92 How Much Should a Country Consume? 



future. When he seeks to make the highways of his state less hideous, 

 he can hope, at most, for the applause of Robert Moses, the New 

 York Times, the most determined garden clubs, and a few eccentrics. 

 One may formulate a law on this: The conservationist is a man who 

 concerns himself with the beauties of nature in roughly inverse pro- 

 portion to the number of people who can enjoy them. 



There is, I sense, a similar selectivity in the conservationist's ap- 

 proach to materials consumption. If we are concerned about our great 

 appetite for materials, it is plausible to seek to increase the supply, 

 to decrease waste, to make better use of the stocks that are available, 

 and to develop substitutes. But what of the appetite itself? Surely this 

 is the ultimate source of the problem. If it continues its geometric 

 course, will it not one day have to be restrained? Yet in the literature 

 of the resource problem this is the forbidden question. Over it hangs 

 a nearly total silence. It is as though, in the discussion of the chance 

 for avoiding automobile accidents, we agree not to make any men- 

 tion of speed! 



I do not wish to overstate my case. A few people have indeed ad- 

 verted to the possibility of excess resource consumption — and com- 

 mon prudence requires me to allow for discussions which I have not 

 encountered. Samuel H. Ordway in his Resources and the American 

 Dream ^ has perhaps gone farthest in inquiring whether, in the inter- 

 ests of resource conservation, some limits might be placed on con- 

 sumption. He has wondered if our happiness would be greatly im- 

 paired by smaller and less expensive automobiles, less advertising, 

 even less elaborate attire. And he argues, without being very specific 

 about it, that the Congress should face the question of use now as 

 against use by later generations. 



By contrast. The Twentieth Century Fund in its effort to match ma- 

 terials and other resource requirements to use, takes present levels of 

 consumption and prospective increases as wholly given. It then adds 

 to prospective needs enough to bring families at the lower end of the 

 income distribution up to a defined minimum. While the authors are, 

 on the whole, sanguine about our ability to meet requirements, they 

 foresee difficulties with petroleum, copper, lead, zinc, and the additive 



2 New York: The Ronald Press, 1954. 



