I have started reading “silent spring” by Rachel Carson – which ought to win a prize for its title because it is referring to the great loss of birds and other wildlife as a result of our war on nature through the use of pesticides in the 50s and 60s.

The reason we developed such pesticides is due to the massive increase in certain insect populations as a result of the practice of mono-cropping massive areas of land. Insects that thrive in such mono-cultures were, for the first time in natural history, were able to balloon in size due to these man-made environments. In order to tackle these insect populations various organic and inorganic chemicals were sprayed, en masse, into the environment and spread throughout the ecosystem vie the food chain, building up in concentration on their way from the bottom to the top of the chain and causing immense damage wildlife as well as human beings.

This practice starkly shows just how agreements between private individuals and entities can have a wide effect. This is what is generally referred to as the externalities of the market and it is the role of the state to regulate agreements between private individuals to ensure that such agreements do not harm others that are not party to these agreements made.

It may be unintuitive to some that an agreement between two people can have much of an impact to a wider group of stakeholders, but as our technological capacities have developed, the ability of private agreements to have unintended (if knowable) consequences for a wide variety of people is becoming clearer and clearer. If JS Mill was alive today he would be an environmentalist – his philosophy of liberalism is clear in that it allows freedom to individuals so long as they are prevented from unduly harming others. With regard to the current relation between ourselves and the rest of nature, capitalism is fundamentally unable, as a system, to regulate itself, but this is not simply because corporations are legally required to make a profit for their shareholders, it is also because we buy products that we shouldn’t. If a business sells a product that was created by causing harm to others, the responsibility for not engaging in that type of trade lies with the individual as much as the business. The problem is that neither buisnesses nor private individuals are equipped well enough to be able to avoid causing harm to others through their actions. Our populace is woefully undereducated and our buisnesses are poorly regulated. If this were not the case, we would not have the extreme levels of environmental damage and pollution that is taking place in the modern world.

The only feasible solution is to invest in our education system to improve the functioning of our democracy and to develop the ability of individuals to operate more rationally and compassionately within the private sphere of life. Part of the issue is our education system is past its prime – we have an education system that trains a workers and consumers, but not citizens. The ignorance of critical thinking, political and economic systems and scientific understanding means that consumers are operating in a marketplace without the opportunity to take the harm that such agreements cause into account. Until we have an education system that trains our population to be citizens, we will never have a solution to the problems of the day, because the health and wealth of a democracy is entirely dependant on the character and capacities of its citizens. This is why I believe our education system is in dire need of improvement and unless our governments take action, we are doomed as a species.