Unsustainability
Bill Gaede
ViNi
Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract—It will not be extraterrestrial impacts, disease, or other extrinsic agents that will cause the extinction of Man, but rather the
collapse of his artificial economy. We argue that there is no productive category of the economy beyond the Service Sector in which to shift
the global work force. As the Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Service Sectors continue to shed workers in a bid to reduce costs, this
inevitably feeds Unemployment. A global economic regime in which an ever decreasing pool of workers subsidizes an ever growing army
of unemployed is axiomatically unsustainable and conduces to system breakdown. That fateful day, profit-minded agricultural corporations
will have no further incentive to produce food or deliver it to the cities.
Keywords- sustainability, service sector, unemployment, economic collapse, agricultural corporations, extinction.
I. IMMINENT EXTINCTION The compelling question is: What comes after services?
Where will 7 billion people work in the coming decades as
With the coming of the Green Revolution, there is much talk we streamline our current activities?
these days of sustainability. Of particular concern in these A moment of thought leads us to conclude that there is no
debates are the number of people on Earth, the pollution they other category of the economy that we can even imagine. But
generate, and how this affects our environment.1 There is if this is true, it implies that Man is destined to work in the
also a feeling among many biologists that a mass extinction Service Sector for the rest of eternity! It means that we will
has been in progress for the last few thousand years, a merely be changing the percentages of Service subcategories
process accelerated recently by the encroachment of humans for the next million years, more bakers than bankers one
upon the habitats of free-roaming species. 2 year, fewer cashiers than dishwashers the next. The Service
We argue, instead, that there is greater evil lurking in the categories have not changed in the last 30 years!
dark, a 500-pound gorilla that the experts missed, a case of One argument many experts raise is that we are entering
not seeing the forest for the trees. Our species is itself facing the Knowledge Economy. 8 9 The next category is Informa-
imminent extinction. The demise of humans will not come tion. 10
about as a result of nuclear war, virulent disease, climate The problem here is that Information is not only a sub-
change or extraterrestrial impact. It will come about with the category of Services, but practically synonymous with it.
imminent disintegration of our global artificial economy. There are few activities in the Service Sector that are not
managed with computers and software. We are already
II. THE BIG PICTURE experiencing the Knowledge Economy. We are already in
the Age of Information.
There are four general activities which humans have engaged Another solution that many improvise is that we will
in since Mother Nature spawned them (Fig. 1). Let’s quickly invent something new. We always have.
run through them. For over 100,000 years we were hunters This vague proposal fails to take the obvious into
and gatherers. 3 10,000 years ago we invented farming, and consideration. Since World War II, Manufacturing has been
gradually abandoned the spear for the plow. 4 200 years ago, steadily declining as a percentage of labor and as a
some nations spearheaded the Industrial Revolution, and percentage of GDP in every developed nation. For instance,
farmers flocked to the cities to work in Manufacturing. 5 in 1947, the United States had four workers in
Less than 30 years ago, these developed nations shifted their Manufacturing to every one in Services. 11 In 2010, the tables
work forces from Manufacturing to Services. 6 Meanwhile, have turned around. There are seven workers in Services for
less developed regions experienced the transition from every one in Manufacturing. Developing nations such as
Agriculture to Manufacturing and/or Services in a rush to China, India, and Brazil have picked up much of this slack,
imitate the successes of the more advanced nations. Today, but they too are now experiencing the transition from
37% of global labor is dedicated to Agriculture, 22% to Manufacturing to Services. 7 Not a single invention since
Manufacturing, and 40% to Services. 7 World War II has taken Manufacturing to its former pro-
2 Proceedings of the International Conference Biology, Environment and Chemistry (ICBEC)
Hong Kong, China – January 29 – 31, 2010
minence. The greatest invention in the last 100 years – the Further analysis reveals that even the Service Sector is
computer – did not put people to work in Manufacturing. It unstable and likely has already begun its inevitable descent.
put them to work in Services. Cost conscious corporations are substituting bank tellers with
Hence, a breathtaking invention has as much chance of automated tellers, airport check-in agents with check-in
triggering a return to Manufacturing as it would to machines, and supermarket cashiers with self-checkout.
Agriculture or Hunter/Gathering. Any new invention will These ominous mega-trends suggest that it is only a matter
most likely be produced and marketed by existing of time before galloping efficiency erases millions if not
manufacturers, which merely need to modify their existing billions of jobs. The unbridled urge to cut costs in order to
assembly lines. It will certainly not trigger the hiring of compete will push people out of Services like technology
billions of workers. We are stuck with Services or with and innovation pushed people, first, out of Agriculture and,
whatever comes next. then, out of Manufacturing.
Figure. 1 Jobs through the ages
III. DECLINING POPULATION SPELLS TROUBLE
To compound the problem, the global population growth rate
has been steadily declining since 1963 when it peaked at 2.3
(Fig. 2). 12 Today it stands at 1.2, and United Nations Figure. 2 World Population Growth Rate 1950 – 2050
demographers project that it will reach zero some time (U.S. Census Bureau IDB)
around mid-century. 13 Although good news for
environmentalists, this spells trouble for businessmen. Our
artificial economy is founded on the principle of profit. The
expectation of all corporations of the world is that tomorrow
there will be more demand, and demand is ultimately
dependent on the number of people. The ideal demographic
scenario for a corporation is to have unlimited exponential
demand, if possible with zero costs (i.e., no workers or
salaries) – a world run by robots comes to mind (Fig. 3).
What we are seeing, rather, is asymptotic demographic
growth (Fig. 4). The conclusion is inescapable: Man’s
artificial economy cannot be run on a constant or declining
population.
3 Proceedings of the International Conference Biology, Environment and Chemistry (ICBEC)
Hong Kong, China – January 29 – 31, 2010
Figure. 3 Ideal Costs vs. Ideal Revenue IV. THE LAST SEGMENT IN MAN’S ARTIFICIAL ECONOMY
There is, in fact, a category in Man’s artificial economy that
comes after Services, which coincidentally is the fastest
growing segment in the global economy. It is known as
Unemployment. As the Agriculture, Manufacturing and
Services Sectors shed jobs and become more efficient,
workers will have no other place to go other than to the
unemployment lines (Fig. 5). The big picture is that we
started out as fully employed hunter-gatherers and
subsistence farmers and have worked our way to the most
ironic of categories: people who are in the business of doing
nothing and who are maintained by those who still have
Figure. 4 Business Aspirations vs. Global Population jobs! The current high level of unemployment that we read
about in the news is not a predictable period in the business
cycle. It is a structural part of our long term economy dating
to the birth of Man.
The inevitable rise in unemployment is unsustainable. It
is difficult to visualize how an ever decreasing work force
can consistently maintain an ever increasing army of
unemployed. We must face the obvious: at some point,
man’s artificial economy will come to an end. The question
is: What will replace it?
Figure. 5 Unemployment: the last economic category
4 Proceedings of the International Conference Biology, Environment and Chemistry (ICBEC)
Hong Kong, China – January 29 – 31, 2010
V. IS ECONOMIC COLLAPSE ANYWHERE IN SIGHT? sophisticated nano-projects in countless ghost cities around
Nanotechnologists brainstorm an idyllic world of abundance the world is beyond speculation.
where needs and wants are ostracized. 14 Technology, they Are we anywhere near total economic collapse?
say, will dump scarce resources into the ash heap of history If the trends just described have any merits, we seem to
and actually trigger the creation of the workerless society. be on the verge of the precipice. We spent over 100,000
The future is a world of human couch potatoes served by years as hunters and gatherers, 10,000 years as farmers, 200
metallic slaves with fancy names such as Robo sapiens, years in Manufacturing, and about 30 years in Services. This
Robo server, and Homo provectus. 15 Indeed, many visualize exponential progression suggests that we probably have no
such a wonderland as the ideal society, a Leisure Economy more than 5 or 10 years to go in the cutting edge category
of sorts, the final stage in Man’s economic development. called Unemployment
Humans will not become extinct, but live forevermore
without having to work or worrying about money.
However, it would behoove us to regard these pie-in-the-
sky utopias as nothing but wishful thinking of dreamers. The REFERENCES
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