Expanding on Homer-Dixon's Reasoning

Traditionally, cornucopians do not worry about protecting resources because they believe that humans will be able to develop technology in response to scarcity. Although this has appeared to be the case in history, Homer-Dixon criticizes the cornucopian theory by claiming that its purported trend may not continue to be the reality in the future. In Homer-Dixon’s discussion of the shortcomings of cornucopians’ theories, he cites seven reasons that human ingenuity will not be able to overcome scarcity. His seventh and final reason that cornucopians’ predictions will not come to fruition is that future environmental problems will reduce the supply of ingenuity available in a society. He elaborates on this point by explaining that environmental problems will create complex legal issues and social friction, thereby decreasing the ability of policymakers to be good “social engineers.” Homer-Dixon’s explanation of this point is underdeveloped, however, because the term “supply of ingenuity” can be much more expansive. To develop on Homer-Dixon’s reasoning, I also argue that the decrease in supply of ingenuity relates to two factors: decreases in investment in research and development for solutions to environmental problems, and more attention to national security issues raised by environmental problems. Then, I will explain how these reasons account for the likelihood that scarcity will be the most prominent cause conflict in the future.

First, as scarcity increases, the amount of money, labor and capital invested in research and development for environmental problems will necessarily decrease, which in turn reduces the supply of ingenuity. More money will be spent addressing the social inequalities caused by scarcity instead of developing solutions to prevent resource scarcity in the first place. During a water shortage crisis, more money would be spent on addressing the immediate water needs of the country’s citizens by providing bottled water than would be allocated on research and development for long-term water purification systems, for example. This redistribution of funding therefore limits the supply of ingenuity to resolve scarcity issues. Similarly, labor and capital resources will be selectively used to address pressing scarcity issues instead of researching enduring technological solutions. If not enough money, labor and capital are invested to encourage human ingenuity in solving environmental problems, Homer-Dixon will be correct in his argument that cornucopians mistakenly rely on technology development to resolve scarcity.

Homer-Dixon also explains that domestic social friction will reduce the supply of ingenuity, but I argue that it is more complex; national security problems will also affect nations’ abilities to be effective social engineers. As we’ve discussed in class, scarcity and environmental issues can threaten national security because they can disrupt the function of a state and the wellbeing of its citizens. In the face of environmental problems, governments will have to prioritize their agendas and choose between social welfare of their citizens, technological development and national security of the state. If a government prioritizes national security over technological development, more effort will be spent on developing effective international policies and defense strategies than on technologies to counteract negative threats of scarcity. As a result, supply of ingenuity toward domestic policy and technological innovation to resolve scarcity problems will diminish. Once again, as supply of ingenuity decreases, humans will be less likely to engineer a solution to scarcity. 

  Through my expansion of Homer-Dixon’s explanation, it is now even more convincing that humans will most likely not be able to develop technology to override scarcity problems. His seven factors culminate to the conclusion that because humans cannot avoid scarcity, the scarcity of renewable resources will be a cause of significant domestic and interstate conflict. Although some scholars advocate for the resource curse theory, and some believe instead that a combination of abundance of nonrenewable resources and scarcity of renewable resources is most likely to lead to states of conflict, I take a different approach. I believe that in the future the likely cause of conflict will be scarcity, not abundance. Eventually, overuse and exploitation of natural resources will cause nonrenewable resources to become scarce even in formerly abundant areas. As Homer-Dixon explained, human technology will not be able to preserve abundance of any resource. Furthermore, environmental degradation of seemingly renewable resources will cause further strains on supplies. As a result, there will be civil and international conflicts over the distribution of scarce nonrenewable and renewable resources, particularly in developing nations with weak political institutions. This scarcity of resources will be further exacerbated by rapid population growth.

Homer-Dixon's arguments that humans ingenuity cannot tackle scarcity problems are weakly stated, but overall accurate. Furthermore, his arguments lead us to the conclusion that scarcity of resources will be the most probable cause of conflict in the future.