Sources of Reasonable Hope for the Future

• Published in: The American economic review 1984-05, Vol.74 (2), p.221-225
• Main Author: Boulding, Kenneth E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arms control & disarmament; Energy resources; Fossil fuels; Great Depression; Limits to Growth: Resources, Productivity, and Social Aspects; National security; Nuclear deterrence; Nuclear energy; Nuclear warfare; Pessimism; Population growth; Social policy; Soil resources; Solar energy; War
• ISSN: 0002-8282; 1944-7981

There are 4 major sources of pessimism in the world today: 1. the positive probability of nuclear war, 2. resource depletion, 3. uncontrollable population expansion, and 4. system breakdowns in social systems. As great as these sources of pessimism are, there are grounds for reasonable hope. There is a reasonable hope for the abolition of war, in that the cost of victory is far greater than any benefit that might be obtained from it. Furthermore, over a considerable part of the world, stretching from Australia to Japan and across North America to Finland, war has been eliminated. With regard to the 2nd problem, there are both renewable sources of energy in the sun and large potential stores of energy in uranium and thorium, and of deuterium in the oceans. Although the outlook is worse for material depletion, there is constant development of substitutes. Moreover, there is great potential in an overall payoff structure, which can be modified for social ends by taxes, subsidies, and sanctions. The greatest source of hope lies in the human mind and its extraordinary capacity for learning.