IN THE article “Environmental and economic critiques are based on envy” in his Profit Motive column in Business report, October 15, Keith Bryer claims that people concerned about various economic and environmental problems are driven by envy.
He goes on to claim that these people do not understand the way the profit motive or economic growth works and finally presents us with a ridiculous caricature of such people as persons wanting to return to some imagined idyllic pre-industrial past.
Why would he make these juvenile claims, which cannot, by their nature, be backed up with evidence? This is a good example of a standard tactic used by many politicians and propagandists. By imputing an unsavoury motive to anyone who opposes his view, he neutralises such opposition and can dispense with the need to address the opposition’s arguments.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bryer worked for BP South Africa for 25 years as press and information officer and he counts BP Africa, BP Angola and Anglo Platinum among his past and present clients in his current position as a director of Kranz Bryer & Associates. Perhaps these links to the extractive and energy industries help to explain his obvious disdain for environmental activists. Bryer’s past, and perhaps present, professional work for the fossil fuels industry is a prima facie indication that his views might not be objective, and in not making these links explicit, Business Report failed in its duty to its readers. Calling him “retired” seems misleading.
Bryer claims that the profit motive will always result in a solution to be found for problems we face, and seems to suggest that government intervention can only result in preventing a solution being found.
I am a believer in the free market as a mechanism to deliver economic growth and solve social problems, but it is not true that all problems can be left to the profit motive alone for solution. If resolving a problem would not result in profit, then the profit motive clearly cannot operate in finding a solution. Ironically, one of his own examples, that of sewerage systems, is one which illustrates the need for government intervention to solve certain problems.
The slave trade, child labour and apartheid were all social problems we have faced which were eventually solved by government intervention prompted by the citizen activism Bryer seems to despise.
No industry is going to develop and use a cleaner technology unless it is cheaper than existing technology, or it is forced to do so by law. Nor can it be expected to do so given that the duty of business is to return maximum value to the shareholder.
This being the case, in the absence of the development of cleaner technology driven by the need to reduce costs, the only way the environment can be adequately protected is by government regulation.
The reason the fracking industry has developed the cleaner technology mentioned by Bryer is because it is cheaper and/or will allow them to frack in places where they were prevented from doing so previously due to government regulation or citizen activism. Whether the accompanying reduction in environmental cost by using this technology makes it worthwhile to proceed in the Karoo, and if so, under what regulatory conditions, is a question for South Africans to decide. However, all interested and affected parties should have the right to weigh in on the decision, including environmental activists.
The massive subsidies paid by the public to the private sector in the form of environmental costs incurred distort the market and removes the incentive to find solutions.
The deep pockets, massive PR budgets and powerful political connections of this industry mean that its views are likely to overshadow those of concerned citizens and civil society organisations.
Politicians also tend to be in favour of fracking since there is likely to be immediate economic benefit through increased tax revenues, profits to local support industries and increased employment. These are important to the politicians in a democracy since their continuation in power is dependent on short-term benefits being delivered to their constituents. In addition, governments tend to use gross domestic product instead of, for example, the “genuine progress indicator (GPI)” advocated by some to measure economic growth. The GPI does take into account cost to people’s quality of life and environmental costs.
With these two stakeholders, industry and the state, with the myriad channels they can use to influence the debate and push through decisions in their favour, who is there to represent the interests of those who do not share in the short term economic benefits or increased political capital of environmentally costly activities?
It only leaves concerned citizens, informed civil society organisations and independent experts. To ridicule these methods and to attempt to dismiss these people as being simply envious is despicable.
Roger Wallace VIA E-MAIL
Sound evidence part of green critiques
Keith Bryer believes environmental critiques of capitalism are based on envy. This is bizarre. Such critiques are usually based on two reasonable foundations. The first is that humans need an environment that is complex and that supports biodiversity – the kind in which we evolved. The second is that there is ample evidence that the form of “development” that results from the profit motive is destructive of environments that support human life. Call me selfish, but what I value more than the constant pursuit of money is an environment that keeps me and my kind alive.
Crispin Hemson
Glenwood