to increase their herd, thereby increasing their profit.
If they just sneak one more cow on, they stand to gain a lot, and, because the pasture is shared by all the families, will only pay a fraction of the cost of degrading the pasture. But if every family adds just one cow in its own self-interest, it collectively creates the tragic situation where the pasture is over-grazed. The grass stops growing, the soil erodes and everyone loses a once-productive piece of land and any benefit they gained from grazing their cattle on that land.
Climate change is an example of the tragedy of the commons. When we drive our cars, buy imported grapes or fly ourselves to Toronto, we receive a benefit. We also create a cost borne by the entire planet — we contribute greenhouse gas emissions and make climate change worse. The personal benefit is large and the cost is small because it is shared (even if we tell ourselves it was only one flight!).
When self-interest leads us to a tragedy of the commons there needs to be collective action to remedy the situation. In the case of the pasture, a governing body could divide the land into parcels and give each family the rights to a parcel of land. This would mean that each family would now bear all of the costs of over-grazing their piece of land. Families could also agree to regulate the number of cows each family is allowed to graze on the land.
Climate change demands similar coordinated collective action. As a province, and a nation, we need to decide what the limits to our greenhouse gas emissions are going to be and create effective policies to meet the targets. For too long, Saskatchewan has been the family trying to sneak more cattle onto the pasture. We have the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and neither the provincial nor the federal governments have taken effective steps to address this.
We also need to coordinate with other countries to prevent any one nation from acting selfishly and and sneaking another cow onto the pasture, so to speak, by degrading our climate with excessive emissions. The United Nations meetings in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 – 18 will provide a chance for global coordination on climate change, and may lead to a “Copenhagen protocol” to pick up where the Kyoto protocol left off. With President Obama at the helm in the United States there are new hopes that the United States will agree to take part in a collective action (the U.S. never did agree to participate in the Kyoto protocol).
Coordinated regulation to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions is in everyone’s self-interest. Just read some of the headlines in our newspapers warning us of the harmful effects of climate change on the prairies: “more drought,” “pine beetles killing northern forests,” “desertification,” “reduced stream flows from mountain glaciers.” Think for a moment what your world would look like if the south Saskatchewan river had only half the water flowing in it that it does now, or if the forests of the Cypress Hills burned down and could not grow back due to lack of moisture. It is not difficult to see that preventing climate change is self-interest.
It is also important that we insist that our national, provincial and municipal governments connect self-interest to climate change. It is only at a collective level that the tragedy of the commons can be avoided.
Before the world meets in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 – 18, remind a politician near you that we live in a time when self-interest extends beyond the marketplace and requires that we maintain a stable climate. Our very survival as a species depends on it; if that’s not self-interest, then I’m not sure what is. It is time to limit our use of the global commons; let us not be looters of the earth’s climate any longer.
Sasquatch columnist Brett Dolter is an ecological economist and musician. He teaches economics at the University of Regina and is principal consultant for BD Green Solutions.
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