Hey there, Captain. President Heaton here.
After we sent off your ship, we realized we
could use the infinite energy drive and
super robots we built your vessel with to
clean up the planet.
it's just easier. 
Easier?
I mean clearly if we can build flying
solar-powered laser robots we can figure
out how to recycle aluminum.
Our bad. Sorry. Hopefully, you haven't been
drifting through space for seven hundred
years or anything.
Oh, also, according to our calculations
human life on your spaceship will become
unsustainable once your robot's achieve
sentience and
decide to murder all of you. Just FYI. 
Unsustainable? What?
Now, if you'll excuse me, technology
has become so
awesome in your absence that I'm gonna go
play X-Box with a holographic dolphin and
Kate Upton Bot. Adios!
Hello! I'm Andrew Heaton and you're
watching EconPop,
the show that scans the ravage wasteland of
a popular culture to find the seedling of
Economics within.
Today were diving into my favorite
romantic film, WALL-E.
Of course, the fact that I can only relate
to the romantic feelings of a cartoon
robot may explain why I'm single.
But i digress. After all, this is not 
just to robo romcom. It's also a
tragedy. A tragedy
of the Commons. WALL-E opens in a
post-apocalyptic landscape of abandoned
buildings
rusting machines and towering piles of
garbage but this isn't modern-day
Detroit
It's Detroit in the year twenty seven
hundred. Or it could be.
In Pixar's vision of the future, the
entire earth has been transformed into a
smoldering wasteland,
ravaged by pollution and the excesses of
consumerism.
Things are grim. Robocop grim.
Operation cleanup has well....
failed.
What you know, rising toxicity levels
have made life unsustainable on Earth.
But it isn't all doom and gloom on
Planet Pixar. WALL-E has an adorable,
disgusting cockroach companion.
He has a hobby collecting shiny junk. He
even has a VHS copy of the 1969 musical,
Hello Dolly. Which he learns essential
life skills like dancing,
and donning a top hat.
Now, WALL-E the robot is a technological
wonder just as WALL-E the movie is an
innovative piece a digital filmmaking.
However, the film's dystopian vision of
overpopulation, resource depletion and
societal collapse,
is centuries old and has been repeatedly
refuted.
Too much garbage in your face?
There's plenty of space out in space.
BNL Starliners leaving each day. We'll clean up the mess while you're away.
For example, in the 1890s economists predicted that if New
York City continued to grow,
it would literally drown in pony
poop in 30 years. Back then, shipping,
transportation, and glue production all
relied on horsepower.
Experts envisioned canals of manure
criss-crossing Manhattan and
exorbitant still prices to boot. But they
failed to imagine automobiles
and electric streetcars and flying
recliners, which as everyone who has watched
WALL-E knows
will be an integral part of our future
transportation infrastructure.
Humans are great at projecting today's
problems into tomorrow,
but we're terribly at foreseeing the
solutions we will ultimately come up with
along the way.
USB drives have saved more trees in the
last 10 years than Arbor Day campaigns have.
History teaches us that technological
progress doesn't just make us richer it
makes our world cleaner as well.
Does that mean everything's hunky-dory?
Not quite.
In real life, we do see garbage in
gutters and public parks and
pretty much every reality television
program. Yet you hardly ever see litter in
peoples front yards.
Why? In a nutshell people tend to take
better care of things they own.
Have you ever washed a rental car. Not
me. I use rental cars to transport exotic
animals across state lines.
I don't clean up after the emu when I'm done.
Whenever one owns something collectively
nobody has an incentive to take personal
responsibility for it.
Imagine a common room in a dormitory
or the stairwell at
my apartment complex. In WALL-E,
Earth's orbit is littered with space
junk. Nobody owns the exosphere so
who's gonna clean it?
When a resource is commonly shared
there's nothing to stop me
or you or anyone from exploiting it.
This is known as The Tragedy of the
Commons.
everyone takes nobody has an incentive
to be a steward. The result is a world
like the one we see in WALL-E.
Out there is our home. Home, Otto.
And it's in trouble. I can't just sit
here and
do nothing. That's all I've ever done. That's all
anyone on this blasted ship has ever done.
Nothing!
One solution is to introduce private property rights.
Logging companies don't cut down their trees without planting new ones.
Cows are plentiful despite the popularity of hamburgers.
Whereas lions and unicorns are in danger.
Property and the opportunity to profit from it
actually promote sustainability. Another
big theme in WALL-E is consumerism.
You can feel free to lambast consumerism if you're watching this
video on some kinda
do it yourself hand-carved on Amish
smartphone. Otherwise, let's just admit we
all like buying stuff.
There's nothing wrong with buying books
or shoes or fun movies about robots.
Do I believe that gadgets are the most
important thing in life?
No. Am I glad I have a microwave? Of
course.
I'm a bachelor. I would starve to death
without one but the film imagines that
consumerism and technology
ultimately strip away our humanity. Sure,
some people do become lazy and worthless
when given the opportunity.
I've seen it. I was in a fraternity but I
think
most human beings want to live
purposeful lives. All of human history is
a story of people reaching for new
heights
just as they attain formerly
unimaginable ones. A good many of humans use
the leisure time they gain from
technology to be creative or social.
Because when you don't have to spend
your days churning butter or hand
washing all of your clothes or
hunting and killing whatever kind of
animal producers denim, you can dedicate
yourself to higher pursuits
like writing e-books about werewolf romance or bonding with your family
or bonding with your secret family.
Or even making movies about robots.
I wanna live in a clean planet with
fresh air and plentiful animals that i can
trap and befriend or eat.
but I also know that the world
is going to need among other things
technology and commerce.
Otherwise, who gets around to 
building WALL-E?
And now it's time for everyone's
favorite part of the show,
Subjective Value. Where we invite an
economist to discuss the film.
Today, Julian Simon
Oh, Paul Ehrlich, I saw you on the Johnny
Carson
talking smack about resource depletion.
When it comes to prices you say that the
sky is the limit.
You say that space is the place. Well, I've got a bomb 
to drop on you, Paul Ehrlich.
A knowledge bomb. I'm throwing down the
gauntlet
read my lips, the price of tin, tungsten,
copper, chromium, and nickel is gonna
dropppp
and when the dust settles, Ehrlich, I'll
see you
September 29, 1990
at the Cato Institute 
4 Stars
Well, that's our show.
Thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe
to our YouTube channel. You can download
the EconPop podcast with 
economists Steve Horowitz,
professor of literature, Paul Cantor and
myself. Available on iTunes.
