A
cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology. Fundamentally they believe that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to provide for the estimated peak population of about 9.5 billion in 2050. However, this would imply there is already enough for the current world population, but as starvation and
fuel povertyA fuel poor household is one which cannot afford to keep adequately warm at reasonable cost. The term is mainly used in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, although the concept also applies in much of Eastern Europe and the USA.- Definitions :...
have not yet been eradicated, the argument therefore is that the problem is not a lack of resources but rather inadequate distribution through the current economic and political systems. Looking further into the future they posit that the abundance of matter and energy in space would appear to give humanity almost unlimited room for growth.
The term comes from the
cornucopiaThe cornucopia is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn of plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone.- In mythology :...
, the "horn of plenty" of
Greek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, which magically supplied its owners with endless food and drink.
A
cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology. Fundamentally they believe that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to provide for the estimated peak population of about 9.5 billion in 2050. However, this would imply there is already enough for the current world population, but as starvation and
fuel povertyA fuel poor household is one which cannot afford to keep adequately warm at reasonable cost. The term is mainly used in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, although the concept also applies in much of Eastern Europe and the USA.- Definitions :...
have not yet been eradicated, the argument therefore is that the problem is not a lack of resources but rather inadequate distribution through the current economic and political systems. Looking further into the future they posit that the abundance of matter and energy in space would appear to give humanity almost unlimited room for growth.
The term comes from the
cornucopiaThe cornucopia is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn of plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone.- In mythology :...
, the "horn of plenty" of
Greek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, which magically supplied its owners with endless food and drink. The cornucopians are sometimes known as "Boomsters", and their philosophic opponents—Malthus and his school—are called "Doomsters" or "
DoomerA Doomer is a peakist that also believes that a Malthusian Catastrophe will inevitably follow. Doomers attribute their beliefs to humanity's over reliance on petroleum for agricultural and industrial productivity...
s."
Theory
Cornucopian theory, as formulated by
Julian L. SimonJulian Lincoln Simon was a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute at the time of his death, after previously serving as a longtime business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Simon wrote many books and...
in the 1981
The Ultimate ResourceThe Ultimate Resource is a 1981 book written by Julian Lincoln Simon challenging the notion that humanity was running out of natural resources...
, acknowledges that greater consumption is due to an increase in population, which heightens scarcity and induces price increases, at least in the short run. Higher prices create an opportunity, however, which leads inventors and businesses to seek new ways to satisfy the shortages. A few inventors and businesses eventually succeed, and finally society ends up better off than if the original shortage problems had never arisen. As population grows, the stock of useful knowledge grows as well. Cornucopians assert that the basic forces influencing the state of humanity and its progress are not due to inherent limitations caused by the finite amount of natural resources, but by (a) the number of people who are alive to consume and produce goods and knowledge and (b) the level of wealth. Under this economic philosophy, wealth is more than the amount of tangible assets. The extent of wealth depends upon the level of technology and the ability to create new knowledge. As a society becomes more wealthy, it creates a well-developed set of legal rules to produce the conditions of freedom and security that progress requires.
Description by an opposing view
Stereotypically, a
cornucopian is someone who posits that there are few intractable natural limits to growth and believes the world can provide a practically limitless abundance of natural resources. The label 'cornucopian' is rarely self-applied, and is most commonly used derogatorily by those who believe that the target is overly optimistic about the resources that will be available in the future.
One common example of this labeling is by those who are skeptical of the view that technology can solve, or overcome, the problem of an exponentially-increasing human population living off a finite base of natural resources. So-called cornucopians might counter that human population growth has slowed dramatically, and not only is currently growing at a linear rate, but is projected to peak and start declining later this century.
In practice, the cornucopian view relies upon the economic law of supply and demand, which has the following implication: as long as the price of a good is free to adjust, all consumers who wish to purchase the good at the going price are able to do so. Resources do not run out, they simply become more expensive. Although another viewpoint is the
post scarcityPost scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, often explored in science fiction, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free...
model which moves beyond conventional economics - and indeed cannot be adequately described by usual economic models which are based on the notion of
scarcityScarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human needs and wants, in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs...
.
Peak oil
In the "peak oil" debate, the views of those labeled as
cornucopian are very diverse, ranging from the simplistic "we will never run out of oil" to pessimistic views such as "we might transition to alternatives fast enough to barely avoid the collapse of civilization". The spectrum is broad enough that some who are characterized as cornucopians by
doomerA Doomer is a peakist that also believes that a Malthusian Catastrophe will inevitably follow. Doomers attribute their beliefs to humanity's over reliance on petroleum for agricultural and industrial productivity...
s might be characterized as
peakniks or even doomers by other cornucopians. A
typical cornucopian view might be characterized as "there exist viable solutions to the problem of peak oil".
Key names
- John D. Barrow
John David Barrow FRS is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He is currently Research Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge...
- Frank J. Tipler
Frank Jennings Tipler III is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University.-Life:...
- Julian Lincoln Simon
Julian Lincoln Simon was a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute at the time of his death, after previously serving as a longtime business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Simon wrote many books and...
- Aaron Wildavsky
Aaron Wildavsky was an American political scientist known for his pioneering work in public policy, government budgeting, and risk management....
See also
- Post scarcity
Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, often explored in science fiction, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free...
- Jacque Fresco
Jacque Fresco is a self-educated industrial designer, author, lecturer, futurist, inventor, social engineer and the creator of The Venus Project. Fresco has worked as both designer and inventor in a wide range of fields spanning biomedical innovations and integrated social systems...
- John McCarthy
John McCarthy , is an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist who received the Turing Award in 1971 for his major contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence...
- Matt Simmons
- Thomas Robert Malthus
Further reading
- The Doomslayer
- Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society," Critical Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 23, 1998). Also available here and here.
- The Problem of Denial
- Julian Simon & Perilous Optimism
- Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. "On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict." International Security, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Autumn, 1991), 76-116.
- Homer-Dixon, Thomas F, "Environment, scarcity and violence", Princeton, 1999.
- Simon, Julian L. "The ultimate resource", Oxford, 1981.