The Shape of the Future

E M Risse


 

Discordant Trio

 

Adam Smith, Andrew Jackson and Henry Ford originated powerful strains of thought in American democracy.  Each one has its merits.  But working in concert, they create an unsustainable society.     


 

Adam Smith, Andrew Jackson and Henry Ford are associated with powerful themes that shape contemporary society. The application of their ideas does not, however, make a harmonious trio.

 

The Smith-Jackson-Ford themes are:

  • A market driven economy (Adam Smith)

  • Individual rights and prosperity within a democracy derived from land ownership and resource consumption/ exploitation (Andrew Jackson)

  • An automobile that every family can afford (Henry Ford)   

This Trio of compelling ideals controls everyday life in the United States but inter-theme conflict confounds the prospect of a sustainable future.

 

The themes of Smith, Jackson and Ford, as applied in a democratic context, do not play well for the Urbanside, where 95 percent of contemporary citizens derive their livelihood and which would function most effectively if it occupied no more that five percent of the land area in the United States. The human settlement pattern in the Urbanside is unsustainable from the perspective of mobility and shelter as well as provision of clean air, pure water, healthful food and physical health. (For a summary of the current level of dysfunction, see “Regional Rigor Mortis,” June 6, 2005.)

 

The Smith-Jackson-Ford Trio is also not in harmony with the Countryside upon which 100 percent of the population depends for food, air and water and which should cover the remaining 95 percent of the land area. The Countryside is being eroded by scatteration of urban land uses that are far more efficiently supported in the Urbanside. These more efficient configurations are ones that the market documents the vast majority of citizens favor, if they could afford them. Ironically, these configurations of human settlement would be less expensive were it not for for massive government subsidies on the scattered, inefficient patterns. 

 

The Countryside would be further degraded by auto-dependent tourism, as will be documented in The Shape of Warrenton-Fauquier’s Future.

 

The ideas of Smith, Jackson and Ford are not bad per se.  It is, however, a fact that the cumulative impact of the Trio in combination is very bad as currently applied. This is due in large part to misguided subsidies and the failure to equitably and rationally allocate location variable costs of goods and services. 

 

Adam Smith’s market economy is the economic system that most effectively harnesses human initiative and has resulted in unprecedented economic prosperity and physical well-being in the nation-states that have embraced a market driven economy.

 

However, in its most intensive applications in the early 21st century, the market economy has morphed to become a consumer driven, winner-take-all engine of mass resource consumption that is leaving more and more citizens behind. No one, however, has yet articulated a better way to allocate resources in a democracy.

 

Without a fair allocation of location based costs, the settlement pattern which is the product of Jacksonian right of land exploitation is unsustainable. This is because the governance structure has failed to evolve a balance between individual rights and collective responsibilities.  The imbalance is exacerbated by the failure to evolve a democratic governance structure that allocates the level of control to the level of impact among the organic components of human settlement.

 

The catalyst that makes Smith’s market economy and Jackson’s populist land consumption into a unsustainable settlement pattern is the excessive reliance on the private vehicle for mobility. A chicken in every pot and car in every garage is not a bad thing. It becomes a very bad thing when the only way to get a chicken, or anything else, is to drive to get it.

 

Basic physics drives private-vehicle unsustainability. The size of the vehicle and the space required to drive and park it disaggregates human settlement pattern to the point of dysfunction. The automobile has become the alcohol (or perhaps the Small Pox) of an uninformed and over expecting society. It is the catalyst for mass over-consumption. (See "The Horseless Carriage," Box 9 Chapter 13 from "The Shape of the Future," reprinted as End Note One in “Out of Chaos,” July 26, 2005.

 

The ideas of Smith, Jackson and Ford are all confounded by the Fallacy of Composition: What is good for one is frequently not good for all. In a democracy it is not enough to be good for one or good for a few, it has to be good for many if not all. Even slim majorities result in revolts and conflicts.

 

The theorem that "what is good for a few is not good for the majority" is the basic equation driving problems of traffic congestion and of a lack of affordable and accessible housing. Just as a simple-minded goal of “home ownership” will not solve the Shelter Crisis, so cheap fuel will not solve the mobility crisis. It will require Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns and Fundamental Change in governance structure.  

 

-- July 25, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Risse and his wife Linda live inside the "Clear Edge" of the "urban enclave" known as Warrenton, a municipality in the Countryside near the edge of the Washington-Baltimore "New Urban Region."

 

Mr. Risse, the principal of

SYNERGY/Planning, Inc., can be contacted at spirisse@aol.com.

 

Read his profile here.