Note: No, not me this time but from “Vindaloo Bugaboo”, also a frequent commenter at Treehugger who would fit in well here at GraniteGrok. I liked what he wrote at one of TH those posts and asked if he’d “translate” it for GraniteGrok. And no, I had no input in that commenting series as he was doing so splendidly well!
As a child, one of my favorite bedtime stories my mum would read me was the 1974 Scholastic Books classic, “Little Red Hen” by Paul Galdone.
In it, the little red hen is an industrious busybody who lives on a farm with a dog, cat, and mouse, all of whom are rather lackadaisical in their approach to life. The little red hen asks who will help her sow the wheat, tend the crop, harvest the grain, have it milled into flour, and mixed into a batter, but the three of them refuse to help. Only once the cake is baked and its tempting smell wafts through the farmhouse do the dog, cat, and mouse collectively have their interest piqued in “helping”. So it’s no surprise that when the little red hen asks who will help her eat the cake, all three eagerly answer in the affirmative—but she denies them, pointing out they did no work and thus should not benefit from hers. Instead, only she will enjoy eating the cake, which she does.
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At the time, I didn’t realize the story was an aphorism for the predatory failures of socialism, where the largesse of work ethic and self-sufficiency are denied the worker and instead, the spoils of his labor are shared with those who did not earn the right to its access. Instead, I simply saw it as a fun story with farm animals and an additional message of Hard Work is how you achieve what you want in life—which resonated with my parents and became an essential recurring theme of their childrearing.
Recently, there was a discussion over on TreeHugger.com about how Los Angeles County has approved a ban on single use plastics within all unincorporated areas for restaurants, stores, food trucks, and hospital cafeterias. The ban ostensibly will assist in fighting the ever-growing threat of oceanic plastic pollution. What wasn’t discussed was why L.A. County officials didn’t apply the single-use plastic ban to all residents within county limits, even though they’re responsible for issues related to surface water use and pollution control (both of which are imperative aspects to limiting oceanic plastic pollution.)
I raised the argument that the decision was a coward’s endeavor for not extending the ban to all 8 million residents within county limits. If they were truly sincere about having an impact, then the biggest bang for the buck would have been to implement a policy that specifically targets a reduction in plastic waste made by the biggest polluters—and that would fall primarily on the restaurants, food trucks, stores, and other businesses within incorporated areas of Los Angeles and its 7 million residents, not the 1 million residents outside those areas. Instead, they chose to prioritize enforcement among the latter, presumably because they have no recourse for redress except to the state legislature, and in deep blue California, that’s a non-starter.
One of the other commenters whom I’m typically friendly with, Bob Baal, argued vehemently that:
“[oceanic plastic pollution] is our problem – it’s your problem – it’s my problem – it’s everybody’s problem – all 8 billion of us.”
Well, yes, collectively it is all our problem, but there’s a difference between unintentional pollution and wanton disregard for consequences that requires further nuance when debating the topic. So while it’s true the U.S. is the largest producer of plastic waste in the world, very little of what we produce ends up in our waterways that connect to the ocean, according to the EPA’s 2020 federal strategy on addressing marine litter.
Thus, those who are contributing most heavily towards oceanic plastic pollution should be the primary concern for policy makers who are intent on ameliorating the problem. And that, no surprise, would require systemic change beyond what the U.S. can or should do:
“Systemic change, in contrast to relying on product-specific regulations, would require middle- and low-income countries to expand their waste collection rates to 90% in urban areas and 50% in rural areas and to support the informal collection sector. Achieving that goal would require adding 4 billion people to the world’s waste and recycling collection ranks, or 500,000 people per day, every day from now to 2040.”
Notice how the Pew Trusts’ report focuses on middle- and low-income countries for implementing systemic change despite the U.S. being the largest producer of plastic waste. In other words, one can conclude we deal with our own plastic waste quite effectively, thanks to our highly regulated waste and pollution abatement systems. I emphasized the difference between responsible behavior and wanton disregard for consequences by using an analogy about spending habits:
“If I’m responsible with my spending habits, if I save and invest, if I keep up my credit score by not defaulting on loans and paying my credit cards on time every month, if I go to college and further my education, if I go into a profession with good compensation, and don’t squander money on vices such as drugs or alcohol or gambling, why should I be held accountable for what the high school drop-out with a drug use problem and inability to hold down a job does? Why should my life be made more difficult when those who cannot—or simply refuse to—comply with societal norms of responsibility get a free pass of unaccountability?”
“A better model [for comparison] is the old family finance model. You have a pot in the middle of the dinner table. When a family member gets paid, he tosses the money into the pot. When a family member needs money, he reaches into the pot. It’s the family responsibility to make sure there is enough money in the pot for essential bills.
So, you and the high school dropout draw from the same pot – and his actions determine how much you can draw out.”
In theory, this is true—except when it isn’t, which is always, because as we all know every family suffers from dysfunction, sometimes severe dysfunction, whether readily observable or not. And Americans, as we like to pretend we’re one big family, have serious internal dysfunction that puts to shame even a “People of Walmart” collage. This extends to the idea of mutually contributing to a common by all individuals, i.e. the “old family finance model” of a pot in the middle of the dinner table, as I pointed out to Bob:
“Imagine some family members consistently put money into the kitty, but there was one giant suck who didn’t contribute at all—or did so, but infrequently, or at a miniscule level—yet consistently kept taking out far more than [he or she] contributed. Would all the other family members simply look the other way, or would they speak out? Would they encourage that individual to put more money in, or maybe suggest getting a better job, or working more hours, or merely not taking out as much as they had? If other family members knew there was something they were saving for, but could never achieve that goal because the money being taken by the giant suck kept undermining the family's goals, would there be any resentment or perhaps some kind of action, e.g. the giant suck not being able to use the money pot any longer?”
Sadly, these arguments went unacknowledged because to do so would have meant Bob had to address the pressing issue at hand: what to do about those who disavow their obligation to both collective effort and personal responsibility. But in his quiescence, one can clearly see his ideological rationale: that Little Red Hen alone is the primary individual from whom compliance can be successfully extracted, because the scores of dogs, cats, and mice far outnumber her and are impatiently waiting for that cake to finish baking.
