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"The problem [...] is that people were sick and hungry not because of global shortages but because of wars and dictators." Peter Pringle, Food Inc.
"For it is the soldier's disposition to offer an obstinate resistance when surrounded, to fight hard when he cannot help himself, and to obey promptly when he has fallen into danger." --Sun Tsu
If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided into six Parts: and, in the first, will be found various considerations touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the order of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular, the explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties pertaining to

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I picked up this book at the library while doing some research. I was carousing the greats: "Evolution of Corn Hybrids for Alberta"; "Population and Food Supply"; "A profile of Alberta Farm Operators and Their Farms"; "Agricultural Value-Added Development in Northern Alberta". Fumbling around for "HB 871 S584", i mistakenly pulled out "HB 871 S585. And, to my utter delight, right there in bold letters at the bottom of the front cover was, "Julian L. Simon".


Professors have, for years, toted Julian about as how not to be an economist. He is the rouge trumpeter of ultra-conservatism in an age where even the Chicago School eyes him wearily. I have been told that as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Julian often boasted to his peers of having three goals in life: to be the world's greatest economist; to be the world's greatest equestrian; and to be the world's greatest lover. Upon his deathbed, or so the story goes, he confided to the doctor that he had accomplished only two of the three.


At any rate, there it was (and in fact, here it is: on my desk to the right of my mouse). Against a dark green backdrop, bright orange letters summarize the book:


  • Natural resources and energy are getting /less/ scarce.

  • Pollution in the U.S. has been decreasing

  • The world's food supply is improving

  • Population growth has long-term benefits


    • And, egoism at its finest, he has titled this treasure, "The Ultimate Resource". This masterpiece of ingenuity is straight out of a Chapter's "self-help" section in its styling. Content wise, it is classic Simon. I wish I could quote the whole book for you. Every phrase is abrasive and unforgiving in its assertions (the reader must have been an absolute idiot not to have figured this out for himself!). Discussing the applicability of current indexes of scarcity, Simon remarks, "making the conservative (read: 'unimaginative') assumption that future technology will be the same as present technology would be like making a forecast of twentieth-century copper production on the basis of eighteenth-century pick-and shovel technology" (36). Further, he dismisses grade-school environmental education as "[...]mostly nonsense--but dangerous nonsense, as we shall see after a bit of theory" (128). No assumption is too heroic for Simon's theory side either. In fact, there is only one thing a reader could step away from this book with, the most intense post-post-modern lens having been applied: '[...] the ultimate resource is the human imagination" (back cover).


    But, there it was. I think the book has turned me a bit masochistic, "c'mon Simon! hit me again, I love it!". Oh well. it was a good read, a nice change from the ordinary.

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