PAUL B. SEARS 109 



that in allowing each individual to seek his own welfare, a greater 

 good — i.e., the ultimate welfare of all — will be secured. The men 

 I have named include in their concern a respect for all living things, 

 and for the order of nature in general. 



My own rather pragmatic assumption is that the human adventure 

 is worth maintaining for as long and at as high a quality as possible. 

 It happens that this, in my judgment, does no violence to a respect 

 for the order of nature — indeed, requires it. It is clear that Dr. Gal- 

 braith is similarly concerned with the continuity of human culture 

 even though he does not say so in so many words. There are times 

 when ethical assumptions gain more by being taken for granted be- 

 yond question than by being paraded, and this seems to be one. 



Speaking then of practical means, he suggests a doctrine so old 

 and out of fashion that it has all the merit of novelty. He has sug- 

 gested that we work on the denominator of the supply/demand ratio, 

 by beginning to face realistically the possibility of lessening our pres- 

 ent dizzy rate of consumption. If ever I heard a subversive idea, this 

 is it. And if ever I welcomed one, this is the occasion. 



Our technological culture, with the notable exception of the medi- 

 cal arts (which themselves are not free from a growing tinge of com- 

 mercialism) is geared to the speedy elaboration of consumer goods 

 from natural resources. By comparison, the attention given to ensur- 

 ing an adequate future supply of such resources is meager and more 

 often intuitive than analytical. Yet realistic analysis is essential, not 

 only to reinforce intuition, however sound, but to lay the foundation 

 for effective action. 



Such analysis may be cultural, biological, or physical, as I see it. 

 The economic accounting approach mentioned in the beginning of 

 my comments is, I believe, subsumed in the cultural, since I happen 

 to agree with the late George Wehrwein that economics is funda- 

 mentally a matter of human behavior. I have long since found it 

 convenient to view the conservation problem as a resultant of the 

 interplay of resources, population, and culture. 



As a rough approximation, we can identify a sequence of four 

 phases in our cultural analysis, 



Sources -^ Elaboration -^ Distribution -^ Consumption; 

 each dependent upon that which precedes it. When sources of mate- 



