I've avoided it before, but I have to dish the same old quote from Bruntland: "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." There are many other definitions that are just as good, but this one famously talks about "needs" rather than activities. Perhaps, after four years of debate on the bleak future for humanity, the Commission felt that we could only plan for necessity rather than desire.
Others have made the connection between Bruntland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission) and Maslow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) since both use the same frame of reference. It only seems right that we should aspire to meet all our needs, including self-actualisation, so any sustainable development has to leave room for or nurture individuals' whole being.
Among our higher needs is an appreciation of the balance between the individual's desires and the effect that acting on those desires will have on others and society as a whole: an appreciation and formation of a personal moral code that interfaces effectively with others'. The exact method by which such a code is developed and adopted cannot be immaterial: codes handed down by religious order will be different from those developed in conservative societies, which will be different again from those developed in more liberal communities.
Although the differences might be critical, it would be hypocritical to say that one methodology should be preferred over another if we value self-determination. Which is one reason why it would be wrong to add transcendence or spirituality to the top of Maslow's hierarchy as some have done. One may believe that morality is handed down from God, but one cannot impose that belief on others.
Similarly, although several religions (notably Buddhism) see transcendence as the ultimate goal in personal development, that does not make it a need that has to be facilitated through sustainable development. Further, it cannot facilitate transcendence. One can be achieved in exclusion of the other.
What can be argued is that in facilitating moral development, an organisation has to be moral itself. Codes of conduct are not unusual, but are usually part of corporate or political image building. A social organisation with a moral code would behave somewhat differently, and the recent snow highlighted one particular way how.
Like many companies in the UK, my employer either believed that clearing the snow from outside the building was not its responsibility, or that clearing snow would leave it liable for injuries suffered subsequently. In the latter case, behaviour is decided by straightforward risk assessment. But what would the "right" thing be to do? Surely, for the good of the community that my company is part of, we should have cleared the snow and taken the risk?
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Another thing that Bruntland's definition brings attention to is that the Commission was clearly talking about development and not sustainability. Committed effort by motivated individuals has moved the mainstream focus to the point that surely we should be talking about "sustainability development"?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
A kick in the teeth for optimism
There has been a recent smattering of blog posts and discussions out there about the need for optimism in the sustainability movement. The gist being that the only alternative is pessimism, and that is neither practicable nor appealing. Certainly, if we are pessimistic about our chances of success then we will be demotivated and will essentially be admitting that our project is not likely to succeed.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
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