Agenda 21: The Steady-State Illusion

Energy is the all-pervasive underlying currency of our society. -- (Senator Mark Hatfield, 1974)

Julie Beal



Plans are afoot to control population growth, the production and consumption of goods, and the very air we breathe. Faithfully following the blueprint of Agenda 21, the United Nations is now ‘considering’ the transition to a steady-state economy – a system of central planning which has been gaining headway since the release of the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, more than forty years ago. Requiring technocratic global governance, the steady-state economy,

… aims for stable or mildly fluctuating levels in population and consumption of energy and materials. Birth rates equal death rates, and production rates equal depreciation rates. (Source)

Brian Czech and Jon Rosales, from the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE)[1], were invited to speak at the Interactive Dialogue of the General Assembly on Harmony With Nature, at the 67th Meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in April (2013).

The initiative endorses the theories of ecological economics, since it satisfies all three Es of Agenda 21, and helps, 

… to set a path towards life in harmony with nature. …. A number of Member States …. have recognized - by law - the rights of nature as a vital tool in the promotion of sustainable development. (Source)

Rosales believes “member states are embarking on a re-visioning process” to fulfill their commitments to Agenda 21, as part of the Millennium Development Goals. What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that these ‘goals’, along with numerous other sustainability and natural capital initiatives, are steered by globalist corporations and financiers, such as Lockheed-Martin, Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Bank of America and World Bank.

Citing examples of self-sufficient indigenous peoples who have lived ‘within their means’, scientists such as Robert Costanza[2] and Herman Daly view the earth as a complex ecosystem, governed by the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. The validity of these findings, however, is being mis-used as a political tool for global governance. It is being argued that we should adapt our life-styles so that we can live in harmony with nature, aiming for global ‘equilibrium’. The path to a steady-state economy has been prepared for nearly 40 years, by pricing ecosystem services, and promoting the idea we should ‘go beyond GDP’.

In an article entitled, "A Modest Utopia", published in 1975, Stuart Chase imagined,

The planet will be administered, one might guess, by a consortium of functional Planning Authorities in charge of vital material resources; of the oceans with their riches and fragile food chains; of international pollution abatement; of satellites and global communication, trade routes, and international finance. Gold will be strictly for dentists and jewellers. Nations will continue to control local affairs insofar as they are not in conflict with steady‑state priorities. (The Futurist, Vol. IX, No. 5) 

To implement this New World Order, the Club of Rome has spread the meme of ‘de-growth’, which has been taken up by the Transition Towns movement[3], and a number of eco-municipalities, such as in Sweden, and Wisconsin (supported by the American Planning Association). There is also widespread support for CASSE. Systems analysis, which has been producing climate models since the 1960s, would be used to implement scientific management of society, according to an ever-changing scarcity signal. With natural assets sold off, the New World will be marketed as smart and sustainable, eco-friendly and equitable, and oh-so-green and fairly-traded. The industrialised nations will undergo continuous austerity to achieve de-growth, whilst the ‘developing world’ (the new market) will be upgraded, streamlining global commerce. Quantum computers will control the illusion of the steady-state economy, just as the carbon models are manipulated by statistical majik.

Because everything is energy, and because energy is irrevocably moving along a one-way path from usable to non-usable forms, the Entropy Law provides the framework for all human activity. (Jeremy Rifkin, 1980) 

The Business of De-growth

It's good business to anticipate the inevitable, and it seems to me inevitable, whether we like it or not, that we are moving toward an economy which must be limited and selective in its growth pattern. The earth has finite limits - a difficult idea for Americans to adjust to. - John D. Rockefeller III (Source)

In the late 19th Century, with the rise of industrialism, the auto-giants Taylor and Ford applied the principles of statistical and scientific management to maximise the output and efficiency of workers on their production lines. As John Taylor Gatto has shown, their methods were subsequently applied to mass schooling, and are now standard managerial practice, across the board. Our age of pragmatism can also be traced back to the Fabian Society, founded in 1884 by professed socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw and others.



The Fabians advocated the ‘rigours’ of the scientific method, with a strong sense of Social Darwinism, to work slowly but surely towards a one-world government - their idea of ‘Utopia’. 

The Fabian Society was in close touch with the Rothschilds both directly and through go-betweens like Lord Arthur Balfour. …. While his brother was President of the Board of Trade, Arthur Balfour served as President of the Local Government Board and later as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. While serving in these posts, he conferred on a regular basis with both Lord Rothschild and the Fabian leadership and used his position to advance their agendas. 

…David Rockefeller wrote a sympathetic senior thesis on Fabian Socialism at Harvard and studied left-wing economics at the Fabian Society’s London School of Economics. Not surprisingly, the Rockefellers have funded countless Fabian projects (including the LSE) from the early 1920s. (Source)

The Malthusian concept of the steady-state economy was first proposed by Fabian John Stuart Mill in the mid-19th Century. Steady-staters believe we should control “flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last stage of consumption”, an idea taken up by the Technocratic movement of the 1930s and 40s, partly in response to the replacement of human labour by machines.

Their movement featured uniforms, parades, and the same salute the Nazis used.



In fact, their principles of scientific management were evident in the eugenicist regime established by Hitler, who also used ‘environmentalism’ to advance racist propaganda:

In 1935, Hitler also signed the Reich Nature Protection Act, the high water mark for Nazi environmentalism. Here is seen the birth of environmental permits, environmental impact statements and environmental totalitarianism. 

The Reich Nature Protection Act even allowed the expropriation of private property without compensation for the sake of the environment. Sustainable forestry practices called Dauerwald, which ironically means “eternal” forest, were also introduced at the federal level. (Source)

Howard Scott, the leader of the Technical Alliance, asserted their group had no political leanings whatsoever, although the group attracted many followers, including over 3000 Masons.

According to Sam Smith,

Eric Fromm called the technocrat homo mechanicus, "attracted to all that is mechanical and inclined against all that is alive." (Source)

The Technocrats advocated the use of energy certificates to replace the pricing system with measures of energy produced, and energy consumed, so that scientists and engineers could manage the economy according to the principles of thermodynamics and entropy. The overall aim was to achieve balance, managing personal allocations for energy use.

Stuart Chase (see quote, above) was one of the chief researchers of the Technical Alliance; he helped write a report for the Railroad Brotherhood and later became one of 18 or so Technocrats employed by the Roosevelt administration for the federal National Potential Product Capacity Survey.

After this, the Technocracy movement fizzled out, but their assertion that the unit of currency should be energy, lived on in the form ofnet energy analysis from the 1950s onwards. 

This concept was explained by Martha Gilliland in 1975:

Since energy is the one commodity present in all processes and since there is no substitute for it, using energy as the physical measure of environmental and social impacts, of material, capital, and manpower requirements, and of reserve quantities reduces the need to compare or add 'apples and oranges.  ("Energy Analysis and Public Policy," Science, Vol. 189,No. 4208, 26 September 1975, p. 1056)

The practice of net energy analysis was even passed into law in the US in the '70s. In ‘From Technocracy to Net Energy Analysis: Engineers, Economists and Recurring Energy Theories of Value’ (1982), Ernst R. Berndt reported,

In 1974 the Congress of the United States passed Public Law 93.577, the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act, in which it was stipulated that all prospective energy supply technologies considered for commercial application must be assessed and evaluated in terms of their "potential for production of net energy" -- energy output minus the energy costs of producing that output. (Source)

Another scientific method, which was becoming standardized at this time, was systems analysis; its aim is to solve large-scale complex socio-technical problems for businesses and governments, usually using computer modelling. This involves breaking down the problem into constituent parts, to manipulate them into different patterns, using complex statistical equations, so as to determine what changes may be ‘feasible’ in the future. 

As the 1001 Club and its spin-offs spurred the environmental movement in the 1960s, this method was developed further by scientists such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, E. F. Schumacher, and Kenneth Boulding, all of whom have applied the theory as a way to protect ‘spaceship’ earth, and avert the foretold scarcity of resources, by maintaining a steady-state system. 

According to Vicky Davis,

Systems Analysts from the Soviet Union and the United States had been working together to “solve global problems” since 1972 when the charter for the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was signed in London. This Institute was funded covertly through the National Science Foundation. One of the principals behind the founding of this Institute was Aurelio Peccei, co-founder of the Club of Rome. The Club of Rome was the sponsor of a study that produced the report, Limits to Growth that apparently was a major influence on Al Gore and presumably other techno-environmentalists. 

Peccei was also the originator of a project initiated in 1974 called ‘Reshaping the International Order’ (RIO) .… (‘The Method of Subversion’) 

Buckminster Fuller and H T Odum were also famous systems theorists at that time – Odum’s concept of ‘emergy’ has been re-explored recently by the Long Finance Group. (Emergy provides one single measure of energy transfer, and encompasses personal well-being in this measure, thereby satisfying the dictates of Agenda 21, i.e. balancing the environment, equity, and the economy - or rather, the economy is based on units of energy which represent the values offered by nature and humans.) Together, these theories have come to be known as ecological economics, an understanding of which starts to place the release of Limits to Growth, by the Club of Rome (1972), in context. 

What matters more, however, is the level of interest from those funding research in this area. Huge profits have already been reaped by the monied advocates of carbon accounting. The plan to ‘go beyond GDP’ has prepared the way for a global steady-state economy, “designed to operate dynamically within the limits of the earth’s biophysical regenerative constraints.” But who will calculate and define what these constraints are? No matter what, it means our way of life will be forever ruled by them. This is the AI-face of totalitarianism.

The Value of Happiness and Ecosystem Services

Now that our economic system is being brought to its knees, Natural Capitalists/New Economists, such as George Soros, are loudly criticizing the paradigm upon which our system is built – they claim the premise of the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is flawed, and fails to account for ‘externalities’. It is argued that these external costs should be integrated, (or ‘internalised’), in order to ensure protection of the environment. This means putting a price on these costs, and making these prices part of corporate and government accounts, creating a dramatic change in the way the Gross Domestic Product of each country is calculated, which would likely lead to the commodification and financialisation of these assets, as has happened with carbon. Once everything has been ‘accounted for’, resources will be owned and controlled by fewer and fewer people.

The proposal to ‘go beyond GDP’ as part of a steady-state system is not new, however – way back in 1977, a Rockefeller Brothers Fund report, entitled, ‘The Unfinished Agenda’ (edited by Gerald O. Barney), was saying the very same thing, claiming, 

… both consumption of resources and pollution of the environment contribute to GNP….. the time has come when government must supplement the use of GNP and adopt improved indices of national growth.

The bulk of the report contains shrewd warnings about planned obsolescence, pollution, nuclear energy, and genetic meddling, whilst the whole of Chapter 9 is based on the philosophy of ecological economics, stressing the need to shift from a mindset geared towards “optimal growth rates”, to one which scientifically melds the economy with the “biotic clock” of the earth, to reflect the dependence of the economy upon the availability of natural resources. This melding will create a ‘steady state system’, which has four characteristics:

1. a constant human population;
2. a constant population (or stock) of goods, including capital;
3. the levels at which the two populations are held constant sufficient for a good life and sustainable for a long future;
4. the rate of consumption of matter and energy by which the two stocks are maintained reduced to the lowest feasible level for the human population.

The report goes on to recommend further research be funded to advance the steady-state concept. Just ten years later, we find the Gro Harlem report, ‘Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development’ (1987), claiming,

…sustainable development can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem. (Source)

More recently, a report to the EU Chapter of the Club of Rome, by Bernard Lietaer, et al, is also recommending the steady-state economy. Lietaer was a central banker for many years, and was the architect of the Euro currency, but has achieved a high level of support in the alternative media, as have many other New Economists; probably because much of what they say makes a lot of sense. The report, entitled ‘Money and Sustainability: the Missing Link’(2012), contains some excellent descriptions of what is wrong with our economy – exponential debt, outrageous bonuses, endless bubbles, etc. But that doesn’t mean that its proposed solutions are right. 

Peter Joseph has popularised the steady-state system as part of the Zeitgeist movement, and several New Economists, such as Nic Marks and Jeremy Rifkin, have helped sway the Occupy tribe to their way of thinking. Their arguments are attractive because they reflect much of what is being said in the alternative media about the sham of an economy we now have, and because they speak of fairness, localism, and caring for the earth. They seem to hold the key to change.

It’s wise, then, to consider the likely consequences of putting their theories into practice, and why their arguments are being propagated and funded by those who hold the highest positions of power – all key global organisations, including the UN, the OECD, the EU, World Bank, George Soros, Davos attendees, you name it.

The very perpetrators of systemic failure tell us they know how to fix it. What they don’t say is that a true steady-state economy would mean absolute control over our lives, as it would involve dictating how we live, and monitoring all transactions; the grandest scheme for social control that could be imagined. Economists have known the system would crash for decades – Adam Smith warned it wouldn’t last – so perhaps they knew we had to see it crash before we would accept and embrace a new paradigm, driven by the need to just survive. That time has come.

The solutions proposed in the Club of Rome report are founded upon the principles of the steady-state system, as espoused by ecological economists. It offers fascinating insights into the functioning of ecosystems, as revealed by complexity science. It also re-defines ‘sustainability’ as being a balance between efficiency and resilience.

… nature does not select for maximum efficiency, but for an optimal balance between the two opposing poles of throughput efficiency and resilience. In other words, sustainability requires just enough, and not too much, of both efficiency and resilience. In most human designed systems, and certainly in the monetary domain, we have been concerned only with efficiency, and have therefore tended to unduly sacrifice resilience. (Source)

This gives governments and business leaders a modern version of ‘scientific management’ – maximising profits requires not only the maximisation of efficiency, but a diverse mix of methods, or “numerous channels of interaction to fall back on in times of trouble or change.” (Source)

The Club of Rome report advocates the use of complementary currencies, operating alongside our current fiat system, but does not follow through with a long-term forecast of the effects of doing this. ‘Wellness tokens’ are intended to create “desirable behaviour patterns”, a system of operant conditioning which would extend the pressure to be fit and well, as this would be vital to maintain a strong base of ‘human capital’ for those all-important GDP figures. Those issuing the tokens would need the best proof there is that the client is indeed well, and the best proof would be deemed to be body sensors such as Biostamps.

Nor does the report explain that each local currency would be administered by local ‘councils’ (eco-municipalities) which give the appearance of local democracy, but are subsumed under a global government, designed to implement Agenda 21 principles. For all the talk of ‘diversity’, there is really only one way of living in the name of what is called ‘sustainability’ and ‘equity’.

Instead of just reducing the argument to one of either growth, or de-growth, we need to consider first the effects of global planning – the loss of privacy, freedom, and choice. Each of us is to be represented in the Internet of Things as a number, with an identity profile attached, containing our biometrics, and our access authorizations. This can then be combined with our relationship details, and each of us can be mapped and tracked to facilitate real-time simulations, which could be used to control the delicate balance required to maintain the earth in equilibrium. This is the grandest arrogance – we cannot control the earth.

Unlike the system that ecological economists promote, the New World will take control of the commons, and continue to pillage, pollute, and despoil the earth, as they are already achieving with GM food and GMOs, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, geo-engineering, patents, war, and large-scale biomass projects. A techno-corporate revolution is being planned, to tidy up our world, so thatEarth, Inc. can run as an efficient enterprise.

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital. Maurice Strong

Notes:

[1] CASSE is endorsed by the Club of Rome and many other New Economists and ecological economists, such as James Hansen, Paul Hawken, Richard Heinberg, Hazel Henderson, and Michael Mann.

[2] Costanza was the first to provide global $ values for ecosystem services. He founded the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics in 1992; the institute is now based at the University of Vermont. Ecological economists tried, unsuccessfully, to pass a bill in the Vermont Senate in 2010, which would establish a Common Asset Trust. 

[3] As in New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

This article first appeared at Get Mind Smart

Julie Beal is a UK-based independent researcher who has been studying the globalist agenda for more than 20 years. Please visit her website, Get Mind Smart, for a wide range of information about Agenda 21, Communitarianism, Ethics, Bioscience, and much more. 

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