The United States wastes more than $2 trillion annually
by Paul Hawken
"Our Lost Wealth" is excerpted from Paul Hawken's "Natural
Capitalism," the cover story of Mother Jones magazine's April '97 issue.
Hawken argues that business' focus on "using more resources to make
fewer people more productive" has the perverse effect of eliminating
jobs when labor is plentiful while depleting our limited natural resources.
The result: immense resource waste and incalculable social waste stemming
from a growing population of un- and underemployed people. Look for Mother
Jones on your local newsstand or call 1-800-GET-MOJO to request a trial
issue.
he United States prides itself on being the richest
country in the world. Yet we can't balance the budget, pay for education,
or take care of the aged and infirm. How is it that we can have both a growing
economy and a growing underclass?
In politics, they say "follow the money."
What you find is that the waste in resources and people shows up in our
overall gross domestic product (GDP). Of the $7 trillion spent every year
in the United States, we waste at least $2 trillion. What is meant by waste?
Money spent where the buyer gets no value.
The World Resources Institute has found that
roadway congestion costs $100 billion per year in lost productivity, not
counting gasoline, accident and maintenance costs. Highway accidents cost
$358 billion per year, including $228 billion in pain and suffering and
$40 billion in property damage. We spend another $85 billion indirectly
subsidizing free parking at shopping malls and workplaces. The hidden social
costs of driving hidden because they are not paid by motorists directly
also include disease and damage to crops and forests caused by auto exhaust.
These charges total $300 billion.
We spend $50 billion a year to guard sea-lanes
and to protect oil sources we would not need if President Reagan had not
gutted emission standards in 1986. We spend nearly $200 billion a year in
supplementary energy costs because we do not employ the same energy efficiency
standards for our businesses and homes as do the Japanese.
We waste around $65 billion on nonessential
or fraudulent medical tests and, by some estimates, $250 billion on inflated
overhead generated by the current health insurance system. We spend $52
billion on substance abuse, $69 billion on obesity treatments, $125 billion
on heart disease, and, some estimate, as much as $100 billion on health
problems related to air pollution.
Legal, accounting, audit, bookkeeping and
record-keeping expenditures to comply with an unnecessarily complex and
unenforceable tax code cost citizens at least $250 billion a year; what
Americans fail to pay the IRS adds up to another $150 billion.
Crime costs taxpayers $450 billion a year;
lawsuits, $300 billion.
These figures don't include disbursements
for Superfund sites, monies to clean up nuclear weapons facilities (estimated
to be as high as $500 billion), the annual cost of 25 billion tons of material
waste, subsidies to environmentally damaging industries, loss of fisheries,
damage from overgrazing, water pollution, topsoil loss, government waste,
gambling, or the social costs of unemployment. Conceivably, half the GDP
is spent on waste.
If we could shift a portion of these expenditures
to more productive uses, we would have the money to balance our budget,
take care of those who cannot care for themselves, raise wonderfully educated
and responsible children, restore degraded environments, and help developing
countries. If, for example, we had simply adopted stricter energy standards
in 1974 standards in use by Japan and had applied the savings to the national
debt, we would not have a national deficit today.
Paul Hawken is an internationally known businessman
and author
