Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
'High productivity does not necessarily mean something positive. We can
already see that efficiency is too high; newly completed articles have to be
burned, weaknesses are built in so that the product does not last too long.
There is an increasingly wound-up cycle of fashion-oriented products,
which age quickly and then have to be replaced by the next fashion,
leading to the time when articles are obsolete the moment they are
released on the market!' (Galtung, 1980).
Galtung's solution: 'Reduce productivity. The market cannot absorb all the prod-
ucts it manufactures.'
In many EU countries, on the economic front, it is necessary to take into
account the fact that a great deal of industry is heavily subsidized by the tax-
payer. In addition, there are also subsidies for energy and road building. Even
the polluting industries are subsidized, where account must be taken of the extra
costs of inspection and control of pollution and any health implications. The
most important factor is the cost to nature, which is difficult to calculate finan-
cially, but is, nevertheless, a debt which coming generations will have to pay.
Besides measurable pollution, other factors must be included, such as the lost
wood fuel from a well-balanced forest which has to be sacrificed to reach the iron
ore in a mountainous area. Such a calculation is very complex and one that is
preferably avoided.
The price tag in the shop is therefore anything but realistic. The price differ-
ence between a solid board of timber and a cheap sheet of chipboard coated with
a plastic laminate has probably already been paid for by the customer before he
enters the shop.
Benjamin Franklin claimed that activity and money are virtues. Industrial
economy is a flowing economy. Society devours virgin materials, consumes them
in the production process, often with a very low level of recycling, and leaves the
waste to nature. The industrial culture of flowing economy is the complete oppo-
site of nature's diligence based on restricted resources. Nature's method is that of
integrated optimization, ecological systems tend towards an optimal solution for
the natural environment as a whole. Efficiency is based on the greatest variety of
species where each has its own special place. There is a continuous interplay
between all the different species.
When the Dutch mission, the Herrnhuten, came to Labrador in 1771, the
Eskimos lived in large family groups in houses of stone and peat. The rooms
were small and warmed by lamps fuelled by blubber. One of the first things
that the new settlers did was to introduce a new form of house. They built a
series of timber houses with large rooms heated by wood-fired iron stoves. This
had a radical effect on the whole of the Eskimo society. They had earlier
obtained fuel oil from seals by hunting. The meat provided food and the hides
could be used for clothes and boats.
