Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [39]
Art shook his head and looked down at his lectern page, which he had filled again. Resources and capital nonsubstitutable— power saws/carpenters— house of air.
“Excuse me?” Sam said. “Did you say natural capital?”
Fort jerked, turned around to look at Sam. “Yes?”
“I thought capital was by definition man-made. The produced means of production, we were taught to define it.”
“Yes. But in a capitalist world, the word capital has taken on more and more uses. People talk about human capital, for instance, which is what labor accumulates through education and work experience. Human capital differs from the classic kind in that you can’t inherit it, and it can only be rented, not bought or sold.”
“Unless you count slavery,” Art said.
Fort’s forehead wrinkled. “This concept of natural capital actually resembles the traditional definition more than human capital. It can be owned and bequeathed, and divided into renewable and nonrenewable, marketed and nonmarketed.”
“But if everything is capital of one sort or another,” Amy said, “you can see why people would think that one kind was substitutable for another kind. If you improve your man-made capital to use less natural capital, isn’t that a substitution?”
Fort shook his head. “That’s efficiency. Capital is a quantity of input, and efficiency is a ratio of output to input. No matter how efficient capital is, it can’t make something out of nothing.”
“New energy sources . . .” Max suggested.
“But we can’t make soil out of electricity. Fusion power and self-replicating machinery have given us enormous amounts of power, but we have to have basic stocks to apply that power to. And that’s where we run into a limit for which there are no substitutions possible.”
Fort stared at them all, still displaying that primate calm that Art had noted at the beginning. Art glanced at his lectern screen. Natural capital— human capital— traditional capital— energy vs. matter— electric soil— no substitutes please— He grimaced and clicked to a new page.
Fort said, “Unfortunately, most economists are still working within the empty-world model of economics.”
“The full-world model seems obvious,” Sally said. “It’s just common sense. Why would any economist ignore it?”
Fort shrugged, made another silent circumnavigation of the room. Art’s neck was getting tired.
“We understand the world through paradigms. The change from empty-world economics to full-world economics is a major paradigm shift. Max Planck once said that a new paradigm takes over not when it convinces its opponents, but when its opponents eventually die.”
“And now they aren’t dying,” Art said.
Fort nodded. “The treatments are keeping people around. And a lot of them have tenure.”
Sally looked disgusted. “Then they’ll have to learn to change their minds, won’t they.”
Fort stared at her. “We’ll try that right now. In theory at least. I want you to invent full-world economic strategies. It’s a game I play. If you plug your lecterns into the table, I can give you the starting data.”
They all leaned forward and plugged into the table.
• • •
The first game Fort wanted to play involved estimating maximum sustainable human populations. “Doesn’t that depend on assumptions about lifestyle?” Sam asked.
“We’ll make a whole range of assumptions.”
He wasn’t kidding. They went from scenarios in which Earth’s every acre of arable land was farmed with maximum efficiency, to scenarios involving a return to hunting and gathering; from universal conspicuous consumption, to universal subsistence diets. Their lecterns set the initial conditions and then they tapped away, looking bored or nervous or impatient or absorbed, using formulas provided by the table, or else supplying some of their own.
It occupied them until lunch, and then all afternoon. Art enjoyed