Transition to a nature-like economy, based on the

Pavel Kasyanov, Doctor of Economics

TRANSITION TO A NATURE-LIKE ECONOMY, BASED ON THE NEW SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM, USING BREAKTHROUGH AND NATURE-LIKE TECHNOLOGIES

Keywords: global environmental threat; social needs and demand structure; ecological needs; environmental demand; National idea/ narrative; nature-like technologies; nature-like economy; biotechnology; nanotechnology; green economy.

Introduction
The issue of transition to a nature-like economy through the development and implementation of "breakthrough" and nature-like technologies is directly related to the task of shaping Russia's strategy in the 21st century.
Yes, 18 years of the new century have already passed, and for Russia, it was the time of overcoming the shock of the 1990s, fighting for survival, and growing awareness of the failure of the economic and social model, which had dominated the last quarter of the past century, rather than following any independent constructive strategy.
In view of the above, it is of vital importance that an adequate strategy for the balanced development of Russia be developed and adopted in the shortest possible time. Not separate strategies, such as strategies for socio-economic and scientific-technical development, national, environmental and food security, agriculture, strategies in the field of demography, education, health and others, but a single strategy covering all spheres of life of the society. The approaches to developing an integrated strategy based on the understanding of the nature and character of the entities of global power were addressed in "On Russia's Development Strategy in the 21st Century" . In particular, the hierarchy of goals and objectives for Russia's strategic development in the 21st century was presented there in the form of a matrix (in accordance with the hierarchy of levels of management methods). This article has been written with the aim of developing these ideas with regard to the environmental and economic issues and applies primarily to the section on the general strategy of scientific and technological development. This is the second top level in the proposed hierarchy (the first level is conceptual, and, in the author’s opinion, it was adequately addressed in the previous article, including the formulation of the national idea/ narrative, which will be further defined in this article).
Ecological threat and its perception by various sectors of society
The ecological threat is global in nature. The relevant environmental/ ecological strategy of Russia must not be limited to measures at the national level, but also provide for international and global actions. It is clear that the efforts of a single country, even if it is Russia with its vast area and extensive areas unaffected by any economic activity, will not be enough to prevent a potential global ecological catastrophe. There are tens and hundreds of well-known facts testifying to the most serious and growing environmental problems of a global scale. Here are just a few examples: Around 13 million hectares of forest were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year in the last decade (i.e. from 2000 to 2010) . Rainforest destruction results in the annual decline of atmospheric oxygen varying from 10 to 15 billion tonnes. Disruption of the oxygen balance becomes a material hazard. Desertification extends progressively. IUCN reports the extinction of 869 species out of the 44,838 species (plants and animals) listed in the IUCN Red List. With the addition of another 290 threatened species that are probably extinct, this number may increase to 1,159. At least 16,928 species are endangered. It should be borne in mind that the report considered only about 2.5% of the 1.8 million species described by science . The problem of lack of drinking water is becoming ever more acute.
One of the most serious environmental problems is the generation and accumulation of nondegradable wastes. One of the most disturbing indicators is the huge accumulation of floating debris in the Pacific Ocean. Its area is measured in millions of square kilometres and continues to grow. Any city, especially a large metropolis, creates serious environmental concerns, e.g. air pollution, huge quantity of household waste, wastewater treatment and sludge disposal, etc.
Not only ecologists and specialists in related areas, but also anyone who is aware of environmental issues, realises that the humanity and the planet’s ecosystem are threatened, and that it is necessary to look for ways to prevent the looming environmental disaster. However, the overwhelming majority of people prioritise their daily, routine problems, e.g. their job and the fear of losing them, the need to pay loans for housing and a car, medical and property insurance, etc. The challenges of everyday survival in a society push the global environmental threat to the periphery of consciousness, let alone any action aimed addressing this threat. The ecological needs in the structure of social needs occupy a subordinate position, especially with regard to environmental demand.
At the same time, many professionals believe that it is necessary to address priority environmental issues, which are interpreted as a hierarchy of problems from some ranked list. They (professionals) believe that addressing and solving these issues in an organised and orderly manner will allow us to avoid or postpone the catastrophe. The problems and associated tasks, typically referred to in this context, are the depletion of the ozone layer, emissions greenhouse gases, deforestation of tropical forests, desertification, shortage of fresh water, etc. However, this approach has obvious vulnerabilities. One is the common lack of due scientific justification of the selection and ranking priority problems which may, and often does, result in the omission of some fundamental issues of greater significance than those identified as 'priorities'. On the other hand, the credibility of such an approach to environmental protection is undermined by financial interests and benefits to groups and corporations lobbying for the prioritisation of specific problems.
We should also mention a fairly logical explanation of the cause and nature of global environmental problems popular among the political and intellectual "elite" of the West: The root of environmental concerns is overpopulation and the continuing growth of the world's population. Since the political "elite" has considerable power and considerable resources, some members of this "elite" see the solution to the problem in a radical reduction of the population. Some representatives of the "elite" ("moderates") have in mind only a reduction in the birth rate and have been very active in implementing a complex mind control plan. It manifests itself in the promotion of same-sex relationships and even "marriages", in urbanization with the priority development of megacities and agglomerations, in which, due to the high cost of a housing square meter and completely different lifestyle, children in the family become an economic problem, and, therefore, the desire to have children is either absent or limited to having one or two. The prevalence of one/two-child or childless families, along with an increasing number of people who do not create a family, already provides for stabilization of, and even decline in, the population size. Although the absolute population size of agglomerations and megacities seemingly continues to growg rapidly, this growth is due to the inflow from the outside, whereas in rural areas, in small towns and villages, the population is rapidly declining. In Russia, this process is escalating at a very high rate "thanks to" the reforms of the 1990s and their effects becoming evident in the new century. In general, such approaches to, and methods of, reducing the population may be considered relatively soft and even “humane”.
However, some representatives of the "elite" consider these methods to be clearly insufficient. They believe that the earth's population should be reduced by an order of magnitude or more. It is only reasonable to assume that for them the population reduction methods may be limited only to the indirect but effective birth rate control through relocating the majority of people to megalopolises, limiting the number of children in the family at the legislative level, encouraging same-sex marriage and discriminating the traditional family values. Beyond any reasonable doubt the arsenal of these population reduction methods also includes those that should be recognized as genocide. These are often camouflaged by fine rhetoric. For example, Bill Gates shared his expectations regarding the "success" of medicine: "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent" .
Here are some less humane statements of the western "elite" representatives. Dr Sam Keen gave the closing message to the Gorbachev's Global Conference, San Francisco, 1996: "We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, about contraception, about abortion, about the values that control the population … Cut the population by 90 percent and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage". Ted Turner, founder of CNN (and a member of the so-called "Good Club" which also includes Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, David Rockefeller, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, etc.) was even more radical: "A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal" . Dave Foreman, cofounder of "Earth First!", went even further: "My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world" . These statements of private persons are supported by official organisations: e.g. the UN population Division Policy Brief contains a section entitled as "What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?" (including recommendations on legalising drugs, homosexuality and prostitution while abandoning examination and forced treatment).
In March 2009, "Moskovsky Komsomolets" published an article by G. Popov, President of the International Union of Economists, "Crisis and Global Problems", in which the author outlined the plans of the world financial oligarchy: “It is necessary to remove nuclear weapons, nuclear power engineering and the entire rocket and space technology from the national competence and transfer those activities under the international control. We need the transfer the entire wealth of the bowels of our planet under the global control of all mankind. This primarily applies to hydrocarbon reserves. Strict limits on birth rate must be established, taking into account the level of productivity and the size of the wealth accumulated by each country. It is now time to get out of the impasse to which Malthus pointed out: Beggars must not be allowed to be the fastest breeders" .
The idea of reducing the world's population by 80% and establishing a new "green" feudal world on Earth was repeatedly expressed by Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, at the G8 Summit in June 1997 and at the second UN World Summit. The ideologists of "global warming", "ozone holes" and other pseudoscientific "deterrence concepts" raise the question of not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10%, but also call (in a veiled form) for a radical reduction in the global population using UN organizations, IMF and the World Bank. Compared with these designs, the crimes of the Hitler' Nazi regime may not look so monstrous . In this regard, it is impossible not to mention the so-called "Georgia Tablets" in in the United States. This is an impressive monument of six granite slabs rising to about six metres and weighing about 100 tonnes. The ten commandments of the new world order are engraved on its granite surface in eight modern and four ancient languages. The very first of them says: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Today, this translates into reducing the earthling population to 1/15 of its current size.
All these examples effectively demonstrate that the global power elite, or at least a significant part of it, sees the solution of the environmental problem in a radical (by an order of magnitude or greater) reduction in the number of inhabitants of the planet. Are there alternatives to this approach, at least conceptually or theoretically to begin with? If alternative solutions of the global environmental problem exist in principle, then are there opportunities to put them into practice (given that the world power belongs, to a large extent, to ecofascists)?
Ecological threat and its deep causes
First of all, it is necessary to identify the true causes of the environmental threat. Is the population size the main and insuperable (if not reduced) factor in the emergence and growth of antagonism in the relationship of humanity and the ecosystem of Planet Earth? It seems that the world elites may simply not see other causes and other solutions to the problem because of their commitment to, on the one hand, the outdated scientific and intellectual thinking model commonly referred to as the Cartesian-Newtonian Paradigm (CNP), and on the other hand, to the parasitic financocratic model of the social order . The CNP is characterised by the concept of discreteness, atomism and independence of the object from the subject of observation. This paradigm and its involuntary followers adopt a mechanistic and simplified view of the world. Moreover, these ideas are still dominant in the life of our society as a whole, including the education system and official science. As for the parasitic financocratic model, its very essence lies in the inharmonious interaction of the financial elite with the rest of the population, the parasitizing of the "elite" on humanity, and, as a result, the parasitizing of the society as a whole on the natural environment.
This financocratic system itself requires an exponential growth of the money supply and the economy (an economic growth with a GDP growth rate of a few percent per year), which cannot be supported by the natural biological system, but is easily achievable technogenically. It is this technogenic civilization that increasingly interferes with, and encroaches on, the natural environment. Financial, economic and technological systems grow in volume with their growth being achieved at the expense of the natural living system. Capitalism, especially based on the product of debt (interest money), is doomed to extensive reproduction with the interest and debt increasing exponentially. The economy also grows exponentially but periodically fails as the material component of economic processes is not capable of exponential growth.
The depravity of the modern civilization is manifested not only in relation to nature, but also in the social and class structure of society, the system of distribution of social wealth, in education and upbringing, in media activities, in science and art.
The technocratic system and civilization in principle may not be parasitic but it depends on who directs its development and how, and the objectives of the former. A reasonable approach to its development could enable minimisation of the negative impact of technogenic development on the natural environment and, as the technology progresses, allow the formulation of the goal of achieving similarity of technology and nature. This is exactly the way out of the existing situation our civilization has driven itself into.
The old CNP paradigm works well in relation to artificial mechanisms and technologies that use them, but is hardly applicable to living, self-replicating systems or processes occurring in the human consciousness and subconsciousness. It is this paradigm that, in conditions of a parasitic financocratic system, has led to the blown-out-of-proportion development of man-made systems to the detriment of the natural elements, including humans.
The technogenic civilization cannot be harmoniously fitted into the living natural or biogenic system unless technologies become nature-like (but then the civilization will move to a qualitatively new level). In some ultimate case, a technogenic civilization can be isolated from nature, and nature isolated from a technogenic civilization. In this context, it is worthwhile noting the process of the concentration of population in giant megalopolises and agglomerations. The growth of these has been particularly intense in the past few decades. The population of the world's largest megapolis, the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, was over 38 million people (as of 2018). Jakarta is slightly behind with a population of over 32 million. The population of Delhi exceeds 27 million. Agglomerations with populations ranging from 20 to 25 million are Manila, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai, Mumbai, New York, Beijing, S;o Paulo, Mexico City and Guangzhou-Foshan. The population of the Moscow agglomeration is estimated at 16.9 million.
However, there is a belief that in Russia this process is lagging behind the rest of the world. A. Kudrin, Head of the Center for Strategic Research, said in a message to Gaydar Forum: "We must create in Russia maybe 10;15 urban agglomerations that will be comparable with Asian cities in the East and with Western cities in Europe". Kudrin concluded: "Today, we need to support not only the regions, but to also cities that will become centres of new opportunities". Of course, Mr Kudrin proceeds from purely economic considerations. However, both these proposals, and the process of resettlement into megacities, along with some major large-scale processes (e.g. globalization and steady degradation of the natural environment), are all products of financial capitalism, also known as 'financism' according to M. Khazin and A. Kobyakov  (or 'financocratia" in the terminology of the author of this article ). While the financocratic model continues to dominate, one can hardly expect a reversal in the trend towards concentration of population in agglomerations and megalopolises. Capitalism, especially at its openly and purely financial stage, is inseparably associated with the technogenic nature of our civilization. It is not even a symbiosis, but two sides of one coin or one paradigm. A technogenic civilization could probably evolve without a dominant role of the financial system based on debt and a complex interest (debt servicing). However, as previously noted, this financial system itself requires an exponential growth of the money supply and, as a result, of the economy. This kind of economy parasitizes on the natural system of Planet Earth.
From a scientific and technical point of view, a technogenic civilization operates primarily with non-living matter and also energy, but with energy derived from a substance. The products of such civilization are not embedded in living natural processes (although partial incorporation is inevitably present, e.g. organic waste decomposes and becomes part of natural metabolic processes). However, what really matters is the fact that most products are designed and manufactured without reference to potential integration in natural processes. The criterion of production efficiency is the demand in relation to the cost of production, rather than compatibility of products with natural systems. This applies not only to the past technological setups and traditional machine production. Efforts in the new areas of scientific and technological development, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, creation of genetically modified plants and animals are also aimed at financial and economic efficiency rather than compatibility with the environment.
Living nature is cognizable and, if the main criteria for creating and using technologies and products are their incorporation in natural processes, this will become the basis for the development and implementation of nature-like technologies, transition to a nature-like economy and, in general, to a biogenic civilization, based on the reproduction of natural harmony rather than extended commodity production. It should be noted that the idea of introducing nature-like technologies is not new. The concept of "non-waste technology" was discussed in the USSR and internationally in the second half of the last century. This term even better reflects the essence, since the "nature-like technology" can be similar in some, but not all, aspects to natural processes; including waste generation; the term "nature-like technology" requires clarification: The main criterion of nature-likeness is the absence of waste generation. The term "non-waste technology" was formulated by Soviet chemists N. Semenov and I. Petryanov-Sokolov in 1956 and was widely used not only in our country, but also abroad. The official definition of this term, adopted by the decision of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1984 in Tashkent, is as follows: non-waste technology is understood such a principle of functioning of industry and agriculture of the region, industry, as well as individual industries, in which all components of raw materials and energy in a cycle are rationally used and ecological balance is not disturbed., The ideas of non-waste technology were first outlined by D. Mendeleev in 1885 in his "Letters about factories." He wrote: “... Many manufacturing processes generate the so-called waste, i.e. the results of chemical transformations completely neglected economically, which, however, sometimes become over time the starting point for a new production process of great value. If the continuity is the first principle of the factory, then the second one should, in my opinion, be the absence of waste. Production improves when it, firstly, becomes continuously uniform, and secondly, when it does not generate waste" . And further: "... As factory industry improves, it seeks to reduce or completely eliminate waste."
Strictly speaking, a non-waste technology is the principle of the organization of production in general, which implies the use of raw materials and energy in a closed cycle. A closed cycle means a chain that consists of primary raw materials, manufacturing/ production, consumption and secondary raw materials.
Recent trends in scientific and technological development
The most advanced areas in modern science, in which billions of dollars are invested, are bio- and nanotechnologies. Biotechnologies are ultimately based on the ability to program DNA in order to obtain living organisms with the properties and qualities we need . The manufacture of materials from elements with microscopic structural elements, e.g. hydrocarbon tubes, is only the initial stage of the development of nanotechnology. The main goal of their development is the ability to manipulate matter at the level of atoms and molecules: e.g. creation of subminiature mechanisms which, according to a program loaded in them, will be able to collect the necessary substances or construct large bodies from a variety of atoms and molecules of the source materials, or modification of properties of existing materials and objects adjusting their atomic or molecular structure, e.g. in medicine, to repair damaged tissues or to selectively kill cancer cells identifying them by defective DNA .
A living cell, from the point of view of contemporary knowledge, is a nanofactory, where nanorobots called RNA are engaged in the synthesis of necessary substances and materials following a program recorded in the DNA at the molecular level. The fact is that we are trying so hard to invent was actually invented millions of years ago. The Earth’s biosphere was built on the basis of knowledge about the properties of matter which are superior to our current knowledge by orders of magnitude. Modern computers are based on a binary system for which only '0' and '1' exist. The DNA is a carrier of information with ultra-high recording density with four nucleotides used as signs, i.d. a quaternary notation which alone enables a double increase in the information recording density under otherwise equal conditions. In addition, one nucleotide is the size of several atoms which is many times as small as the memory elements we use today .
On the one hand, a living cell is a unique autonomous system that constantly exchanges substance and energy with its external environment. It is capable of independent self-replication producing for this all the necessary complex organic compounds. We do not yet fully understand how this system functions, let alone any attempt at replicating a remotely similar process. On the other hand, when a multitude of these cells join together and divide specializations, they begin to function as a single organism, where each cell fulfills its function there by working in the interests of the organism as a whole. All living organisms, in turn, are comprise a single biosphere, a complex ecosystem that has many connections and dependencies .
In this regard, the vector of development of nano-, bio-, cognitotechnologies acquires special significance. After all, the achievement of this level of intervention in nature at a very fine level (formally, nature-like) does not mean the qualitative nature-likeness of technologies and their products. Interventions at so fine a level increase the threat of an anti-nature outcome when man-made technologies will begin to more effectively destroy natural prototypes replacing them with newly created ones. Theoretically, man-made nature-like creations of man may be as good or even better than those existing in nature. However, it is much more important to eliminate the risk, which would be especially high at the initial stages, of man-made analogs entering into antagonistic confrontation with natural prototypes and causing irreparable damage to nature. And this risk is high, both because of the lack of sufficient knowledge of natural phenomena, processes and all their interrelations, and because of the inadequate ethical threshold of many developers of such technologies.
Transition to nature-like technologies
The efficiency of utilization of solar energy in the process of photosynthesis is 38% against 30% in the most advanced solar cells created by modern technological civilization and 18-20% of those in mass production. Synthesized substances will enter the epithelial cells of the trunk, where other specialized nanofactories will synthesize substances to build the trunk and bark of the tree. The final product will be, for example, a pine log, an excellent building material. Of course, it takes decades to complete the entire process, but, on the other hand, the society’s costs to produce it are minimal. The tree grows by itself, receives all the necessary substances from soil and air also by itself, i.e. it is a self-regulating, self-regenerating and self-replicating system. In the natural environment, no problems with garbage or disposal of waste from hazardous industries exist .
As early as the first half of the past century, Vladimir Vernadsky, an outstanding scientist, saw the future of humanity in the noosphere development associated with the achievements of science, formation of holistic ideas about Nature and Cosmos and the role of man, with the development of consciousness and the growth of spirituality . The environmental threat in a broad sense is a manifestation, a symptom of a developmental disease, along with the others mentioned above. Consequently, it is not individual environmental issues that need to be addressed. Instead, the fight must be against the deep-seated causes of these. The most important of them are the now dominant technogenic financocratic way of the development of civilization, consumerist society with the priority development of material needs to the detriment of spiritual requirements.
The strategic direction should be the transition to a nature-like economy through the period of development of a green economy and the gradual introduction of nature-like technologies. In this regard, it should be noted that the introduction of fundamentally new nature-like technologies that harmoniously fit into the natural processes was proposed during the 70th session of the UN General Assembly by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin: "What we need is an essentially different approach, one that would involve introducing new, groundbreaking, nature-like technologies that would not damage the environment, but rather work in harmony with it, enabling us to restore the balance between the biosphere and technology upset by human activities. It is indeed a challenge of global proportions. And I am confident that humanity does have the necessary intellectual capacity to respond to it. We need to join our efforts, primarily engaging countries that possess strong research and development capabilities and have made significant advances in fundamental research. We propose convening a special forum under the auspices of the UN to comprehensively address issues related to the depletion of natural resources, habitat destruction, and climate change. Russia is willing to co-sponsor such a forum".
Despite the fact that today the question of the transition to a nature-like economy may be perceived as inopportune, I believe that this must be made a strategic long-term goal. It is necessary to develop phased goals and objectives in relation to science, industrial and agricultural production, housing and communal system, transport, planning for the siting of industries and settlements, organization of settlements, in relation to education and upbringing, as well as mechanisms that will provide for the funding and implementation of new trchnologies and the very "conversion" of our technogenic civilization into a nature-like civilization. Over time, the entire technological order will change, which will mean a transition to a nature-like economy and the ultimate solution of environmental problems.
This means that the transition to a nature-like economy through the development and implementation of nature-like technologies in the broadest sense of this term should become the most important integrated scientific, technical and socio-ecological-economic project of Russia for the 21st century. This project should be a priority, it should be allocated sufficient funding, both for the development and implementation of such technologies, as well as for scientific, institutional and organizational support of planned and balanced processes in the sectoral, territorial, educational and other aspects. In order to be able to solve such problems, it is necessary to radically strengthen the position of science in the management of social development.
Taking into account all the above, the national idea of Russia can be formulated as follows: to lead mankind’s exit from the civilizational impasse of parasitic, financocratic materialistic "development" based on the transition to the evolution which focuses on harmonious development of society and the individual, on the realization of its best potential, improvement of the quality of life in its deeper understanding, coevolution of society and nature through the development and implementation of nature-like technologies and the transition to a nature-like economy.