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By Root 939 0

and found that they are “not only benign in their impacts on international competitiveness, but actually a net positive force driving private firms and the economy as a whole to become more competitive in international markets.”10 Or it could be that the idea of “limiting growth” could mean holding the total of economic activity in the global economy exactly at current levels. This would imply a strange kind of stagnation, in which the world’s standard of living would gradually converge on a level lower than the developed world currently enjoys but higher than the extreme poverty so prevalent around the world. It seems unlikely that very many people in the developed world would be excited by the prospect of transferring wealth to others, even if it meant that the suffering of others was largely eliminated.

Joseph DesJardins, following Daly, argues that there’s a third way:

The alternative to economic growth is economic development, not economic stagnation. . . . True economic development must encourage targeted economic growth in those areas in which human well-being can be promoted in ecologically sustainable ways and a decrease in those economic activities that degrade the earth’s biosphere.11

Shifting from “more” to “better,” in other words, can allow our economy to continue to move forward without the environmental and social dangers of using up more and more of the planet’s resources. With some things—Thneeds, for instance—it’s hard to see quite how we could substitute gains in quality for gains in quantity. The Once-ler seems to be stuck in a bind. Having created something for which there seems to be an almost insatiable demand (a demand that he helped create), he doesn’t have any incentive to do anything more than produce more of the same old Thneeds he knows he can sell. And he doesn’t stop to wonder if perhaps the increased production of Thneeds from his factory has done any harm until it’s too late.

Selling the Last of the Truffula Trees

The Lorax returned to show the Once-ler more of the environmental damage that the Thneed factory had caused—air pollution, in the form of “smogulous smoke,” had driven off the Swomee-Swans; and water pollution, in the form of “Gluppity-Glupp” and “Schloppity-Schlopp,” had driven off the Humming-Fish. Blame for the plight of the Swomee-Swans and Humming-Fish is laid clearly at the feet of the Once-ler, but he still doesn’t seem to get it.

Well, I have my rights, sir, and I’m telling you

I intend to go on doing just what I do!

And, for your information, you Lorax, I’m figgering

on biggering

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING,

turning MORE Truffula Trees into Thneeds

which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs! (Lorax)

But the Once-ler’s tirade was interrupted—at that moment, a machine chopped down the last Truffula Tree. Without the raw material it needs, the Thneed factory was suddenly shut down, and all of his relatives left.

In his pursuit of quick wealth, the Once-ler has entirely used up the single natural resource on which his business depended and destroyed the natural environment in which the business was located. In one respect, that’s not particularly surprising—the initial creation of the Thneed was little more than a whim, it seems, and the business was built on the faddish demand for Thneeds. But in another respect, it’s emblematic of much of modern business, in that an emphasis on short-term results—the quick biggering of his business—blinds the Once-ler to long-term issues, putting long-term success out of reach. If only the Once-ler had heard of “sustainability”!

There has been a lot of discussion of “sustainability” in the decades since The Lorax appeared.12 At first glance, it’s a relatively simple idea: sustainability is simply something’s ability to sustain itself, of course, usually indefinitely. But we quickly run into difficulties, as the Once-ler’s example shows: the continued, sustained growth of the Thneed factory is not compatible with the continued, sustained existence of the Truffula Tree forest.