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Profile: Herman Daly
 Claim to Fame:
Herman E. Daly is currently Professor at the University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs. From 1988 to 1994 he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. Prior to 1988 he was Alumni Professor of Economics at Louisiana State University, where he taught economics for twenty years. He holds a B.A. from Rice University and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. His books include: Steady-State Economics (1977; 1991); Valuing the Earth (1993); For the Common Good (1989;1994); and Beyond Growth (1996). In 1996 he received the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Right Livelihood Award.
Was there a particular experience in your life that led you to your work?
There were three experiences that combined to lead me in the direction I took : (1) studying economics under Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen who tied economics to its biophysical foundations in his brilliant but ignored book, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (2) Teaching economics in Northeast Brazil in the late 1960's where the population explosion was an undeniable reality, (3) Reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
What is your greatest source of hope that society can shift to more responsible patterns of production and consumption and achieve a sustainable future?
I think "hope" is indeed the right word, as opposed to optimism. Hope is a religious, existential commitment, the opposite of despair; optimism is more of a book-maker's odds on the likelihood that your horse will win. Given these definitions I am not an optimist, but I am hopeful. I believe our hope lies in repentance and renewal of our minds, a renewed responsibility for Creation to the Creator. A better understanding of how Creation works is also important, but we already know enough to justify very different behavior, and still have been unwilling to change our ways.
What are the primary obstacles to making these changes?
The big obstacle is that the very notion of "Creation" and "Creator" are in our modern world view considered superstitious nonsense, and are also discredited by the same people who are admittedly most active in urging greater care of the biosphere--namely the biologists themselves. But the biologists' arguments in the policy arena, however well informed and well intentioned, are both logically and emotionally feeble because they are based on a purposeless and mechanistic cosmology that in the long run is more conducive to feckless cynicism than service to a purpose higher than the economist's self destructive goal of growth forever.
If you could wave a magic wand and implement one policy change, what would it be and why?
No magic bullet, but ecological tax reform--shifting the tax base from value added (employment of labor and capital) to that to which value is added, the resource flow from nature (depletion and pollution)-- seems a good idea and not very radical. In bumper sticker language, "tax bads, not goods". Also we need limits to the range of acceptable inequality in the distribution of income and wealth.
What's your favorite way to sustain yourself personally and keep balance in your life?
I need a good answer to that!
What is your top book recommendation?
I think the most prophetic book of the century is probably C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man. I have already mentioned Silent Spring.
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