SOCIAL TOPICS (Archive): ENVIRONMENT

Published, July 1994

       by Stephen Viederman

       Sustainability is a community’s control and prudent use of all forms of capital — natural, human, human-created, social and cultural. These assets should be managed to ensure, to the degree possible, that present and future generations can attain a high degree of economic security and achieve democracy while maintaining the integrity of the ecological systems upon which all life and all production depends.

       Linking all capital to the three pillars of sustainability — economy, ecology and equity — is essential. They are inseparable aspects and goals of the vision of sustainability that we are trying to achieve.

       Central to my view of “sustainability” is control of capital, in all its forms. This immediately identifies two issues that are in tension.

       First, this definition, by focusing on control of capital, raises the issue of “power” which is omitted from all of the other definitions of sustainability I have seen. These usually imply a benevolent guiding hand that will ensure degrees of equity, fairness and distribution that we have not observed.

       Second, the definition appears to conflict with the first principle of sustainability: the humility principle. This principle reminds us of the limits of human knowledge, and by extension, the limits of our capacity to manage or control, especially at ever increasing scales such as the planet.

       With that as an introduction, I will turn to the economics of non-sustainability and the economics of sustainability. I will argue that the way economists and politicians presently define the economy contributes to our unsustainability. And I will try to show how a new economics and a new politics are needed to help us in our search for a new vision of sustainability.

       First, we are told by conventional economists that the economic system is a closed system, operating separately from the ecosystem. In this view, neither matter nor energy enters or leaves the economic system, so the economy can be any size. But a new economics recognizes what is self-evident to most of us: that the ecosystem is finite and is the basis for all life and all production. Thus, the economic system cannot be viewed as anything but an open system operating with the limits of a closed ecosystem.

       Second, economists and politicians assert, as a matter of faith, that economic growth is good. The main problem of the American economy, said President Clinton, “is there’s not enough growth in the world economy.” What the President’s statement fails to understand is that in any finite system there are limits to growth. We simply cannot continue to produce more, using more and more resources, and producing ever increasing amounts of waste products with no place to go. We must produce better and less. A new economics will understand and respect the differences between economic growth (an increase in physical size) — a quantitative measure, and economic development (an expansion or realization of potential) — a qualitative measure. A sustainable society, as Dana Meadow suggests, “lets go of its addiction to growth.”

       Third, economists and politicians assert that continued growth will reduce poverty. We are handed statistics that show rising Gross National Product per capita, but these do not stand the test of disaggregation which reflects greater inequities between the incomes of rich and poor. We are told that “rising tides lift all boats.” But without being sailors, we know that in a closed system, when the tides rise in the north they fall in the south. A new economics recognizes that equity and income distribution do not occur without policies that ensure income gains, and related social services, for the poor.

       Fourth, we are assured by economists and politicians that science and technology will deal with the problems of the economy and ecology that we face. A new economics will not be anti-technology, but at the same time it will not accept technology uncritically. Just as today a pharmaceutical is subject to stringent assessment prior to its market release, so too should technologies be assessed for their social, economic, ecological, political and cultural consequences before they can be offered for widespread use.

       Fifth, we are told by economists and politicians that the “free market” will work to meet all human needs. It is clear that the market simply does not work well in all circumstances, particularly with issues relating to the commons, to social needs, to issues of justice, and to concerns for future generations. A new economics will use a variety of instruments, including the market, to achieve economically and socially desirable goals such as enduring justice and equity. In addition, a new economics will value natural, human, social and cultural capital.

       We are all guilty of allowing conventional economics to become the language of politics, a language without a moral sense. In so doing we have effectively ignored values and ethics. We talk of costs and benefits without reference to values. But it is politics, not economics, that must reflect what we value in society. And it is a new politics, as well as a new economics, that must connect the economy and the environment, people, and nature.

       A serious part of the problem we face in this country, and by extension in the world, is that there is no “politics of sustainability.” We have a politics of jobs, and a politics of the environment, and a myriad of other politics as the debate on NAFTA so clearly indicated. But we lack a politics of the whole.

       Business and economics, and by extension politics, with their focus on the next quarter, rather than on the next quarter century, fosters a sense of “here and now,” but not of “today and tomorrow.” Of the 100 largest economies in the world today, 47 are corporations with more wealth than 130 nations. Yet they have none of the responsibilities of government for social -welfare, education, health care, and the like. And as such they have a limited view of sustainability.

       In a world characterized by virtually uncontrolled capital mobility, sustainability is unattainable. Why? Because economic security is virtually impossible at the level of the family, the community, the state, and limited even nationally. Under conditions of capital flight there is no locus of control that respects the three pillars of sustainability: economic security, ecological integrity and democracy. Capital’s search for the cheapest place destroys community and ecology, because neither play any role in the definition of economic value in the global economic system.

       We must think in terms of fundamental changes. Socialism has shown its faults. But the necessary superiority of capitalism, as defined by conventional economics and politics as usual, has not been demonstrated. Socialism is a “wasm,” and perhaps capitalism as we now know it now is also a “wasm.” What lies beyond socialwasm and capitalwasm is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the search for sustainability. “It is not for us to complete the task,” said Rabbi Tarphon two millennia ago, “but neither are we free to refrain from getting started on it.”

Stephen Viederman is President of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, a mid-sized grantmaker that supports individuals and institutions committed to protecting natural systems and ensuring a sustainable society.