On Growth

3. Jan Tinbergen

Professor Jan Tinbergen teaches mathematical economy and development programming at the Netherlands School of Economics at Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
He was born in The Hague, Holland, in 1903. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Leiden. From 1945 to 1955 he was director of the Central Planning Agency in The Hague. From 1935 to 1968 he was director of the Netherlands Economic Institute at Rotterdam.
Aside from numerous honorary degrees, Professor Tinbergen received in 1967 the Erasmus Prize and in 1969, simultaneously with Professor Ragnar Frisch of Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Prize for economics.

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Some of his internationally known works are: Shaping the World Economy, published by the Twentieth Century Fund (New York, 1962), Lessons from the Past (1964), and Development Planning (1967).

What are the plus and minus points of the MIT report Limits to Growth?

I consider a very big plus point that for the first time an attempt has been made to estimate the joint effect of a number of new phenomena, the population explosion, the exhaustion of energy and raw materials and the increasing pollution of the environment. That is a point of extreme importance. On the other hand, there are minus points, almost inevitably. The model that was used cannot be very precise, of course, especially when it comes to worldwide distribution of the various, let me say, disasters that probably may occur. So there is, I think, an outspoken need for more precise approaches and in fact, as you know, as a follow up of the MIT report already a number of other projects have been started.

Projects such as?...

First of all, as a consequence of what I just said, we in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor H. Linnemann, want to make an attempt to disaggregate the model. That is to say, that we are considering six different regions, or about that number, of the earth while at the same time disaggregating the manufacturing industry and other sectors of the economy. In that respect, therefore, we hope to come along with a refined model, which in some respects may be more reliable.

To mention an example, it seems proper to assume that part of the problem can be solved by natural reactions of the price mechanism. We can expect that polluting industries will become more expensive, because they have to invest in rather important new equipment in order to avoid pollution. A specialist from Unilever and other researchers in the United States and Japan have calculated, for instance, that if one were to spend about three percent of the national income on those needed installations, that in all probability one could keep pollution below the critical level. For the rest, of course, it remains a big problem, which to some extent, in fact, the market mechanism will solve. It depends on what sort of substitution - or let me say, on what willingness - there is for the con-

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sumer to shift from one product to another. Also the same applies to managers: Can they change their processes in such a way that they use less energy instead of ever more, that they try to avoid using exhausted or almost exhausted materials and so on. The program requires the cooperation of numerous very different people, as you will understand. We plan to have - and we have already - subgroups working in the physical field, in the chemical field, in the biological field.

All in the Netherlands?

Not necessarily, but quite a few of them. But we are still looking for other Western European partners in our project. We already collaborate with some experts outside the Netherlands.

How long will it take to design the new model?

We promised Dr. Aurelio Peccei¹ that we will try our best to come along with something worthwhile around the middle or towards the end of 1973.² But I think the question should almost be inverted. We accept that we have to have some results at that time. The question remains: How much will we be able to tell?

Professor Tinbergen, Robert S. McNamara³ said in Stockholm that he estimated pollution control could be built in development projects at an additional cost of three percent. This raised strong voices in the developing nations that seemed unprepared to pay for our pollution problems.

I fully share the difficulties - or let me say the concern - of the developing countries. I am of the opinion that if anything, there should be a better distribution of incomes among all countries.

Does this apply within countries and within continents?

Both, indeed. This means that we will go on arguing in favor of a more forceful development policy for the developing countries. It implies that the rich countries will have to pay the larger part of these new investments. Moreover, there are, happily enough, also some positive aspects to the matter. If, for instance, we are imposing on our new industry certain conditions because of the pollution - we already have - then this will raise our prices and at the same time enhance the competitive situa-

1 See conversation no. 70.

2 Professor Linnemann, leader of the Dutch Club of Rome World Project II, informed the author that the report is estimated to be ready for publication by June, 1974, prior to the World Population Conference in August 1974.

3 President of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., who addressed the World Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, June 5-16, 1972.

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tion of natural products. If one takes into account that - especially in the field of synthetics - there are many polluting industries, then in that respect the position in the world market of the poor countries will become better. There are many different aspects. In our project, we will tackle especially this problem. This is also why we brought in six geographical areas, making a distinction between developing countries and developed countries.

Some of your areas of study are in the developing world then?

Yes, because we continue, as the Meadows team⁴ did, to try and look at the world at large. We think that since they did not specify areas, you don't know anything about what the position of the developing countries will be. This is one aspect of which our team is very much aware and which has got to be solved because the development problem and the approach by the Club of Rome are intimately connected.

Limits to Growth advocates less exponential growth, a calmer economy. Less of a race for profit only. But how could the developing world make the progress it badly needs to combat poverty without making our mistakes or those of Japan?

The production of the developing countries has to go on rising. It means that a large part of the deceleration that is needed will have to be done in the rich countries. As you know, since the citizens of the poor countries are using per capita only a very small part of the critical resources, it stands to reason that if restrictions are needed - and they will probably be needed - then it will first of all be for the developed countries to apply these.

High priority should still be given to the necessities of the poor countries to improve their position - or let me say, to provide themselves with the prime necessities of life. One aspect, of course, we have to stress for all countries - that is the population aspect. There will be a need for almost all parts of the world to slow down, and rather drastically slow down, population growth. Quite recently some encouraging observations have been made. We found for instance that in some East Asian countries the birth rates are already going down, although their average income per capita is no more than three hundred dollars per annum. Formerly, it was generally assumed that one had to reach a level of one thousand dollars per annum before that sort of wisdom arose. Here we

4 Professor Daniel L. Meadows left MIT in the fall of 1972 to take charge of a new faculty of system analysis at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, and told the author that he is setting up an entire new department with a staff of fifteen instructors and professors.

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can now be a little more hopeful. But the population check should take place, I think, most of all in the European countries, which are rather overpopulated. You have seen the Blueprint for Britain. I would not agree with everything in it. In some respects it is too utopian, but I do agree with their idea, that we have to count in the future on populations that go down. I think that the time may even come - but that in a much longer perspective - that for the whole world this will be the best policy. But that is a question of a century from now.

If resources will be going down, where does aggression come in?

You are touching on a very important subject. But also on one where, of course, it is very difficult to give an opinion. One aspect of aggression, according to Konrad Lorenz,⁵ is crowding. If I am saying that the populations of some of the rich countries have to go down, I am thinking in particular of the Netherlands, where crowding is a very important phenomenon. It is already contributing to irritation we can observe around us.

And how to achieve a better distribution of wealth?

You are quite right that apart from overcrowding a tremendous problem will be created by the distribution of ever scarcer raw materials. We cannot say anything here yet for certain, since it also depends on the further elaboration of our models. But there remains a possibility that at a certain moment commodity agreements will have to be concluded, not only for agricultural products, but also for copper, silver and those metals. Aluminum might be somewhat less of a problem, because there is still a lot of bauxite. All this certainly will be a new aspect of great importance and will depend to a large extent on the wisdom of the Western and socialist blocs to solve it by peaceful means.

Barry Commoner⁶ suggested in Stockholm that we go back to the rubber tree.

I would even go a step further. I think that in fact one of the greatest problems that we are facing is that we have to make a choice in agriculture. There are quite clearly two main currents: One is what I for shortness' sake call the Green Revolution - applying ever more fertilizer, water and so on; and the other, so-called natural-cycle-agricul-

5 Konrad Lorenz is the father of modern ethnology and works at the Max Planck Institute, Seewiessen, Germany.

6 See conversation no. 26.

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ture - which is now coming to the fore and may well be one of the solutions. In fact, the most important problem we have to solve in the long run is how we can switch the economics from the economies based on exhaustible materials to one based on the flow of sunlight coming in and which is heavily underutilized.

I think this is the big problem, that especially in agriculture will show up. And some of these alternative agricultural methods do use more of this flow of sun energy; so one of the subgroups that we have at work is to inform us about what the possibilities here are.

For the second Club of Rome report?

If you like, yes.