Having established in Journal 18 that what we consider to be natural resources are not automatically economic goods, that they are nothing more than arrangements of chemicals until the human mind classifies them as otherwise, I’d like to use this Journal to further elaborate on some of the implications of this fact. If, indeed, man’s material surroundings are simply arrangements of chemical elements, then this is man’s environment, in the broadest sense. But the narrower sense of environment, wherein these arrangements of chemical elements are classified as certain types of objects and entities and determined to be beneficial or detrimental, exists only by virtue of the human mind. That is, the environment, as we think of it, is a product of the human mind. We are the source of meaning in the universe.
I wanted to, last month, write a journal on the relationship between man and nature. However, I didn’t have time, as the subject was rather vast and the argument in my notes was not nearly as compelling as it should have been. I wanted to explain that man and nature are fundamentally opposed to one another. All of human history can be summed up as a struggle against scarcity. Scarcity imposed by nature. Civilization, therefore, is locked in an eternal battle with nature. As Aldous Huxley described it, nature is “an enemy with whom one is still at war, an unconquered, unconquerable, ceaselessly active enemy. One respects him, perhaps; one has a salutary fear of him; and one goes on fighting.” However, there is, of course, the counterclaim that man is nature, that man cannot survive without nature, and that there is something in man that responds well to nature. But, through the lens of Mengerian value theory, it can be seen that man and nature are on far more equal footing, for as man is a product of nature, no less is nature a product of man. Nature is man’s enemy because man views it as such, and chooses to fight it.
I believe this view of nature comes from the fact that man has imagination. I’m really just thinking of this now, so I don’t have a praxeological explanation of imagination to provide. However, I think that the source of our conflict with nature is our ability to imagine a different life and environment than the one it has provided. Nature has imposed upon us a world of scarcity, one that restricts the life we can live, the life we can imagine. More than that, though, is the fact that man is a rational creature, and acts to escape the limits of scarcity and thus achieve the life he desires. The only way to do this, however, is by warring against nature and thereby changing his environment to better suit himself.
Now, as I explained in my post on the 5Cs, strictly speaking, man does not create. The chemical composition of the Earth, which forms our material surroundings, is roughly fixed. Matter and energy cannot be created, nor destroyed. But if man seeks to create a better life for himself, which, as I explained in my first SDA, is the purpose of all economic action, and he cannot literally create a better world for himself to live in, then he must act by transforming his existing environment. In other words, all economic activity is an attempt to rearrange the chemical elements of man’s surroundings into a pattern that suits him better. Indeed, since all action is an attempt at improvement, it follows that nature, which is the pattern of these material surroundings that has not been changed by man, is the unimproved part of man’s world. Man is at war with nature because it is the nature of man to change the world for his benefit, to adapt his environment to suit his desires, and this tendency puts him into irreconcilable conflict with nature, which has so disappointed man as to require improvement through his action.
Of course, it’s not clear, from the positive analysis above, which side we should root for in this war between man and nature. I will say right now that I, along with Western Civilization, value human life and well-being over nature. But there are some environmentalists with different values. Namely, they believe that the intrinsic value of nature, of animal and plant diversity, of coral reefs, of endangered animals, of rainforests, etc., is more important than one species, humans. They think that human beings, just one of nature’s many products, have no right to go to war with nature. They are willing to sacrifice human life and well-being for the preservation of nature’s intrinsic value. But, again, Menger has demolished the foundations of this view. There are no intrinsic values in nature. Value is a product of the human mind. The favoring of nature over man is, in fact, a man-made value judgment, and the attempts of these environmentalists to protect nature from man is, in fact, an attempt to shape the world into their desired image.
Action is always man’s way of improving his environment. And man is always acting. It is undeniable that man has a significant impact on the environment and the world. But, without the proper perspective, the Mengerian lens, it may be difficult to realize that this impact is improvement, for man. To live and prosper, man must be able to move himself and his goods from place to place. If a forest and a river hinder his ability to do this, then the removal of some trees and the construction of a bridge are not merely human activities, or changes in the environment, but improvements in man’s environment. They are rearrangements of man’s physical surroundings in a way that makes them more conducive to man’s life and well-being.
Without the human mind, the world is simply an arrangement of chemical elements. They have no intrinsic value. They have no meaning. It is human beings who imbue them with meaning and value, and it is human beings who transform external nature into a man-made environment born of the internal mind.
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