Capitalism Makes You Cleaner

The underrated environmental qualities of the Kuznets Curve

From Matt Welch of Reaons. Excerpts:

"In the 1950s, the Belarussian-born American economist Simon Kuznets hypothesized that income inequality as a nation industrializes can be shaped like an inverted U—it increases in the early stages of growth, reaches an apex, and then starts tapering down as the economy matures. The switch begins to happen after a critical mass of people abandon farm life for the big cities, where they obtain better education, benefit from economies of scale, and start agitating for policy changes.

Ironically, at a time when Kuznets' original concept has come under intensified attack in the inequality-obsessed developed world, its application to the environment has gained considerable purchase both academically and observationally. As Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey traces in "The End of Doom" (page 20), many of the woes that people still assume are getting worse are actually improving in the most advanced countries.

The richest nations are reforesting, not deforesting; cleaning up rivers and skies instead of making them dirtier; beating back cancer instead of contributing to its increase. As women get wealthier they gobble up educational opportunities and gain control over their own reproduction, to the point where the fertility rate of Mexican women will soon plummet to replacement level. Some nostalgiacs may lament the disappearance of the family farm, but the swapping out of subsistence agriculture for city life is a net plus for the environment and a net boon for the participating migrants.

Some of the virtuous Kuznets action in the rich world can be attributed to sheer technological progress. Cutting-edge technology, from agribusiness to apps, always seeks to produce more output with less input. Other advancements can come from the types of regulations that an increasingly wealthy populace demands—a desire to see the mountains in Southern California leads to the prohibition of leaded gasoline, for example.

But arguably the most important change is the one hardest to measure: that which occurs first within the human heart, then in behavior. If you look around at the world, and even at your own life, you will see examples of the Kuznets Curve all around you.

The most widespread practice of self-pollution—cigarette smoking—is down all over the developed world (while rising in industrializing countries such as China and India). A quarter-century ago, being in a bar almost anywhere on the globe meant stinging eyeballs and reeking clothes; now you can't even smoke in a bar in Paris or Prague."

"But moving the periscope back reveals a long-term trend toward environmental cleanliness everywhere that capitalism has been allowed to flourish at length, whether it be in democratic socialist France or the allegedly laissez faire United States. We all get there, as long as we don't totally murder the goose that laid these golden eggs."