Businesspeople can often think they know more about the world than they do. CEOs share their barely coherent thoughts on current affairs. It is annoying. People involved in sustainability are right to be irritated when they hear such nonsense. Yet, the opposite is also true. If you don’t know anything about business, it is not helpful to write about business. My advice to Ahmed Afzaal, author of Teaching at Twilight, is learn about business. Or, at least, think for a moment before discussing business.
Citations Matter
Teaching at Twilight is a book desperately in need of some more citations. There are massive statements made about the future of humanity that seem to have no obvious backup. Other earth shattering statements have a single citation in a footnote to a paper that surely can’t be the full story of whether humanity is inevitably doomed.
The challenge when you read about areas that you aren’t an expert in is that it can be hard to know if any statements made are reasonable. There are some deeply weird things in the world, so if you don’t have that area of expertise you simply don’t know for sure. I struggle with that problem every day. Teaching sustainable business involves connections to things like environmental science that I don’t have meaningful knowledge in. I hope that I get the balance right; not being paralyzed to speak about important issues but still not claiming knowledge that I don’t have. While I sometimes err, I can say with absolute confidence that Afzaal got the balance completely wrong. He spoke firmly about business and seemed to have close to zero knowledge about it.
Learn About Business Before Discussing Business
Business is such an important part of the world, and business impacts sustainability so profoundly, it is understandable that sustainability writers want to tackle it. But if anyone wants advice, mine is simple: learn about business before discussing business.
Afzaal makes loads of random statements about business that seem to have nothing to support them. For example,
If you’re running a small business just to support your family, you are violating a basic tenet of capitalism.
Afzaal, 2023, page 42
Obvious questions abound.
- Why does he think this?
- What source is he using for the tenets of capitalism?
- What happens when you violate the tenets of capitalism?
- Is there a Capitalism Police that’ll arrest you for not being ambitious enough if you don’t try and expand? (Importantly, do you get to stay in one of the nicer cells for white collar types?)
- Does the fact that the vast majority of businesses in economies that are typically referred to as capitalist are small — indeed, many are just doing it to support their families — influence his opinion in any way?
Part of the problem is that terms are not well-defined in Afzaal’s book. This blog outlines numerous complaints that I have with many business practices. There is plenty about business to criticize, but you need to be specific about the problems. As a business school professor, I try and avoid terms like capitalist and socialist. This is because they seem to have very different meanings depending upon the speaker and listener and so create more heat than light when used. Afzaal doesn’t seem to have the same concern. He hasn’t meant a poorly defined overarching term he doesn’t love.
Making A Difference
Afzaal talks of how individuals can’t make any difference. His argument is that whatever positives we achieve are quickly swallowed by capitalism. To be fair, here occasionally he does give specifics. But the specifics only show a shocking lack of understanding of what he talks about.
…if more people start to become vegetarian, the meat industry will simply ramp up its advertising and lobbying efforts to compensate for any decline in profits.
Afzaal, 2023 page 301
This is an odd statement. Afzaal doesn’t seem to dispute that vegetarian food is better on the greenhouse gas emissions front. Still, he believes that it won’t do any good to give up meat — the meat industry’s profits will stay miraculously stable. This is strange as meat producers seem to hate it when people give up meat and fight vigorously against meat substitutes. (Look up worldwide attempts to stop meat substitutes being labeled as meat). Maybe though the meat producers are just wrong to worry. Maybe Afzaal is right that people going vegetarian won’t impact the meat industry’s profits. Let’s think that one through.
Does Giving Up Meat Not Impact The Meat Industry?
Assume 10% of people go vegetarian. According to Afzaal, the meat industry apparently can just advertise so this won’t change their profits. I’ve taught advertising and I have no idea how exactly they would create this incredibly powerful ad campaign. Will the vegetarians go back to eating meat when they see the great ads that the meat industry creates? Sounds very unlikely, but okay maybe it could happen.
Still, consider what happens to profits when rising vegetarianism -> increased advertising -> back to meat eating. Well profits are obviously down because the meat industry now has to spend more on advertising to generate the same sales.
Maybe Afzaal thinks the meat industry can use its brilliant advertising to increase prices to make up for the lost sales. It’ll need to be a big price increase to make up for both the lost sales and increased advertising budget and still deliver the same profit but maybe it could happen. There is an obvious question. If the industry has a brilliant advertising campaign ready to go that will leave consumers willing to pay more for meat, then why aren’t they running the campaign already? Maybe the industry doesn’t think that they have the perfect advertising campaign ready. If so, why is Afzaal so sure that the meat people have the brilliant campaign ready when the meat people don’t know about the campaign’s existence?
Remember, he doesn’t have any uncertainty about what will happen. He says the meat industry “will simply” do it. Afzaal apparently knows more about meat advertising than the meat industry people.
Bizarrely, he seems to think the way to a better world is to discourage people from giving up beef. Sounds like total bullshit to me.
Lobbying Is More Politics Than Business
Lobbying is trickier. This is not a market activity but a political one. This means almost anything could happen if the meat industry political coalition is strong enough. That said, it seems strange to think that the meat lobby will get stronger (and so be able to secure more government largess beyond the subsidies that they already get at the moment) when more of the population is vegetarian. Maybe we’ll see an astroturf movement, Vegetarians for Meat Subsidies. Remember, Afzaal doesn’t guess at what might happen if people go vegetarian. He KNOWS. This confidence is despite the fact that he seems to know noting of what he is opining about.
Blackouts Stop People Playing Video Games & Taking Road Trips
Who hasn’t said that they’d love to play more video games, but they can’t obtain the electricity to do so?
Who also doesn’t say every day that the only thing stopping their big EV road trip is that aircon units are hogging all the electricity?
Apparently, that is constantly happening in the world that Afzaal observes. Let me explain what I mean with his quote:
If some people start reducing their use of air-conditioning, more electricity will become available for more people to play video games and charge their electric vehicles.
Afzaal, 2023, page 301
This is clearly absurd. For the vast, vast majority of people their time is much more of a constraint than blackouts caused by aircon use that stops them playing their video games. Producing more energy only really creates more activity if energy access was an important constraint on the activity. Energy access/cost can certainly be a constraint in some situations, but Afzaal’s examples are clearly deeply silly. It illustrates a casual attitude to thinking about what he says.
Business Matters
It is critical for businesspeople to better understand the impact they are having on the world. Similarly, if you want to criticize business, and there is much to criticize, it is helpful to not promote gibberish. Spouting nonsense only undermines your complaints and feeds the incorrect idea that business doesn’t need to get better.
For more on business and degrowth ideas see Modern Business And Sustainability, Limits And Self-Limits, and An Ineffective Defense Of Degrowth
Read: Ahmed Afzaal (2025) Teaching at Twilight: The Meaning of Education in the Age of Collapse, Cascade Books
