Abstract:

Barry Commoner’s Four Laws of Ecology are as valid today as they were when first stated in 1973:

Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all. Everything must go somewhere. There is no “waste” in nature and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown.

However, the economics in which these principles are applied has fundamentally changed.

The reference industrial organization on which his analysis was applied for metals and metallurgy was the integrated industrial organization of mining companies in the 1970s. This is no more. Mining companies now hold portfolios of individual ore bodies and supply chains have replaced vertically integrated mining operations.

‘Social Thrift’ as the equilibrium mechanism to balance commercial and social imperatives never caught hold in public policy. The policy environment was fundamentally changed by the coming to dominance of neoliberalism led by Ronald Reagan and Margret shortly after the book was published and has had a 40 year run of dominance in public discourse which is only now coming to an end.

The consumption boom of growing middle class affluence, the ‘American way of life’ which drove the ethic of perpetual growth in demand for resources in the Postwar period has, in the OECD countries suffered a long term decline by stagnant wages and a disappearing middle class. It was been replaced by the emergence of China and a Chinese middle class and the emergence of China as the leading metals processing and consumption which has transformed the global metals and metallurgy industry.

Finally, the thematic of the circular economy has grown in importance impacting environmental policy and resulted in significant technical accomplishments. However, it has not had the impact that was expected. The new economics theme of “natural resources as social capital” has the prospect of greater rebalancing of environmental and economic concerns going forward.

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Peter Warrian