Community | March 28, 2011 | 37 comments

Need versus Greed by Jeffrey Sachs

source: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs175/English

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India’s great moral leader Mohandas Gandhi famously said that there is enough on Earth for everybody’s need, but not enough for everybody’s greed. Today, Gandhi’s insight is being put to the test as never before.

The world is hitting global limits in its use of resources. We are feeling the shocks each day in catastrophic floods, droughts, and storms – and in the resulting surge in prices in the marketplace. Our fate now depends on whether we cooperate or fall victim to self-defeating greed.

The limits to the global economy are new, resulting from the unprecedented size of the world’s population and the unprecedented spread of economic growth to nearly the entire world. There are now seven billion people on the planet, compared to just three billion a half-century ago. Today, average per capita income is $10,000, with the rich world averaging around $40,000 and the developing world around $4,000. That means that the world economy is now producing around $70 trillion in total annual output, compared to around $10 trillion in 1960.

China’s economy is growing at around 10% annually. India’s is growing at nearly the same rate. Africa, long the world’s slowest-growing region, is now averaging roughly 5% annual GDP growth. Overall, the developing countries are growing at around 7% per year, and the developed economies at around 2%, yielding a global average of around 4.5%.

This is very good news in many ways. Rapid economic growth in developing countries is helping to alleviate poverty. In China, for example, extreme poverty has been cut from well over half of the population 30 years ago to around 10% or less today.

Yet there is another side to the global growth story that we must understand clearly. With the world economy growing at 4-5% per year, it will be on a path to double in size in less than 20 years. Today’s $70 trillion world economy will be at $140 trillion before 2030, and $280 trillion before 2050 if we extrapolate from today’s growth rate.

Our planet will not physically support this exponential economic growth if we let greed take the upper hand. Even today, the weight of the world economy is already crushing nature, rapidly depleting the supplies of fossil-fuel energy resources that nature created over millions of years, while the resulting climate change has led to massive instabilities in terms of rainfall, temperature, and extreme storms.

We see these pressures every day in the marketplace. Oil prices have surged to more than $100 per barrel, as China, India, and other oil-importing countries join the United States in a massive scramble to buy up supplies, especially from the Middle East. Food prices, too, are at historical highs, contributing to poverty and political unrest.

On the one hand, there are more mouths to feed, and with greater purchasing power on average. On the other hand, heat waves, droughts, floods, and other disasters induced by climate change are destroying crops and reducing the supplies of grains on world markets. In recent months, massive droughts have struck the grain-producing regions of Russia and Ukraine, and enormous floods have hit Brazil and Australia; now, another drought is menacing northern China’s grain belt.

There is something else hidden from view that is very dangerous. In many populous parts of the world, including the grain-growing regions of northern India, northern China, and the American Midwest, farmers are tapping into groundwater to irrigate their crops. The great aquifers that supply water for irrigation are being depleted. In some places in India, the water table has been falling by several meters annually in recent years. Some deep wells are approaching the point of exhaustion, with salinity set to rise as ocean water infiltrates the aquifer.

A calamity is inevitable unless we change. And here is where Gandhi comes in. If our societies are run according to the greed principle, with the rich doing everything to get richer, the growing resource crisis will lead to a widening divide between the rich and the poor – and quite possibly to an increasingly violent struggle for survival.

The rich will try to use their power to commandeer more land, more water, and more energy for themselves, and many will support violent means to do so, if necessary. The US has already followed a strategy of militarization in the Middle East in the naïve hope that such an approach can ensure secure energy supplies. Now competition for those supplies is intensifying, as China, India, and others bid for the same (depleting) resources.

An analogous power grab is being attempted in Africa. The rise in food prices is leading to a land grab, as powerful politicians sell foreign investors massive tracts of farmland, brushing aside the traditional land rights of poor smallholders. Foreign investors hope to use large mechanized farms to produce output for export, leaving little or nothing for the local populations.


Everywhere in the leading countries – the US, the United Kingdom, China, India, and elsewhere – the rich have enjoyed soaring incomes and growing political power. The US economy has been taken over by billionaires, the oil industry, and other key sectors. The same trends threaten the emerging economies, where wealth and corruption are on the rise.

If greed dominates, the engine of economic growth will deplete our resources, push the poor aside, and drive us into a deep social, political, and economic crisis. The alternative is a path of political and social cooperation, both within countries and internationally. There will be enough resources and prosperity to go around if we convert our economies to renewable energy sources, sustainable agricultural practices, and reasonable taxation of the rich. This is the path to shared prosperity through improved technologies, political fairness, and ethical awareness.
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  2. tags:
    Green,  Food Prices,  Economic Development,  resource wars
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37 comments // Need versus Greed by Jeffrey Sachs

  • KSirys
  • eatmyphuck
  • letsliveinpeace
  • eatmyphuck
  • cmc101
    • 0
      cmc101  
    • eatmyphuck:

      the rich use the same language against the poor. I have heard the same thing in church, the golf course, souls harbors and Hospitals Control by the same media " those no good lazy thieves are taking my money "

    • 1 year ago
  • FoosMaster
    • +1
      FoosMaster  

    • Fantastic Post!
      The last paragraph is Very Important to Everyone on the planet but Greed is a Powerful enemy and the Greedy have been stockpiling for a long time.
      The current protests against Greedy leaders around the world are just a start and I hope that the protests will not loose momentum but as I mentioned, the Rich have been stockpiling for this for a Long time and they will use Every resource they have to fight it.
      The world needs a Great leader to emerge that will stand up for the little people before we go Too far and destroy the planet with our Greed. Unfortunately MONEY has become Soo powerful in politics that a truly Great leader of the common people has Little chance of gaining any political power.
      I feel that there is a coming Revolution around the world, including in the US and other countries, that the Rich are going to fight with everything they have. I just hope that the Revolution will be strong and sustained enough to defeat the Rich Corporate Dictators that currently control our world.
      Power to the People!
      Eat the Rich!

    • 1 year ago
  • Jeremy_Benson
    • 0
      Jeremy_Benson  

    • We face one of the biggest obstacles in human evolution. I say that not because the growth we've experienced in the past is trivial or meaningless, but because of the size, complexity, and connectedness of modern society is unlike anything we've had before. In order to grow, a few people demanding change is not enough. They will get stomped down by the powerful majority sure enough. Therefor we require a tipping point - enough people working for change that the power of a few is not enough to stop it. This requires what you might call 'unrest'. A person whose livelihood is not threatened is far less likely to demand change - save for a few altruistic souls. That is why the rich and powerful are almost always the enemies of change, historically speaking. They have no reason or desire to do anything different because they are doing more than fine - at least in welfare terms.

    • 1 year ago
  • Mayeffie
  • ilikeike
    • +2
      ilikeike  

    • Greed is what keeps us on a fossil fuel economy. Its too hard to control people and skim their wealth if they can get their energy from the sky with no middle man. If solar panels were free and 100% efficient someone would find a way to block the sun unless they get paid. This idea continues with Monsanto controlling food supplies through a complex system of genetic engineering and government subsidies designed to break independent farmers worldwide. Most importantly with security and the threat of imprisonment if you don't pay your taxes and do your part. Pull your share. Freedom isn't free....etc...

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  
    • ilikeike:

      What we call "laziness", and what we deem as "greed" in others, are major factors, no doubt, in human behavior.
      The difference between the best and worst among us in those behaviors is easily perceivable, but, I'd contend, only a matter of degree.
      My handful of suits remain in my closet, for instance, but I still have them.
      Let me be more specific, Ike. I live in a very rugged, beautiful, and very lightly populated area. I am off-grid, and fully energy self-sufficient. I get my electrical energy from the sun and have my own sources of water and arable land. But, I'm as certain as gravity, that if you were increase the population of this area and have every new resident simply duplicate my wonderful good works, it would in no time, be a complete wasteland, horizon to horizon.
      That's my point. Yes, there are some more flamboyant bad guys, but in the end, the difference in impact over thousands of multiplied examples, is slight.

    • 1 year ago
  • BenjaminDover
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  

    • "Greed" is a subjective concept.
      The number of humans scurrying about trying to wring a life out of the available resources of the earth is an objective value.
      When Gandhi, (who I admire tremendously, and follow as best I can,) was right in his statement of greed verse need as moral precept.
      It's also helpful to keep in mind though in this context, that when he began his career of public activism, (1906) the population of the earth was around 1.5 billion. It is now over 7 billion, very quickly on the way to 9 billion.
      Of course, he wasn't talking about specific numbers here, but the core idea of greed, which applies to species reproduction as well as to the individual nature of human insatiability.

    • 1 year ago
  • Suziqu
    • 0
      Suziqu  

    • Insightful and intelligent, we need more journalists like Jeffery Sachs to keep reminding us that this planet, it's resources and economies need to work for all. We don't have unlimited resources, this planet needs to be respected and governements need to start getting a whole lot more serious about our dire predicament.

    • 1 year ago
  • BenjaminDover
    • +1
      BenjaminDover  

    • The pigs on top continue to hoard more for themselves.
      The "fatter" they grow the greater the need for Revolution.
      In those countries where the wealthy have raped the resources for their own enrichment, while leaving the poor to starve in the streets, the people have awakened from their nightmares and said "Enough."
      America is quickly approaching this tipping point, where 80% compete for 7% of the wealth, an adjustment needs to be made.
      The pigs grow fatter and all I ask is "Bacon anyone?"

    • 1 year ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  
    • BenjaminDover:

      Personally, I'm all for revolution. (As well as, even more enthusiastically, for evolution.)
      However, when you say "those countries" I feel compelled to say I haven't seen much difference in the examples of thoughtless human behavior anywhere in the world.
      The Buddhist countries I visit have a much sweeter way of expressing themselves and an admirable tradition of moderation, which helps, but which doesn't really change the fundamental and endlessly repeated pattern of human avarice and wholesale destruction everywhere on the planet, up to one's ability to do so.

    • 1 year ago
  • BenjaminDover
    • -1
      BenjaminDover  
    • ampersand:

      I usually think in terms of more egalitarian societies being those in which income disparity is kept to a minimum through higher taxation and socialist governments providing for the basic needs, such as northern Europe, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands, Denmark. Social equality can be achieved if the will of the people compel it.

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  
    • BenjaminDover:

      A shared sense of social equality is a critical element in a functioning modern society. Without out it, you breed rage and hopelessness, and that destabilizes a society more than any external threat.
      It does seem possible to me, even with all the odds against it, that there will be a sustained effort to re-balance the scales in United States.
      I hope it succeeds, for all our sakes.

    • 1 year ago
  • Steamed_N_More
    • 0
      Steamed_N_More  

    • Need includes; desire, whim, image, and securing them all. It all depends on incomes and values. Never enough, and that is a hard pattern to break. Especially when it isn't recognized.

    • 1 year ago
  • extracrazykiwi2008
  • ahiguy
  • KSirys
  • Houshalter
    • -6
      Houshalter  

    • You seriously have to stop blaming "greed" for all the worlds problems. The fact scarcity exists and is going to become a larger and larger problem for the forseeable future is why we need clearly defined property rights more then ever.

    • 1 year ago
  • cmc101
    • +2
      cmc101  
    • Houshalter:

      DO you remember reading about the Irtish potato famine you could be hung if you got any food off the baron's property because you were only serf-sharecropper. that is worth less than an American Negro indenture servant slave? Here in America we moved people out west to silver mines to company own towns store every thing had to be bought and paid for before you receive an paycheck if you objected the U.S.A Army would move you and your family out the desert and may God help you
      I DO BLAME GREED And the self righteous BS Gaddafi has defined property rights
      and thank you for supporting his rights amen

    • 1 year ago
  • postlapsaria
    • +4
      postlapsaria  
    • Houshalter:

      scarcity IS a problem, and that's where the idea of "sharing" should come into place.

      but when people want the same amount or even more of something when supply goes down-- that is greed.

      so yes you CAN blame greed. the opposite of greed would be, "oh, food is going down? you lost your job? gas is costing too much? here, i'll tighten my belt too, i'll drive less, here, take some tax money, how else can i help."

      as opposed to, "sorry you have nothing, but why should i give you mine?"

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
    • +5
      Milieu  
    • Houshalter:

      Ok, I'll stop blaming the Oligarch's Greed.

      I'll blame the Oligarch's Happiness. The Happier the Oligarchs, the worse off everyone else is.

      There, that better?

    • 1 year ago
  • alexandrek
  • VFORVENDETTA
    • +3
      VFORVENDETTA  
    • Houshalter:

      On the issue of property rights, I couldn't agree with you more, that is why I propose having very clearly defined property rights to your ass, so I can put my foot so far up it, it would never see the light of day again.

    • 1 year ago
  • VFORVENDETTA
    • +2
      VFORVENDETTA  
    • postlapsaria:

      Don't you think you're being a little harsh Stephen? after all, wasn't it Republicans that came up with a simple fix for the health care situation, let's see, yes, I believe it was then Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson who explained it so concisely, are you old? are you very ill? don't have adequate health care coverage? then, just die! See, wasn't that simple! we never give those Republicans credit where credit's due! they're just so...... misunderstood.

    • 1 year ago
  • Angeliron
  • Milieu
  • Milieu
  • Houshalter
    • +1
      Houshalter  
    • cmc101:

      Way to completely miss the point. All scarce resources have to be owned or there is no way to resolve disputes that can arise over their use. The examples you give had property rights to some degree, but they were given to the elite instead of everyone.

    • 1 year ago
  • Houshalter
    • +1
      Houshalter  
    • postlapsaria:

      If everyone had an equal share of the resources, everyone would spend their share where it benefited them most, and even though that is still "greed", it doesn't automatically lead to some kind of dystopia where everyone suffers. Rather everyone would get the most possible from their share and everyones share would be equal.
      Of course, this is not the society we live in by far. Some people are given massive advantages over everyone else via the state, and because of their dissproportionate wealth, everyone screams "GREED!!!1111" as if letting indivuals make decisions about how they should go about acheiving their own ends is somehow inferior.

    • 1 year ago
  • Houshalter
  • Houshalter
  • postlapsaria
    • +1
      postlapsaria  

    • HAHAHAHAHA

      the only comment on this story is the spam that can "Supply series of sport jersey..."

      that's the most perfect, beautiful piece of irony i've seen in a while.

    • 1 year ago
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