Beckerman, Wilfred. 1995. "How Would you Like your 'Sustainability', Sir? Weak or Strong? A Reply to my Critics." Environmental Values 4(1995): 169-79.

Thesis:

Beckerman defends his belief, in light of criticisms by Herman Daly (1994) and Michael Jacobs (1994), that "insofar as any natural resource does become scarce in a relevant sense its relative price will rise and this will set up a chain of market responses which will tend to discourage its use and encourage the use of substitutes" (p.178). Thus, 'sustainable development' as a concept is unnecessary.

Summary:

This paper responds to articles written by Daly and Jacobs in which the authors critique Beckerman's criticisms of 'sustainable development'. Daly and Jacobs joined with Beckerman in his rejection of 'weak sustainability', but countered him to defend 'strong sustainability'. Beckerman focuses this paper on critiquing 'strong sustainability'. He argues that Daly and Jacobs have misunderstood the concepts of complementarity and substitutability in relation to natural and human-made capital.

First, Beckerman responds to Jacobs and Daly for rejecting the notion of discounting of alternative investments (environmental or otherwise) for the economic welfare of future generations. Jacobs rejects discounting on the grounds that the environment is unique relative to other forms of welfare, and discounting is unacceptable because natural and human-made capital are not substitutable. Beckerman counters that while not infinitely substitutable, nevertheless, differing goods and services are often traded off, and investment comparisons are nonetheless calculated.

Daly rejects discounting because the discount rate is a form of pricing, which is determined by the distribution of resources among of people. Because future generations are not represented in the pricing market, it is unfair to assume that our system would reflect their preferences. Beckerman draws upon the Rawlsian notion of fairness, and the Kantian test of impartiality to say that our interests and the interests of future generations are virtually the same ( p.174).

Secondly, Beckerman turns to Daly's argument of complementarity. Daly argues that strong sustainability assumes that natural capital and human made capital are complements. Daly holds that Beckerman assumes substitutability, rather than complementarity, and that Beckerman denies the existence of ultimate ecological limits. Beckerman counters that Daly has failed to distinguish, in the language of conventional economics, between complements and 'gross complements' (p.176). Thus, substitutes and gross complements are not mutually exclusive in the normal technical sense (where a change in the relative price of two goods could set up a change in the opposite direction in their relative use), but substitutability and Daly's complementarity are mutually exclusive ( where a rise in the scale of output could require increases in all factors of production) (ibid).

Beckerman further argues that Daly has confused the concepts of substitutability and complementarity with the relationship that exists between outputs and inputs that are used to produce them. For example, labor is complementary to machinery, because it is an input into the production of machinery, yet labor and machinery may also be substitutes in the production of something else (p.177). Thus, contends Beckerman, Daly has misused economic terms, and "is led into absurd logical errors" in his belief that economists view nature and man-made capital as substitutes (ibid.).

Beckerman concludes that the laws of market supply and demand enable society to adapt its consumption. Thus, "[e]ven if , in spite of an astronomic rise in its price, some resource did finally run out, by that time society will have learned to live with almost no consumption of it" (p.178).

Keywords: Discounting, economic welfare, environmental values, inter-generational justice, natural capital, human-made capital, sustainability.