The Budget
A budget is simply about prioritizing to enable us to live within the limits of our recourses. For any complaints there have been about the budget, it has to be acknowledged we have a limited amount of money. We have to make choices about how much goes into education, health, business, infrastructure and welfare. Our choices, obviously, are not unlimited. Some things will have to miss out.
Every one of us is used to the idea of a budget. If you ignore your budget it does not mean you get away without one. It means the limitationsof the resources available will catch you by surprise and you budget will be imposed upon you rather than by your choice.
I don’t envy the job of making a budget for a nation. It is hard enough making a personal budget. And yet, it must be done. I expect it to be done. The larger the range of the budget the bigger the consequences for not doing one. If I do my personal budget poorly, I will be adversely affected. If the government doesn’t do a budget the nation will be adversely affected. Limited resources into the government purse are simply a fact of life. We don’t argue about it. It simply is. You don’t get skeptics saying that there is no limitation in the budget, spend as much as you can. No sane person ignores the budget.
The limitation is not an enemy, it simply is, we must work within it.
The earth is approximately 510 million square kilometers, about 71% of which is ocean. There is constant growth and decay and systems that purify and clean; it is not static. But there is still a limited amount of biomass that a particular size piece of land can produce and a limit to the resilience of any eco system. There is a finite amount of pollutants that the oceans can absorb before they are adversely affected. There are a specific number of fish in the sea. A cow takes a known amount of space. There is a limited number of cattle that could survive on all the availiable pasture land. Land for which there are competing uses. Yet there seems to be an inability or unwillingness to consider the possibility that we live with a limited system.
A global resource budget is required. A budget is not the enemy. It allows us to make choices to live within finite resources. Otherwise, limitations will be imposed upon us. Neglecting a personal budget is foolish; neglecting a national budget would be tragic; neglecting a global budget would be catastrophic, but we are doing exactly this. A global case of the tragety of the commons.
However, we are resourceful people. There are several approaches being advocated. One that is worth thinking through is the idea of placing global commons in trust. Here is one example; the Earth Atmospheric Trust.
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