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Society
Social Systems In Crisis
The crisis 'without'-in environmental systems-interacts with the crisis 'within', that inside society. They constitute a twin track of unsustainability. The social crisis is similarly varied. Its most extreme form, however, is the denial that society even exists, as once memorably argued by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Not surprisingly a self-absorbed and materialistic individualism, 'me first', demanding ever more rights but shunning all responsibility to others lies at the core of the contemporary social malaise. Signs of this sickness are manifold-a general anomie, moral confusion, loneliness, the 'crisis in the family', crime, drug addiction, mental health problems, the isolation of many older citizens, grotesque inequalities, cultural impoverishment, the decline of 'civility' and an increase in loutishbehaviour and purposeless violence. The point is not to romanticise previous social systems but to stress the social dimension to the sustainability crunch. The following literature also contrasts the way such social disorders persist and indeed increase alongside unprecedented (albeit unsustainable) levels of material affluence, including huge expenditures on education, health and social care services. There is no need to indulge in nostalgia for some non-existent golden age to appreciate that today's social order suffers from sustainability crunch 'within' as it does 'without' in the Earth's life-support systems. To solve that twin crisis, we should develop at the very least the modesty to appreciate that previous cultures might have got some things right. Boyden, S., et al. Homo Sapiens in the Biosphere. In Chapter 2 of their Biosphere Under Threat. OUP, 1990. Good overview of human evolutionary background and the needs it has created.
Brownell, B. The Human Community. Harper & Row, 1950. A prescient American critique of the way human communities and surrounding environmental systems were disintegrating under the impact of a more materialistic and individualistic way of living.
Drengson, A., 1979. Towards A Philosophy of Community, Philosophy Forum, 16: 101-125
Illich, I. Toward a History of Needs. Pantheon, 1977. A wide ranging set of essays exploring the impact of industrialisation and consumer society.
Jones, A. The Violence of Materialism in Advanced Industrial Society. Soc. Rev. Feb., 1987: 19-47
Lasch, C. The Minimal Self. Picador, 1984.
Lasch, C. The Revolt of Elites. Norton, 1995. Both cause and effect of the crisis within society is the 'couldn't-care-less' mentality most selfishly exhibited by society's élites.
Laslo, E. The Inner Limits of Mankind. Pergamon, 1978.
Leipart, C.. Social Costs of Economic Growth. Jnl of Econ. Issues, 20/1, 1986: 109-131
Meadows, D., ed. Alternatives to Growth. Ballinger, 1977. Contains many good articles on the themes of human needs, community and the links between social and environmental breakdown. See particularly Strategies for Societal Development by J. Davis & S. Mauch, Settlements and Social Stability by E. Goldsmith and Towards a Primary Lifestyle by R. Allen
Milbrath, L. Culture and Environment in the USA. Environmental Management, 9(2), 1985: 161-172.
Packard, V. A Nation of Strangers. McKay, 1972.
Raphael, R. Edges: Human Ecology of the Backcountry. Univ. Nebraska Pr., 1986. The fate of small rural communities in regions like California visited by 'development'.
Renner, M. An Epidemic of Guns. WorldWatch, 11(4), 1998: 12-29. Small arms are proliferating across society, symptomatic of a deeper sickness.
Roszak, T. Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society. Paladin, 1979. Argues the needs of people and those of the planet can and must harmonise.
Roszak T. The Voice of the Earth Transworld, 1993. The dangers to human well-being of becoming isolated from the rest of nature, a theme also discussed by Shepard below.
Shepard, P. Nature and Madness. Sierra, 1982. An exploration of the 'derangement' resulting from human alienation from the environment. Shepard argues that this explains the phenomenon of the child-adult and the failure to 'grow up' into a maturity that takes full responsibility for our actions.
Slater, P. The Pursuit of Loneliness. Beacon, 1970.
There are many studies about the persistence of inequality. Often gaps have widened not narrowed, with wealth not trickling down but sticking to the greedy fingers of the super-rich. One example of the literature documenting the myth of a society-open-to-all is A Class Act: The Myth of Britain's Classless Society by Andrew Adonis and Stephen Pollard. The saga of privatisation in the UK with new corporate bosses wallowing in a trough of pathological greed provides a salutary tale.
Ecology and Human Nature
A recurrent feature of any debate about social or environmental problems is the vexed matter of human nature-is it in our genes to be selfish and so destructive of others, be they fellow humans, different cultures, other species or whole environments? Are there aspects of our being, sensing as well as thinking, that offer the possibility of a more co-operative and respectful path?
Par of the human nature debate is the issue of what constitutes a 'real' need, as opposed to, say, a convenient but inessential want or self-indulgent extravagance. The underlying theme of this website is the overriding importance of the ecosphere and its 'needs' if it is to sustain life. People are of course part of ecosystems and they too have their needs. To what extent are individual needs innate, to what are they shaped by surrounding society and, whatever their source, how can they be harmonised with the demands of ecological sustainability?
Mainstream thinking veers towards the cornucopian, setting no limits to needs and desires. In turn, it has generated a 'demand society', where wants quickly sanctified as rights, mindless of the long-term effects on other peoples and other species. It is marked contrast to the traditional value systems of older cultures which often cherished modesty and self-restraint. The Marxist idea of 'to each according to his needs', for example, promises a blank cheque, regardless of the number of people to be satisfied or the nature of the expectations. In a limited world, it is little more than an eloquent suicide note.
More recently, there has been much talk about 'basic' and 'essential' needs. It has been triggered in part by the fact that conventional development schemes across Africa, Asia and Latin America not only have devastated local environments but also left poor sections of society poorer than before. The latter's needs were ignored or simply trampled upon in pursuit of 'modernisation'. At the very least, such thinking can provide a better framework-needs and needs satisfiers-than false idols such as gross national product or economic growth.
Abram, D. The Spell of the Sensuous: Human Perception in a More-Than-Human World. Pantheon, 1996.
Bateson, G. Mind and Nature: a Necessary Unity. Dutton, 1979.
Evernden, N. The Natural Alien. Univ. Toronto Pr., 1985
Kaplan R. & S. Kaplan. The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge UP, 1989.
Kellert, S. Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development. Island Pr., 1997.
Kellert, S R & E.O. Wilson, eds. The Biophilia Hypothesis. Island Pr., 1993
Konner, M. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Perennial Books, 1983.
Lederer, K., et al. Human Needs. Oelgeschlager, 1980
Oelschaeger, M., ed. The Company of Others: Essays in Honour of Paul Shepard. Kivaki Pr., 1995.
Shepard, P. The Others: How Animals Made Us Human. Island Pr., 1995.
Watts, A. Nature, Man and Woman. Vintage, 1970.
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia. Harvard UP, 1984.
Consumerism and Its Costs
A major source of both environmental and social stress is the sheer quantity of energy and raw materials consumed by individuals across the richer sections of the world society. It has become a cliché, however, to say that 'we are all consumers. In one sense, this is true. People have been consuming resources since humanity first set foot on Earth. 'Consumerism', however, is a very different matter.
The meaning of consumerism might be made a bit clearer with a couple of examples. There is a give-away magazine called Innovations distributed occasionally with Sunday papers like The Observer. Ingredients of the good life according to Innovations range from Active Sun machines ('top up your tan') to foot snugglers ('a new use for your microwave cooker'). Equally revealing was a Sony advertisement which featured a smiling a two year old wearing a personal stereo machine, under the slogan 'His First Walkman'.
In a nutshell, consumerism equates more physical possessions with greater happiness. People define their identity and sense of fulfilment with what they consume or, perhaps, what they are seen to consume. In a way, it resembles bulimia: people gorge themselves on shopping sprees, and then 'purge' themselves in clear-outs of perfectly useful goods to the dustbin, to make way for the next round of binge shopping for the latest and most hyped novelties on the shelves.
The culture of consumerism is taking over an increasing portion of people's lives, not just in terms of time taken to travel to and from the superstore but also extra hours of work to compete in the rat-race. Even people not suffering from the 'keeping up with the Jones' idiocy find themselves locked on a treadmill on which they have to work harder and harder to afford the cars, the deep freezers, and the other gadgetry that allow them towork longer hours and commute further to work.
'Leisure' and shopping are becoming increasingly fused. Britain's biggest recent edge-of-town retail development, the Metro Centre on Tyneside, proclaims itself as a 'shopping and leisure experience', neatly uniting God and Mammon since the landlords used to be the Church of England Commissioners! Many people now spent large amounts of their sparetime in 'retail worlds' where people browse from shop to shop, buy the odd item, visit the leisure 'facility', pop into McDonalds or Burger King and then drive home. Not surprisingly, 'leisure' becomes not only an expensive but also a stressful experience. For those without work the choices are somewhat more restricted: they can only stare at the shop windows. This in turn contributes to a greater alienation and perhaps anti-social behaviour. As a result, people are having to devote more of their income to 'defensive spending' such the purchase of burglar alarms.
These trends are also creating a society based on 'round the clock' living. It is not only the environment that is suffering in terms of greater resource depletion, pollution and degradation. As, for example, a programme in the Horizon series on BBC TV showed, our minds and bodies need rest and re-creation: we are not biologically attuned to this way of life.
Add up all the other social and economic costs and it is not difficult to see why researchers for organisations like the European Commission are finding that, despite general increases in physical affluence, there has been no commensurate increase in contentment. Expectations and realities are diverging in ways that fuel a general unease and tension across society. The equation of consumerism-you are what you own and the more you own, the happier you will be-seems to be an unsustainable one.
It must be stressed that it is not long ago since a different ethos prevailed, with an emphasis on thrift, self-reliance and greater satisfactions from non-material things. Such values were not just the product of adversity in the poorer sections of the community but were common across society. Indeed there have been many communities as well as individuals who have opted consciously for more frugal lifestyle. The popular movie Witness portrays one such community, the Amish of Pennsylvania.
The transformation of western society and now large sections of the rest of the world owed a great deal to a conscious drive amongst manufacturers and retailed to create a culture of consumerism. The drive was aided by the simultaneous spread of radio, cinema, and then, of course, television. Consumerism created a society in which many people enjoyed more physical comforts and greater ease than their ancestors. But there were social, economic and environmental costs.
A constant flood of 'new' or 'improved' goods may hold out the promise of more satisfactions. Yet it could also promote greater dissatisfaction with what we already possess, leaving people more discontented than they were before. It could also render people less able or willing to trust their own skills and judgement. During, for example, one of the scares about contamination of jars of baby foods that seem to reoccur regularly, TV 'vox pop' programmes were full of anxious parents demanding to know how they were going to feed their children, something that humanity had been doing with modest success long before the birth of the baby food industry.
In all kinds of ways, then, from the rising level of personal debt to the unsustainable scale of resources demanded by current consumption patterns, the 'trappings' of affluence can turn into traps.
Connett, P. H. The Disposable Society. In F. H. Bormann & S. R. Kellert, eds. Ecology, Economics and Ethics, Yale UP, 1991.
Cross, G. Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture. Routledge, 1993. Durning, A. How Much is Enough? Earthscan, 1992. It poses the question that all conventional politics tend to shun, documenting the environmental costs and social dissatisfactions created by economic systems geared to ever higher consumption.
Easterlin, R. and E. Crimmins. Private Materialism, Personal Fulfilment, Family Life and Public Interest. Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 55, Winter, 1991: 499-533. A study of modern American youth.
Easterlin, R. Does Money Buy Happiness? Public Interest, 30, 1973: 3-10. An older survey of the evidence on the links between consumption and contentment. It seems that the number of Americans who describe themselves as happy has not changed significantly since the 1940s-even though, in the past 50 years, they, as a nation, have consumed more resources than all other peoples, past and present!
Ehrlich, P. & A. Ehrlich. Too Many Rich Folks. Populi, 16(3), 1989: 3-29.
Fox, R. & T. Jackson, eds. The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980. Pantheon, 1983.
Goodwin, N. R. et al, eds. The Consumer Society. Island Pr., 1997
Herman, R. et al,. Dematerialisation. In Technology and Environment. National Academy Press, 1989.
Hirsch, F. The Social Limits to Growth. RKP, 1978. A major statement of the thesis that social position often depends on positional goods e.g. possession of the only cottage on an unspoilt beach and their value is eroded once more people possess them. An academic example of this phenomenon might be the drive to get a postgraduate qualification once lots of people have got a first degree, even though their occupation and future prospects 'objectively do not require it.
Holsworth, R. D. Public Interest Liberalism, and the Crisis of Affluence: Reflections on Nader, Environmentalism, and the Politics of a Sustainable Society. G.K. Hall, 1980
Kaza, S. The Not-So-Hidden Costs of Consumption. Wild Earth, Winter, 1997/98: 81-90.
Lansley, S. After the Gold Rush-The Trouble with Affluence. Henley Centre/Century Books, 1994. Useful evidence on the dissatisfactions of consumerism, focused mainly from the countries of the European Union.
Leipart, C. Social Costs of Economic Growth, Jnl of Econ. Issues 20(1), 1986: 109-131
Leiss, W. The Limits to Satisfaction. Marion Boyars, 1978. One of the best studies of the birth of consumer society and its contradictory features.
Miles, I. & Irvine, J., eds. The Poverty of Progress. Pergamon, 1982. Case studies of social discontent across a number of countries.
Miller, D. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Basil Blackwell, 1987.
North, R. The Real Cost. Chatto & Windus, 1986. A look at the environmental costs of a number of household goods, clothes and foodstuffs
Packard, V. The Wastemakers. McKay, 1960. A classic study of planned obsolescence and other aspects of consumerism.
Samuelson, R. The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, 1945-1995. Times Books, 1995.
Schmookler, A.B. The Illusion of Choice: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny. SUNY Pr., 1993.
Schrader-Frechette, K. Voluntary Simplicity And the Duty to Limit Consumption. In K. S. Schrader-Frechette, ed., Environmental Ethics, Boxwood Press, 1991.
Scitovsky, T. Human Desire and Economic Satisfaction. O.U.P., 1976.
Scitovsky, T. The Joyless Economy. OUP, 1976.
Seabrook J. The Race for Riches: The Human Cost of Wealth. Green Print, 1988. Seabrook tends towards a more romantic of traditional communities than is, perhaps, warranted but outlines the price being paid in the drive for greater material consumption, particularly in its 'privatised' form.
Seabrook, J. The Myth of the Market: Promise and Illusions .Green Books, 1990. A critique of the limits of consumer choice and the dictates of the so-called free market.
Seabrook, J.. Needs and Commodities. In P. Ekins, ed., The Living Economy, RKP, 1986.
Uusitalo, L,. The Environmental Impact of Consumption Patterns. Gower, 1986.
Wachtel, P. The Poverty of Affluence: A Psychological Portrait of the American Way of Life. Free Pr., 1983
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia. Harvard, 1984. This fundamental argument claims that there is a psychological and spiritual need to conserve biodiversity, not just a material one.
Zolotas, X.. Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare. World Bank, 1981.
Disneyfication
The Disney corporation and its works, especially its theme parks, embody the ersatz, oppressively managed, highly exploitative realm that some technocrats seem to regard as utopia.
Harrington, M. To the Disney Station. Harpers, Jan., 1979: 35-44.
Schickel, R. The Disney Version. Simon & Schuster, 1968.
Sterling, J. The World According to Disney. Earth Island, Summer, 1994: 32-33. Its theme parks and movies may be phoney but its environmental destructiveness and culture-blighting are all too real.
Disintegrating Family Structures
Nothing illustrates the crisis in social systems more starkly than the breakdown of the family-not the nuclear family, a highly volatile association, but the extended network of parents and relatives, a way of living characteristic of all stable communities. In many ways, the main victims are children. Different manifestations of this crisis include the divorce rate, domestic violence, delinquency, teenage pregnancy and the 'feral male' syndrome. So too is the excessive pressure on children to consume, to be style-conscious and otherwise conform to the dictates of the Growth Machine. Many grow in bedrooms that are little more than electronic cages. The Observer journalist, Melanie Phillips, has waged a valiant struggle through her regular Sunday column, to address such matters.
Henriksson, B. Not For Sale: Young People in Society. Aberdeen Univ. Pr., 1983.
Lasch, C. Haven in a Heartless world: the Family Beseiged. Basic Books, 1977.
Lasch, C. Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage and Feminism. Norton, 1995. Essays collected by the late historian and cultural critic's daughter, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn.
Montague, P. The Obscenity of Accelerated Child-Development. The Ecologist,, 28(3), 1998: 140-142. Another example of the malign effects of our 'hothouse' society, demonstrating, once again, that faster and bigger are not more beautiful, in this case with the earlier onset of puberty.
Packard, V. Our Endangered Children. Little, Brown, 1983.
Postman, N. The Disappearance of Childhood. W.H. Allen
Zuckerman, M. 'Dr Spock: The Confidence Man' in Rosenberg, C. E., ed.. The Family in History 1975.
Cultural Homogenisation and Degradation
Evidence in the following suggests that a process of cultural degradation and moral entropy parallels the trashing of environmental systems. Part of this process is the spread of a self-indulgent and infantile culture. In this nation of dumbed down 'nitwits', individuals demand ever more rights but shirk responsibilities, living only for the present, with no notion of the future and only contempt for the past. Indeed, in extreme cases, people become nothing more than helpless victims dependent upon a whole array of therapeutic aids.
Cultural homogenisation is like monoculture in farming and forestry, with a blanket of sameness shrouding the uniqueness of different peoples and places. Clearly it is linked to technological change, especially the development of mass transportation and communication systems, global economic integration and, perhaps most significant in the long-run, the explosion of human numbers. Whatever the cause, it is another dangerous case of putting too many eggs in too few baskets.
The process has been called with justification 'McDonaldization' in which a bland uniformity spreads around the world. A massive contraction, for example, in linguistic diversity is taking place, with some 3,000 languages world-wide on the endangered list. There also seems to be an impoverishment in communication skills, of which today's political leaders provide stark testament (Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death provides further analysis and illustration, particularly of the role of media and computing technologies which many people hail as the basis of new information society). Perhaps another ugly term, 'stupefaction, might also describe this process.
It would appear at first sight that the dominant political ideologies approach the problems of modern society quite differently. On the one hand, there are the advocates of economic laissez-faire, and, on the other, adherents of social and cultural liberalism. Though one tendency condemns the other, they still share the same basic belief of 'doing your own thing'. They only differ over the best means-private market versus public provision-though even that divide is narrowing to almost nothing.
Both brands of 'permissiveness' need emotionally and economically weakened individuals on which to feed. Economic permissiveness is aided and abetted by social permissiveness, which encourages the notion of expanding needs. As a result, we are witnessing the spread of infantilism, an increasing number of child-adults, 'grown-ups' characterised by a childish desire for constant and immediate gratification, with an equally immature craving for innovation and novelty, paralleled by disdain for continuity and stability.
However, the consumption of more commodities and therapies do not guarantee lasting happiness; instead dissatisfaction and restlessness flourish. Together, economic liberalism and social permissiveness have generated demands which are bankrupting the Earth whilst, at the same time, undermining social stability and eroding individual self-reliance and self-esteem.
Abbs, P., ed. The Black Rainbow: Essays on the Present Breakdown of Culture. Heinemann, 1974.
Anon. Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society. Social Affairs Unit, 1998. This British right-wing 'think tank' might not seem a likely source of goof thinking on sustainability but it makes some pertinent points in this study.
Barlow, M. & H-J. Robertson. The Americanisation of Canadian Education. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 143-146
Bloom H. The Closing of the American Mind. Simon and Schuster, 1987. One may disagree with Bloom's definition of the cultural canon and his prescriptions but his indictment of the educational system, especially universities, provides sobering evidence of cultural degradation. David Orr's Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992), should be imbibed at the same time.
Bly, R. The Sibling Society. Looks at how society is becoming dominated by adults who squabble like little children.
Collins, M. Tears'R'Use. The Guardian, 19/1/98. Looks at the role of the media in the self-indulgent 'crying game'.
Fussell, P. Bad or the Dumbing of America. Simon & Shuster, 1991
Himmelfarb, G. The De-Moralisation of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values. Vintage, 1996.
Hoggart, R. The Way We Live Now. Pimlico, 1995
Hughes, R. Culture of Complaint. Harvill, 1994
Ignatieff, M. Cleverness Is All. Independent, 7/1/89., p25. Critique of today '3-minute culture' of instant gratification, something others have called' blip' culture.
Lasch, C. The Culture of Narcissism. Sphere, 1980. A study by an American historian of a tendency in modern society of people to 'turn in' on themselves. Clearly a stronger sense on 'Me' can express itself on more spending on oneself and selfish disregard of others.
McKibben. B. The Age of Missing Information. Plume, 1993.
Miller, D. Worlds Apart: Modernity Through the Prism of the Local. Routledge, 1995. Some views on the globalisation of culture and institutions.
Pietila, H. The Villages in Finland Refuse to Die. The Ecologist, 27(5), 1997: 178-181. Case study of how 'development' flattens the vitality of local culture as well local environments.
Porter, H. Trivial Pursuit. The Guardian, 1/2/96, G2, p2-3. Feature reviewing various books on the process of dumbing down.
Queenan, J. America: A Descent into the Land of Red Lobster, White Trash, The Blue Lagoon and Other Cultural Atrocities. Picador, 1998. Its title alone demands inclusion.
Ritzer, G. The McDonaldization of Society. Pine Forge Press/Sage, 1993. The standardisation and centralised control of lifestyles, epitomised by a food chain at the heart-and stomach-of much modern living.
Selbourne, D. The Principle of Duty. Sinclair-Stevenson,1994. In part, a critique of the modern habit of demanding rights but shunning responsibilities, something incompatible with the principles of interconnectedness and balance central to ecological sustainability.
Twitchell, J. Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America. Columbia UP, 1992.
Vidal, J. The Rise and Rise of Ronald McDonald, The Observer, 6/4/97, Review section, p5
Washburn, K. & J. Thornton, eds. Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture. Norton, 1998.
The Wisdom of the 'Old Ways'
There is no need to romantise the past to appreciate that often people did find sustainable and convivial ways of organising their livelihoods. There was much ignorance and superstitition but also much understanding of the cycles of life due to the close connection between people and their environments, something destroyed when encased in technological cocoons. These vernacular ways, be it cultivation techniques, building methods, health care and many other areas of life, did not disappear simply they were inferior to the latest technological 'miracle'. Often vested economic interests and equally narrow intellects progressively undermined viable systems, substituting what turned out to be disastrous replacements. The giant tower blocks dreamed up by architects and planners are one monument to the folly of thinking that new means better. The following references provide a few instances that show the need to cultivate a more respectful attitude towards the past and far greater modesty about the accomplishments of ou own times. The wisdom they spotlight is, of course, lost once the communities that developed it are themselves destroyed.
Agarwal, A & S. Narain. Dying Wisdom: The Decline and Revival of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems in India. The Ecologist, 27(3), 1997: 112-116. The old ways can provide a more sustainable alterantive than mad megaprojects such as dams.
Fathy, H. Architecture for the Poor. Univ. Chicago Pr., 1973. Architecture based on traditional methods is shown to be more sustainable, more human-scale, cheaperand more beautiful than modern concrete blocks.
Goldsmith, E. Learning to Live with Nature: The Lessons of Traditional Irrigation. The Ecologist 28(3), 1998: 162-170.
Payn, W. Oh Happy Countryman-A Suffolk Memoir. Book Guild, 1994. There is a burgeoning market for rose-tinted nostalgia about the traditional English countryside but this memoir paints a vivid picture of the community values and practicals lost in the wake of the bulldozer and combined harvester.
Pereira, W. Tending the Earth: Traditional Sustainable in India Earthcare Books (India), 1993.
Rudofsky, B. Architecture Without Architects. Academic Publications, 1964.
Cultural Extinction
One dimension of cultural homogenisation is the bulldozing of pre-industrial societies, be they hunter-gatherers and more settled communities. Usually, this process goes hand in hand with the invasion, often funded by the World Bank, of mining, logging, HEP development, pipeline construction, highways, cattle ranching, transmigration schemes and, thus, ecological degradation. Not only are human rights being trampled upon and whole environments torn apart but global society is losing a storehouse of wisdom and skill of what rightly have called "vanishing experts". The notion of the 'noble savage' living in some idyll may be a silly one-many pre-industrial peoples wiped out whole species and engaged in some horrible social practices-yet there are also many more examples of peoples sustainably and convivially adapted to their habitats. Often they were the first people to settle there and thus co-evolved with those places. Some developed forms of democracy that outshine 'modern' institutions Their loss of cultural identity is as much a long-term death sentence as the immediate physical violence to which they are also being subjected. The issue of land rights is a complex one, not least since some tribal groups simply want a slice of the (destructive) action. All claims must be judged against their ecological sustainability. But there should be no doubt about the evils of the current onslaught against surviving 'first peoples'.
Adamson, F. Focus on the Kurds; a Divided and Endangered People. Humanitas, 1, 1990: 4-5.
Anon. Indians of the Americas. Survival International, 1992.
Bunyard. P. Guardians of the Forest: Indigenous Policies in the Columbian Amazon. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 225-258.
Burger, J. The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples. Robertson McCarta, 1990.
Colchester, M. Indian Development in Amazonia: Risks and Strategies. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 249-254.
Davids S. Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians of Brazil. Cambridge UP, 1977.
Durning, A. Guardians of the Land: Indigenous Peoples and the Health of the Planet. WorldWatch, 1992.
Mander, J. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. Sierra, Books, 1992. Includes some excellent history as well as a comprehensive survey of the state of first peoples today, alongside an indictment of the whole machine of 'progress'.
Matthiessen, P. Indian Country. Flamingo, 1986. An angry and moving account of the on-going plight of the North American Indian peoples. See, also, his In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (Penguin, 1991) for an exposé of government repression in the Dakotas.
Morris, B. Deforestation in India and the Fate of Forest Tribes. The Ecologist, 1696)), 1986: 253-257.
Outerbridge, T. The Disappearing Chinampas of Xochimilco. The Ecologist, 17(2), 1987: 76-83. Mexican case study.
Turnbull, C. The Forest People. Chatto & Windus, 1961. Famous study of tribal groups in Congo jungle.
Young, E. Third World in the First: Development and Indigenous People. Routledge, 1995. Canadian and Australian case studies.
There are some telling histories of the fate of first peoples. See, for example:
Brown, D. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Picador, 1975. A classic story of the North American native peoples.
Debo, A. A History of the Indians of the United States. Pimlico, 1995.
Wilson, J. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. Pimlico, 1998.
Wright, R. Stolen Continents. Pimlico, 1993. Case studies of destroyed civilisations in the Americas.
With regard to the wisdom we can learn form some vernacular cultures, see, for examples:
Booth, A. & H. Jacobs. Ties That Bind: Native American Beliefs as a Foundation for Environmental Consciousness. Environmental Ethics, Spring, 1990:27-43.
Callicott, J. Baird. Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward Nature. Environmental Ethics, Winter, 1982: 293-318.
Goldsmith, E. Ethnocracy: The Lesson from Africa. The Ecologist, 10(4), 1980: 134-140
Margolin, M., ed.. The Way We Lived. Heyday Books, 1981.
Miller, L., ed.. From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian. Pimlico, 1995.
Moody, R., ed.. The Indigenous Voice. (2 vols.). Zed, 1988.
Norberg-Hodge, H. Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. Sierra Books, 1991.
Posey, D. Alternatives to Forest Destruction: Lessons from the Mebengokre Indians. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 241-244.
Reichel-Domatoff, G. The Forest within; The World-View of the Tukano Amazonian Indians. Themis books, 1996.
Suzuki, D. & P. Knudtson. Wisdom of the Elders: Honoring Sacred Native Visions of Nature. Bantam, 1992.
Ecologically informed correctives to cultural traditionalism and romantic nostalgia, what has been called 'paraprimitivism', can be sampled in:
Diamond, J. The Golden Age that Never Was. Discover, 9(12), 1989: 70-79.
Haupt, L. Feather and Fossils; Hawaiian Extinctions and Modern conservation. Wild Earth, Spring, 1996:44-49. How habitat destruction and species extinction in Hawaii predated the arrival of Europeans, let alone today's hordes of tourists.
Martin, P. S. Pleistocene Overkill. Natural History, 76 (10), 1967: 32-38
Orton, D. Rethinking Environmental-First Nations Relationships. Canadian Dimension, Feb.-March,, 1995:11-15. Focus on the land rights issue, arguing that all claims need to be subjected to ecological testing.
Sarkar, S. Don't Look Back. Real World, 14 (Summer), 1994: 14.
Time Treadmill
Time provides a classic instance of the difference between nature (day and night, lunar cycles, the seasons etc..) and human constructs (calendars, timetables etc.). The following document how contemporary society, especially, in the guise of 'round-the-clock' lifestyles, is pressuring people in the way time is becoming an increasingly scarce 'resource', just like many other resources we use.
Aveni, A. .F. Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks and Cultures. Basic Books, 1989.
Cross, G. Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture. Routledge, 1993. How mass production, technological innovation and advertising create a frantic work-and-spend-and-work treadmill.
Linder, S. The Harried Leisure Class. Columbia Univ. Pr., 1970. An interesting anticipation of an increasingly common phenomenon-people who perceive themselves to live in an affluent, leisure-oriented society but who constantly complain of being short of time.
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies: Health and Work in an Age of Systems. The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 221-226.
Rifkin, J. Time Wars. Touchstone, 1989.
Schor, J.B. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Basic Books, 1992.
Whitelegg, J. Time Pollution. The Ecologist, 23(4), 1993: 132-134. A major consumer of time is the machine designed to save time, motor transport.
A Motoring Microcosm.
The private motor car epitomises modern society. No other single technology has done so much damage at such speed to the face of the Earth nor transformed the way we live. It is both a reflection and a cause of the drive towards the breakdown of communities, consumerism and the throwaway society. Its hold over modern lifestyles and values is explored in:
Flink, J. Car Culture. MIT Pr., 1975.
Rae, J. The Road & the Car in American Life. MIT Pr., 1971.
Silk, G., ed. Automobile & Culture. Abrams, 1984.
Zuckerman, W. End of the Road: The World Car Crisis and How We Can Solve It Chelsea Green, 1991
Greener Lifestyles
Although this website is primarily about collective responses to the ecological challenge, personal lifestyle choices clearly count as well. It would be hypocritical to denounce other perpetrators of waste and destruction without taking steps in one's own lifestyle to tread more lightly on the Earth. Without such changes from 'below', governmental action from 'above' is likely to be as successful as Prohibition was against alcohol consumption in the USA.
In a letter to The Ecologist (no. 26(2), 1996: 80), Tim Keating of Rainforest Relief, made the point well. Referring to a conference against globalisation, the excessive power of corporations and the destruction they cause, he noted the following. "For lunch, attendees guzzled Minute Maid orange juice (a Coca Cola product from juice concentrate and shipped from Brazil), Pepsi (a cola from West African plantations on former rainforest land, using massive amounts of chemicals, manufactured by PepsiCo, one of the worse global offenders), in aluminium cans (from Australia or Venezuela, necessitating World Bank loans for hydro dams and bauxite mines), and coffee (perhaps, also from Brazil, grown on cleared rainforest, with even more chemicals than the cola), in a disposal paper cups (from pulp clear-cut from old growth forests in Eastern Canada).
Our society is not so monolithic that enlightened choices are impossible. Most people in richer countries like the UK could afford to pay a few extra pence for, say, free-range as opposed to battery-produced eggs. Indeed, changes in their lifestyles can lead to better health, greater enjoyment, lower costs, especially in the longer term whilst reduced impacts upon the environment and less cruelty to other creatures. Such changes are a practical and realistic step forward, making a positive contribution, no matter how small, to safeguarding the future. As the saying goes, it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Such activity also puts pressure upon both governments and businesses. No longer can they use the excuse that there is no demand amongst voters and consumers for change. Correspondingly, those politicians and entrepreneurs who have made genuine efforts to 'green' their ways receive the reinforcement they deserve.
There are, however, very real limits, under current circumstances, to the changes individuals can make to the way they live. It is not easy to give up the daily drive to work when there are no buses or other alternative means of transport available. There are also unfortunately plenty of examples of 'alternative' communities and other initiatives which have come to grief.
The 'greening' of the institutional structures that moulds so much of our living-the fiscal régime, regulatory frameworks, planning systems, schooling, the media etc.-will help to make personal lifestyle change easier, more successful and more likely. Strategies to change individuals and to change society are actually just different sides of one coin-one should reflect and encourage the other.
So typical of the discourse dominant today, few of the following refer to the most critical single lifestyle choice adults can make-to parent fewer offspring.
Button, J. How to be Green. Century, 1989.
Christensen, K. Home Ecology. Arlington, 1989.
Gold, M. Living Without Cruelty. Green Print, 1988.
Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and the Environment, Netherlands. The Best of Both Worlds: Sustainability and Quality Lifestyles in the 21st Century. Environmental Resources Limited, 1993. A fascinating Dutch government analysis of the role of individual consumers in the transition to a more sustainable society.
Newkirk, L. Save the Animals. Angus, 1991.
Rifkin, J., ed. The Green Lifestyle Handbook. Henry Holt, 1990.
Seabrook, J. Frontiers in Change: Experiments in Creating A Humane Society. RKP, 1993.
Schwarz, W. and D. Schwarz. Breaking Through: The Theory and Practice of Wholistic Living. Green Books, 1987.
Bureaucratisation and Professional Colonisation
Across society, both private and public organisations have fallen victim to the cult of management, whose priesthood speak in a weird babble and spend most of their time in one pointless meeting after another (when they are not burdening their minions with another worthless questionnaire whose main purpose is to justify their own-overpaid-managerial 'role'). The parasitic nature of this burgeoning army of managers is, however, less harmful than its arrogant presumptions and its corresponding devaluation of the experiences and skills of ordinary people, not least those who actually do the work. Perhaps Britain's BBC, under the 'leadership' of Mr John Birt, epitomises such trends at their worst.
Under such regimes, people become clients (rather than users) of professionals who, in effect, colonise aspects of human experience. The word client itself comes from the Latin for 'dependent'. We have experts on birth, childhood, youth, middle age, retirement and even death (or rather bereavement. As John McKnight says, 'the seven ages of man are replaced by the seven crises of man. The meaning of life is defined by a series of crises, and each attracts its own band of helpers and institutions'. Everything from job satisfaction to conflict resolution becomes the remit of one specialist or another. Professional organisations multiply, and admittance to them is gained by a parallel explosion in paper qualifications which certify an individual's competence in what, so often, human beings have always done reasonably successfully.
When 'service technologies' take over the field of human needs, people themselves tend to be disempowered. Traditional knowledge and the skills of uncertified practitioners become suspect. The point is not that folk wisdom contains all the answers. Rather it is that possession of a Degree in Management and Strategic Planning might be just as much a set of blinkers as other form of ignorance. At least, most traditional quacks were usually modest folk and didn't try to create whole new paper empires.
Professions assume authority, diagnosing our needs and prescribing their remedies. They set the standards by which they are to be judged. It is in their self- interest to ensure maximum public funding and minimum public accountability. The professional armies of accountants, estate agents, human resource managers, investment advisors, lawyers, management consultants, strategic planners, therapists and the like all need an increasing number of clients to 'serve' and new areas of life into which they can expand. If you are not sick, you are pre-sick and therefore need attention and check-ups. This ever-spreading 'clienthood' throughout life is a far cry from the notion of self-reliant citizenry.
Elgin, D. & R. Bushnell. The Limits To Complexity. The Futurist, Dec., 1977: 337-349
Henderson, H., 1974. The Entropy State, Planning Review 2/3: 1-4. How expansion puts excessive strains on the social fabric, whose maintenance and repair becomes progressively more expensive.
Illich, I. et al. Disabling Professions. Marion Boyars, 1977.
McKnight, J. et al. Big Brother in a Box. The New Ecologist, 5, 1978: 158-160. Another attack on professionalisation.
Zuckerman, M. 'Dr Spock: The Confidence Man' in Rosenberg, C. E., ed.. The Family in History 1975.
Ecological Perspectives On Social Inequality
Anyone concerned about sustainability must address exploitation and oppression between and within countries. Its most savage form is the desperate poverty experienced by an estimated one billion people living in what sometimes is called the 'South'. Concern about their suffering is of course found in many circles. However the ecological perspective brings a number of distinctive perceptions to the problem.
First, there is the rejection of the model of the industrialised countries as the goal for the Third World. Associated development projects are equally rejected as well as the theoretical rationale provided for current patterns of trade and aid (e.g. theories of 'take-off' and 'trickle-down'). Second is the link made between the affluence of the 'developed' world and the widespread poverty in 'developing' countries. Lastly, there is the willingness to accept the implications for lowered per capita consumption levels amongst richer sections of global so-ciety (encapsulated in the widely used slogan of 'Live more simply so that they simply might live').
Similarly, political ecology takes a stand on inequality and discrimination within countries. Point four of the platform of Deep Ecology put forward by Naess (1973) is what he calls the 'anti-class posture'. Part of the 'ethic of life' described by Birch and Cobb is to provide 'equal, and in some cases compensatory, opportunities for those sub-cultures to which these opportunities have for so long been denied' (1974, p165). They define equality as 'the maximum opportunity to develop to the full his or her talents and to promote the richest possible experience for all' as well as a 'sharing of the cost of life', each carrying the load 'proper to one's capacity and vocation' (p206). Characteristic 6 of their 'sustainable society' is 'an equable distribution of what is in scarce supply and ..a common opportunity to participate in social decisions' (p245). The underprivileged sections of society gain the least from growth-oriented development policies and suffer the worst effects of pollution, human-caused floods, landslips and other environmental 'backlashes'.
Attacks upon prejudice and discrimination based upon occupation, gender, race and physical (dis)ability are of course central to other intellectual and political traditions. The ideal world painted by Ehrlich and Harriman (1971), for example, in which each human being has an adequate diet, shelter, health care and freedom from pollution (p13) and in which everyone must be assured of the fruits of sharing success (p76), is shared by many (though it is worth citing since it is equally commonplace to accuse environmentalists like Ehrlich of elitism and, more generally, of ignoring social issues.
The distinctive feature of ecocentrism is the link made between the limits to growth in the demands placed upon environmental systems by society as a whole and the limits to the growth of differentials within society. Georgescu-Roegen (1977) notes that the human society alone seems to feature social inequalities unrelated to biological differences. Humanity's increasing 'addiction' to 'exosomatic organs' (machines etc.) created the basis for disputes over the use of those devices and the distribution of their produce. He spotlights the way that those engaged in unproductive labour have come to constitute the economically privileged classes, creating what he calls 'the abusive growth of special privileges' (as opposed to an optimal distribution of national income, assumed by economists such as Walras). The conflicts that thus generated cannot be solved by an exclusive reliance upon the price mechanism and financial transfers. Furthermore, further industrialisation is likely to sharpen, not ease, social conflict.
Porritt (1984) notes how economic growth has been used as a means of avoiding the issue of inequality. Redistribution, he argues, is 'a precondition for any transition to a stable society' (p138). Otherwise, those who are now underprivileged have no reason to support such a change since a growth-oriented society offers the promise of personal betterment, if not the actuality (Dieren and Hummelinck, 1979, especially Ch. 14). Only if everyone is making the same 'sacrifice' can there be a hope of popular support for stabilisation.
Daly (1977) makes this argument even more explicit. He argues that the 'critical institution is likely to be the minimum and maximum limits on income and the maximum limit on wealth' (p53). Johnson (in Johnson and Hardesty, eds., 1971) argues that a guaranteed minimum personal income is necessary 'to limit production and to remove the necessity of maintaining continuous economic growth' (p115) at the same time as enabling individuals to have the same opportunity to go their own way in lifestyle choices.
Last but not least is the link between discriminatory practices within society and the ways in which we value both people and the environment. It has been most forcefully made by feminist writers who claim that women and nature both have been 'objectified' and treated as something there to be tamed and exploited.
Bullard, R. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class & Environmental Quality. Westview, 1990.
Bullard, R., eds. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice & Communities of Colour. Sierra Books, 1994.
Burch, W. The Peregrine Falcon & the Poor: Some Sociological Interrelations. In P. Richerson & J. McEvoy, eds. Human Ecology: An Environmental Approach. Duxbury, 1976.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. Inequality, Limits and Growth from a Bioeconomic Point of View. Rev. Soc. Econ. 3, 1977: 361-375.
Sklar, H. Chaos or Community? Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics. South End Pr., 1995. American critique of the mean-mindedness of blaming the poor for poverty.
Defenders of conventional development strategies often argue that environmentalism is élitist, trying to pull up the ladder, leaving the poor to their fate. Yet the poor not only gain least the 'fruits' of economic growth but only suffer disproportonately from the effluents of affluence. See, for example:
Ehrlich, P. & R. Harriman. How to be a Survivor: A Plan to Save Spaceship Earth. Pan, 1971. An early programe for sustainability, with a strong emphasis on equity, contrary to the claims of detractors.
Love, S. Ecology and Social Justice: Is There a Conflict. Environmental Action, Aug., 1972: 3-6
Pope, C. Growth and the Poor. Sierra Club Bulletin, 3, 1975: 7-11, 30-31.
Economics
Economics-General
To medieval people the construction of a cathedral like Notre Dame in Paris was a perfectly rational thing to do. Nowadays it would be dismissed as 'uneconomic', and this dreaded and solemn word would close the argument. Banks and government treasuries hold the whip-hand in decision-making in every sphere of life, and the ideology of economics is paramount. This framework, which dominates mainstream economic theory, is based, however, on a number of false premises: that human psychology is 'naturally' aggressive and selfish, that society as nothing more than a random conglomerate of individuals that progress is one and the same thing as an ever-expanding consumption of material goods, that efficiency means the making of more monetary profit, that technology as the midwife of prosperity and happiness, and, above all else and most dangerously, that nature is but an endless treasure chest, there for the taking.
Economic models from the Marxist to the Monetarist share many of these premises. Above all they share the same goal- greater material consumption. Both seek to set spinning an endless cycle of supply and demand. These two might be brought together by state planning or by the market economy, but the assumption is the same. Consequently economic policy has not been rooted in the realities of the biophysical world.
In recent years it is the market model which has exerciced the far greater influence. What rival purchasers are prepared to spend on a particular item may indicate how much they value it. At that level, the market mechanism is a quick and efficient tool for expressing individual preferences. Bureaucratic devices such as rationing, by contrast, tend to be cumbersome, expensive, and prone to corruption. As a basis for social decision-making, however, the virtues of buying and selling are offset by many vices. Bidding can only take place between bidders, and therefore the market only reflects the preferences of those alive today. Those with enough money can command that foodstuffs are grown to feed their pets rather than starving human beings. The needs of those yet to be born cannot be expressed in such a setting. It cannot cope.with absolute scarcities, nor can it deal with commodities upon which it is impossible to put a price, such as clean air. In reality, truly free markets have never existed for any length of time, nor ever will. The inbuilt tendency for larger economic units to drive out smaller ones creates conditions in which the rules of the market are drawn up to suit the major enterprises that dominate it. What's good for General Motors has been good for neither society nor environment.
Most recently, the failings of neo-liberal approaches-the wreckage of long established industries, the break-up of local communities and the destruction of one environment after another-have revived interest in more direct forms of government intervention in the economy, including programmes of public works, instead of abandoning everything to the vagaries of the market and the 'casino' economy. Yet economic policies based upon the management of aggregate demand in the economy can be as flawed as the 'supply-side' fixes in vogue a few year's ago.
In the 1920s and 30s, the economist Keynes, for example, proposed that the government make good deficiencies in demand in the market and thereby get the wheels of industry turning again. Yet the biggest Keynesian experiment, President Roosevelt's New Deal in pre-war America, did not deliver sustained economic recovery. The American economy dipped back into a slump in 1937 and only recovered due to the rearmament programme as war approached. (Weapons production, abetted by huge public subsidy to the leading corporations, did not produce the problems of saturated markets resulting from other forms of 'pump-priming') The New Deal's public works dealt massive blows to America's environment-its flagship, the Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, devastated local ecosystems and any gains, for example, in flood control, proved to be temporary.
There is a vital role for public investment but not on the basis of indiscriminate expansion of demand in the economy. By putting more pressure upon ecological systems, continual Keynesian pump-priming would dry out the well of real wealth creation. Contrary to Keynes, the real crisis is not one of underconsumption, but of overconsumption. Like all 'grey' economists from Marx to Milton Friedman, Keynes did not understand that the human economy merely transforms what is made available by ecological system, inevitably creating waste by-products in the process. Not only do ecological systems provide the means of production, they also furnish the conditions for production-all those 'life-support' services which make the Earth habitable. They are not endlessly malleable nor are they replicable.
There are very real limits to human borrowings from ecological systems and to their assimilation of our wastes. These limits might be summed up as the three Es - Earth (finite amount of sheer physical space), Entropy (inevitable losses in any conversion of energy and matter) and Ecology (the checks and balances between different parts of ecosystems). Resource depletion, ecological degradation and pollution are the direct side-effects of economic activity: the greater its scale, the greater the recession of the Earth's life-support systems.
The two industries used as barometers of economic performance-car manufacture and the construction industry-illustrate the ecological unrealities of growth-oriented policies. More vehicles mean more pollution and more land lost to road and associated development. Each year, for example, an area of countryside equivalent to the land occupied by Norwich, Exeter and Southampton is buried under tarmac and concrete. Yet the government's 1992 budget halved new car tax to boost sales and the Opposition's response to the DAF Leyland closure was to demand more aid to keep the lorries rolling out.
Fiscal and tax changes might just squeeze out another surge in economic output. It would not lead to significant falls in unemployment since employers would invest in labour-saving technologies. Hoover's transfer of work from France to Scotland virtually halved the original workforce. Such restructuing is being accompained by a greater use of casual (and therefore dispensable) labour. In supposedly advanced areas like Silicon Valley, 33% of workers are now temporary staff and lacking the status and security of full-time employees. We cannot grow our way out of the crisis of un- and under-employment.
Furthermore, in a finite and interconnected world, the strategy of increased international competitiveness is one of mutually assured destruction. The Tory strategy for the British economy, one which new Labour seems to be following, is one of industrial scavenging: grabbing what it can from transnational corporations like Toyota. In the process, workers' wages, benefits and rights are lowered below those of rival host countries. The profits made by such firms are still repatriated, while 'screwdriver' economies, assembling other people's products and ideas, are less secure than self-reliant ones. This game is really one of beggar myself to beggar my neighbour. By supporting further integration into the world market, Labour and America's Democrats are little better than that of the Tories and the Republicans. Even for the 'winners' in the race for economic growth, the fruits turned out to be not as enjoyable as expected. Surveys show that economic growth does not leave people any happier.
Boulding, K. The Economics of the Coming Spaceship. In Jarret, H., ed. Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy. John Hopkins UP, 1966. Pioneering critique of smash & grab 'cowboy economics'.
Christenson, P. Historical Roots for Ecological Economics: Biophysical Versus Allocative Approaches. Ecological Economics, 11:, 1989 17-36
Cleveland, C., et al. Energy & the US Economy: A Biophysical Perspective. Science, 225, 1984: 890-897
Constanza, R., ed. Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. Columbia UP, 1991. A broad-ranging collection, uniting many of the big name writers and researchers in the field.
Daly, H. Growth Economics and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. American Behav. Scientist, 24/1, 1980: 79-105
Daly, H. The Economic Growth Debate: What Some Economists Have Learned But Many Have Not. Jnl. Environ, Econs and Management, 14, 1985: 323-336
Daly, H. & J. Cobb For the Common Good. Green Print, 1990. More a collection of essays and sometimes a bit obtuse in style but nevertheless a key book.
Daly, H. & K. Townsend. Economics, Ecology, Ethics. MIT Pr., 1993. Excellent collection, with some older but far from dated articles, attacking economic growthmania and putting the steady-state alternative.
Daly, H. & A. Umana, eds. Energy, Economics & Environment. Westview, 1980.
Dieren, W. van & Hummelinck. Natures Price: The Economics of Mother Earth. Marion Boyars, 1979. A useful Dutch study, the final chapter of which paints an interesting picture of a sustainable society.
Ekins, P. The Environmental Sustainability of Economic Processes: A Framework for Analysis. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Discussion Paper 1, 1992.
Engler, A. Apostles of Greed: Capitalism & the Myth of the Individual in the Market. 1995.
Georgescu-Roegen, N., 1979. Methods in Economic Science. Jnl of Economic Issues, XIII 2, 1979: 317-328. His other writings are listed in the general section of the guide under Limits To Growth
Goodland, R. & C. Ledec. Neoclassical Economics & Sustainable Development. Ecological Modelling, 28, 1987: 19-46.
Gorz, A. Critique of Economic Reason. Verso, 1989. A broadside from one of the few neo-Marxists who seems to have taken on board many ecological perspectives.
Hall, C.A.S. et al. Energy & Resource Quality: The Ecology of the Economic Process. Wiley, 1986.
Hall, C.A.S. Sanctioning Resource Depletion: Economic Development and Neo-Classical Economics. The Ecologist, 20/3, 1990: 99-104
Hamilton, C. The Mystic Economist. 1994. Critique of the failure of conventional economics to integrate ethical concerns.
Henderson, H. Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics. Knowledge Systems, 1991.
Lux, K. Adam Smith's Mistake. Shambhala, 1990.
Manser, R. Going West: Market Reform and Environment in Eastern Europe. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 27-32.
Manes, C. Free Marketeers Cross Swords with Traditional Environmentalists. Wild Earth, Spring, 1995: 8-10. Critique of the notion, sometimes called the 'new resource economics', that a free market and private property rights are the best tools for conservation.
Meadows, D. Equity, The Free Market and the Sustainable State. In D. Meadows, ed., Alternatives to Growth 1, Ballinger, 1976.
Mishan, E.J. Economic Myths and the Mythology of Economics Wheatsheaf, 1986.
Mishan E.J. Economic and Political Obstacles to Sanity. Nat. West Bank Quarterly Rev., May, 1990: 25-42
Mishan, E.J. The Costs of Economic Growth. OUP, 1993. A new edition of a classic which combined an environmental and social critique of pro-growth economic policy.
Norgaard, R.B. Economic Indicators of Resource Scarcity: A Critical Scarcity. Jnl Environmental Economics & Management, 19, 1990: 19-25
Paepke, O. The Evolution of Progress: The End of Economic Growth and the Beginning of Human Transformation. Random House, 1993.
Plant, C., and Plant, J., eds. Green Business: Hope or Hoax. New Society Publishers, 1990.
Robertson, J. Future Wealth: New Economics for the Twenty First Century. Cassell, 1990.
Sagoff, M. The Economy of the Earth. CUP, 1988. A wide-ranging critique of economic thinking, especially of the dangers of using 'economic efficiency' as some sort of objective benchmark of goodness.
Schumacher, F. Small is Beautiful .Abacus, 1973.
Singh, N. Economics and the Crisis of Ecology. OUP, 1978.
See under Ideas for more references on economic theory per se.
Economics: Government Spending Patterns, Exploitation of Public Lands & Ecological Sustainability
Dunkiel, B. How Government Tax Subsidies Destroy Habitat. Wild Earth, Summer, 1997: 69-71
Hilliard, T., et al. Golden Patents, Empty Pockets. Mineral Policy Centre (Wash., DC). How mining, once of most destructive human activities, has been subsidised and otherwise feather-bedded in the USA.
Jacobs, L. Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching. Jacobs, 1992.
McGrory-Klyza, C. Who Controls Public Lands? Mining , Forestry, and Grazing Policies, 1870-1990. Univ. North Carolina Pr., 1996.
Myers, N. With J. Kent. Perverse Subsidies& Taxes Undercutting Our Economies and Environments. IISD/Greenleaf Publishing, 1998.
Nader, R. It's time To end Corporate Welfare. Earth Island, Fall, 1996: 36-37..
Roodman, D. Public Money & Human Purpose Worldwatch, 8(5), 1995: 10-19. How taxes and subsidies have been used to underwrite ecological destruction.
Zepezauer, M & A. Naiman. Take the Rich Off Welfare. Odonian Pr., 1997. How rich individuals and corporations are subsidised in their wasteful and destructive activities., with American military waste and fraud costing $172 billion per annum.
Economics: Market 'Reform', Deregulation and and Privatisation
Anon. The Privatisation Network: The Multinationals Bid for Public Services. The Public Services Privatisation Research Unit (London), 1996.
Bowers, J. Water Privatisation & the Environment. Economic Review, 8(3), 1991: 9-14.
Collins, J. & J. Lear. Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second Look. Food First Books (USA), 1995. Chile was a laboratory for 'unlocking the shackles of the state' and 'liberating the energy of free enterprise'-with disastrous results.
Edmonds, R. Patterns of China's Lost Harmony: A Survey of the Country's Environental Degradation and Protection. Routledge, 1994. China is the biggest laboratory for market-led 'reform' and evidence of this grave costs.
Elliot, L. & M. Atkinson. Picking up the Tab for Past Policy Blunders. The Guardian, 13/3/98: 17. 'Analysis feautre which documents, inter alia, the costs to the public of privatisation.
Gordon, S. Down The Drain: Water, Pollution & Privatisation. Optima, 1989.
Hildyard, N. Public risk, Private Profit: The World Bank and he Private Sector. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1996: 176-178. Aid is now being privatised and the process will aid the already rich.
Martin, B. From the Many to the Few: Privatisation and Globalisation. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1996: 145-154.
Manser, R. Going West: Market Reform and Environment in Eastern Europe. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 27-32.
Nagiecki, J. Bread and Freedom: Agriculture in Poland. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996; 13-18. Like former-Comunist countries, Poland is undergoing economic 'liberation', but it is not taking her down the road to sustainability.
Schofield, R. & J. Shaoul. Regulating the Water Industry: Swimming Against the Tide or Going through the Motions. The Ecologist, 27(1), 1997: 6-13.
Smith, R. Getting Rich is Glorious. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 14-15. More evidence of market-driven destruction in China
Surrey, J., ed. The British Electricity Experiment: Privatisation, The Record, The Issues, the Lessons. Earthscan, 1996
Desperately Seeking Investment
One of the mantra of modern economics, worshipped by most politicians, is that economic well-being depends upon the attraction of investment from outside. As a result, local councils, regional organisations and entire countries often end up fighting each other, trying to out bribe foreign companies to open plants in their localities. It is a game of beggar myself to beggar my neighbour. As a result the public is paying to import foreign industry which, once in operation, repatriates its profits abroad. Comparatively few jobs are created per pound spent. Planning rules and other 'constraints' are whittled away, often under the banner of 'enterprise zones'. Often working conditions and workers' rights are sacrificed. Jobs on the glossy 'business parks' and 'technology centres' frequently involve long hours, irregular shifts, short-term contracts, and intensive work rates (all of which sometimes go under the name of 'flexibility'). Pay rates for most people are seldom better than in more traditional workplaces. In poorer countries, conditions are usually far, far worse. Meanwhile with even greater frequency local environments are devastated. At the very least, the newcomers are usually allowed to gouge out greenfield sites while the in many countries controls over pollution and other forms of despoliation are so relaxed that far greater ruin is visited on local ecosystems. Such industrial plants and offices are but outposts of organisations based far away. Not surprisingly they are nearly always the first to be cut in any reorganisation or at the first sign of a downturn. But when it is easy to come, it is also easier to go. Most references throughout the bibliographies contain information but below are a few case studies.
Kopinak, K. Desert Capitalism. Univ. Arizona Pr., 1996. The realities of the assembly plants that have set up along the northern Mexico border.
Massinga, A. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Development Dilemmas in Mozambique. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996 : 73-75.
Newell, J. & E. Wilson. The Russian Far East: Foreign Direct Investment and Destruction. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996 : 68-72.
National Income, Discounting, Cost-Benefit Analysis, & Environmental Valuation
Adams, J. Cost Benefit Analysis: The Problem, not the Cure. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996 : 2-4.
Baran, M. S. Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Inadequate Basis for Health, Safety and Environmental Regulatory Decision making. Ecology Law Quarterly, 8, 1980.
Braithwaite, J. The Limits of Economism in Controlling Harmful Corporate Conduct. Law and Society Review, 16/3, 1981-82.
Cobb,C. & J. Cobb. The Green National Product: a Proposed Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. Univ. Pr. America, 1994
Hueting, R. Correcting National Income for Environmental Losses: Towards a Practical Solution. In Y. Ahmad, S. El Serafy & E. Lutz, eds., Environmental Accounting for Sustainable Development. World Bank, 1989.
Krabbe, J.J., & W.J. Heijman eds. National Income and Nature: Externalities, Growth, and Steady State. Kluwer, 1992.
Lohmann, L. Who Defends Biological Diversity? Conservation Strategies and the Case of Thailand. The Ecologist, 21(10, 1991: 5-13. Argues that putting a price on biodiversity, leaving its conservation to market forces, is a recipe for destruction.
Mulberg, J. Economics & the Impossibility of Environmental Evaluation. Univ. of Bath, 1992.
O'Neill, J. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Rationality and the Plurality of Values. The Ecologist, 26(3), 1996: 98-103.
Price, C. Time, Discounting and Value. Blackwell, 1993.
Rolston, H. Valuing Wildlands. Environmental Ethics, 7, 1985: 23-48. Argues that moral choices cannot be replaced by economic ones
Roodman, D. Public Money & Human Purpose Worldwatch, 8(5), 1995: 10-19. How taxes and subsidies have been used to underwrite ecological destruction.
Sagoff, M. Some Problems with Environmental Economics. Environmental Ethics, 10, 1988: 55-74
Sagoff, M. The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law & the Environment. CUP, 1988. This important general work makes many references to cost-benefit analysis and other techniques, indicting them as evasions of moral and political choices.
Sagoff. M. At the Shrine of Our Lady Fatima or Why Political Questions are not all Economic' In T. Regan, ed. Earthbound. Temple Univ.Pr., 1984
Stirling, A. Environmental Valuation: How Much is the Emperor Wearing? The Ecologist, 23(3), 1993: 97-103
Banking System
Anon. Alternatives to Conventional banking or Living Without Usury. Ethical Consumer, Nov./Dec., 1989: 20-23.
Mayo, E. ed. Bankwatch UK: The Social and Environmental Record of the UK Banks. New Economics Foundation, 1994.
See also
Hill, .J, et al. Banking on the Future. Green Allianc (London)e, 1997. Very soft-centred and shalow environmental perspective but raises interesting points
Insurance Industry
Flavin, C. Storm Warnings. Worldwatch, 7(6), 1994: 10-20. Climatic troubles ahead for insurance industry.
Accountancy
Bebbington, K. & R. Gray. Accounting, Environment & Sustainability. Business & the Environment, Summer, 1993: 1-11.
Gray, R. Accounting and Economics: The Psychopathic Siblings-A Review Essay. British Accounting Review, 22, 1990: 373-388
Gray, R. Accounting and Environmentalism. Accounting Organisations and Society, 17/5, 1992: 399-426
Gray, R. et al. Accounting for the Environment. Paul Chapman, 1993.
Gray, R. The Greening of Accountancy. ACCA, 1990
Gray, R., et al. Accountability, Corporate Social Reporting and the External Social Audits. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 4, 1991: 1-21
Harte, G., et al. Ethical Investment and the Corporate Reporting Function. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2/3, 1991: 227-254
Hines, R.D. Accounting for Nature. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 4/3, 1991: 27-29
Krabbe, J.J., & W.J. Heijman, eds. National Income and Nature: Externalities, Growth, and Steady State. Kluwer, 1992.
Mathews M. Socially Responsible Accounting. Chapman & Hall, 1993.
Maunders, K.T., & R. Burritt. Accounting and Ecological Crisis. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 4/3, 1991.
Puxty, A.G. Social Accountability and Universal Pragmatics. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 4, 1991: 35-46
Puxty, A.G. Social Accounting as Immanent Legitimation: a Critique of a Technist Ideology. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 1, 1986: 95-112
Tinker, A.M, et al. Corporate Social Reporting; Falling Down the Hole in the Middle of the Road. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 4/1, 1991; 28-542.11.
Economics: Globalisation of Economy-General
Cruttwell, P. History Out of Control: Confronting Global Anarchy. Green Books, 1995.
Gray, J. False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Captalism. Granta, 1998. Interesting critique from an Oxford academic who has travelled the road from the neo-liberal Right to a much more ecologically informed position.
Greider, W. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. Simon and Shuster, 1997.
Hildyard, N., et al. Who Competes: Changing Landscapes of Corporate Control. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1994: 125-144.
Karliner, J. The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization. Sierra Books, 1997.
Mander, J. And E. Goldsmith, eds. The Case Against the Global Economy. Sierra Book, 1996.
Hildyard, N., et al/ Who Competes: Changing Landscapes of Corporate Control. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1994: 125-144.
Economics: Transnational Corporations
Barnet, R. & R. Muller. Global Reach. Simon & Schuster, 1974 A dated but still useful study of the malign power of the transnational corporation.
Barnet, R. & J. Cavanagh. Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order. Simon and Shuster, 1993.
Finger, M. & J. Kilcoyne. Why Transnational Organisations are Organising to 'Save the Environment'. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 136-137. With friends like these
Keen, B. Invisible Giant: Cargill & Transnational Strategies. 1995. Study of the world's largest private corporation.
Korten, D. When Corporations Rule the World. Kumarian Pr., 1995.
Moody, R. Mining the Would: The Global Reach of Rio Tinto Zinc. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996: 46-52.
Sexton, S. Transnational Corporations and Food. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1996: 256-258. A menu of greedy corporations hogging control of the world food supply.
Economics: World Bank, International Monetary fund & 'Structural Adjustment' programmes
Bello, W. & S. Cunningham. Dark Victory: The Global Impact of Structural Adjustment. The Ecologist, 24(3), 1994: 87-93.
Chossudovsky, M. The Globalisation of Poverty: impacts of the International Monetary fund and World Bank Reforms. Zed, 1997.
Duncan, C. The World Bank's Greenwash Amsterdam: Greenpeace International, 1993
French, H. The World Bank: Now Fifty, But How Fit? Worldwatch, 7(4), 1994: 11-18.
Goldsmith, E. Open Letter to the President of the World Bank. The Ecologist, 15 (1/2), 1985: 4-8
Hansen-Kuhn, K. Sapping the Economy: Structural Adjustment in Costa Rica. The Ecologist, 23(5), 1993: 179-184. Impoverishment and environmental destruction courtesy of the World Bank and IMF.
Mikesell, R. & L. Williams. International Banks & the Environment. Sierra Books, 1992.
Payne, C. Lent and Lost: Foreign Credit & Third World Development. Zed, 1991. The disasters caused by international loan system
Reed, D., ed. Structural Adjustment and the Environment. Earthscan, 1993.
Rich, B. Multilateral Development Banks: Their Role in Destroying the Global Environment. The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 56-68.
Rich, B. The Multidevelopment Banks, Environmental Policy & the United States. Ecology Law Review 12, 1985: 681-746
Rich, B. The Emperor's New Clothes. World Policy Journal, Spring, 1990. Argues that the pattern of World Bank loans serves interests of its own staff and their career advancement.
Rich, B. The Cuckoo in the Nest: 50 Years of Political Meddling by the World Bank. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 8-13.
Shiva, V. Forest Myths and the World Bank. The Ecologist, 17 (4/5), 1987: 142-149.
Wilk, A. & N. Hildyard. Evicted! The World Bank and Forced Settlement. The Ecologist, 24(6), 1994: 225-229. Today, millions of people are not being 'pulled' by greener grass on the other side of the hill but forcibly pushed out, often with aid from the coffers of the World Bank.
Economics: 'Free Trade', GATT, WTO, NAFTA & MAI
GATT=General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; WTO=World Trade Organisation; NAFTA= North American Free Trade Agreement; MAI=Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
Today's global economy, at the heart of which is the framework of GATT, is revising the rules of economic activity for decades to come. GATT's objective is to increase world trade by breaking down "restrictions", putting nations with stricter environmental standards at a commercial disadvantage. The GATT environment commission was reactivated in 1991, but its mandate is to investigate the impact of environmental policies and treaties on trade, not the other way around. Both development and environmental policies run the risk of being declared illegal by GATT: the GATT Director General has stated that GATT could challenge international environmental accords as well as stricter national rules.
GATT could have chosen to provide the authority for setting stringent import standards against goods produced at the expense of health, safety and the environment, declaring the externalisation of such costs to be a hidden trade subsidy. Instead it has chosen to "limit and localise laws for the protection of people and universalise laws for the protection of profits", to quote the Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva.
GATT is incompatible with the precautionary principle called for in the Bergen Ministerial Declaration, for it only permits trade restrictions on substances which have already been scientifically proven harmful. Who decides? The Codex Committee which GATT wants to regulate the trade in food has a large membership from multinational food corporations. Codex has set maximum residue levels for pesticides like DDT in fruits and vegetables which are up o 50 (!) limes higher than present US norms.
The nature of the World trade Organisation can be judged from its draft plans 9referring to a multilateral trade organisation, MTO). According to the draft final text the MTO "shall enjoy in the territories of each of the Members such legal capacity, privileges and immunities as may be necessary for the exercise of it functions". Member states are required to "take all necessary steps, where changes to domestic laws will be required to implement the provisions ... to ensure conformity of their laws to these agreements". The stage is set for a global environmental deregulation and standards-lowering competition to attract capital in a world order planned by transnational corporations.
Those concerned with the environmental crisis have preferred to avoid the institutional issue, hoping that existing institutions could be pressured to perform tasks diametrically opposed to those for which they were created. A recent OECD paper pointed to the difficulties of promoting eco-taxes in an organisation set up to persuade members that taxes should not be used to change social behaviour. Those who have been trained to believe that ecology is just a subdiscipline of economics are hardly suitable guides into a world order where the economy has to be seen-if we are to survive-as a subset of the global ecosystem. "Lacking an under standing of the carrying capacity of ecological systems, economic planners are unable to relate demand levels to the health of the natural world" (Worldwatch Institute).
Indeed World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers-who has described the Third World as "vastly under-polluted"-still believes that "There are no ... limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future ... The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error." (The Guardian, 22.5.92).
Anon. Cakes & Caviar? GATT & Third World Agriculture. The Ecologist, 23(9), 1993: 219-222.
Arden-Clarke, C. GATT, Environmental Protection & Sustainable Development. WWFN (Switzerland), 1991.
Avery, N., et a. Codex Alimentarious: Who Is Allowed In? Who Is Left Out? The Ecologist, 23(3), 1993: 110-.112. The strings to GATT and their price.
Clunies-Ross, T. European Agriculture & the Uruguay Round. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 221-222.
Coote, B. NAFTA: Poverty & Free Trade in Mexico. 1995,
Culbertson, J. US Free Trade with Mexico: Progress or Self Destruction? Social Contract, Fall, 1991: 7-11.
Daly, H. & R. Goodland. An Ecological-Economic Assessment of Deregulation of International Commerce Under GATT, Part.1. Population & Environment, 15(5), 1994. (Part 2 in next issue, 15(6), 1994: 477-503)
Donahoe, T. The Case Againat a North American Free Trade Agreement. Columbia Jnl of World Business, 2692), 1991: 92-96.
Editors. Cakes and Caviar? GATT and Third World Agriculture. The Ecologist, 23(6), 1993: 219-222.
Ekins, P. Trading Of the Future. New Economics Foundation, 1995.
Goldsmith, J. Global Free Trade & GATT. Undated booklet, extracted from Goldsmith's book 'Le Piege'.
Hoedeman, O. et al. MAIgalomania: The Corporate Agenda. The Ecologist 28 (3), 1998: 154-161. The madness of a global investment free-for-all.
Kohr, M.K. The Uruguay Round & the Third World. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 208-213.
Morris, D. Free Trade. The Ecologist, 20/5, 1990: 190-195.
Nader, R. et al. The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA & the Globalisation of Corporate Power. 1993.
Retallack, S. The WTO's Record So Far-Corporation: 3 Humanity and the Environment: 0. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 136-137.
Watkins, K. Free Trade and Farm Fallacieis: From the Uruguay Round to the World Food Summit. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1996: 244-255.
The Asian 'Miracles' and the Programme of Easternisation
Politicians like Britain's Mr tony Blair wax lyrical about the achievements of the east Asian 'tiger economies. They see them as a model for their own countries. This is quack medicine indeed, far worse than the alleged ills it is supposed to cure.
Bello, W. & S. Rosenfield. Dragons in Distress. Penguin, 1992. Critical look at the so-called tiger economies of the Far East, countries whom, as the UK Conservative and Labour Party leaders both were urging, should be copied to build 'Enterprise Britain'.
Bello, W. The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia's Economy. The Ecologist, 28(1), 1998: 9-17.
Debt and Trade-Ecologically Appropriate Alternatives
Ekins, P. Trade and Self-Reliance. The Ecologist, 19 /5, 1990: 186-190
Lang, T., & C. Hines. The New Protectionism: Protecting The Future against Free Trade. Earthscan, 1993.
Lang, T., & C. Hines. The New Protectionism: Protecting The Future against Free Trade. Earthscan, 1993.
Patterson, A. Debt for Nature Swaps & the Need for Alternatives. Environment, 32(10), 1990: 4-13, 31-32.
Raghavan, C. Recolonisation: GATT in its Historical Context. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 205-207.
Rainforest Action Network. How Free Trade will Affect Rainforests. R.A.N. (San Francisco), 1991.
Ritchie, M. Free Trade versus Sustainable Agriculture: The Implications of NAFTA. The Ecologist, 22(5), 1992: 221-227. Critique of impacts of North American free trade agreement.
Shrybman, S. International Trade & the Environment: An Environmental Assessment of GATT. The Ecologist, 20(1), 1990: 30-34.
Wallach, L. & R. Naiman. NAFTA: Four & a Half Years Later-Have the Promised Benefits Materialised. The Ecologist 28 (3), 1998: 171-176.
Toward an Ecological Economics
In an ecological economy, stability, not growth, is the goal, based on a sustainable use of local resources. There would be expansion in some areas but it would be made possible by decreases elsewhere so that, overall, the human economy remained in general equilibrium with ecological rhythms, tolerances and capacities.
Such an economic system would involve the minimisation of inputs, and maximised reuse, repair and recycling of outputs in the economy. The primary focus of taxation therefore would be at input stage of the economy, not upon its outputs. It should be moved from human labour and on to things. (Pollution charge are a tool of much more limited value applied to the wrong end of the production/consumption process) To take one small but significant example, VAT on building repairs would be scrapped since it hinders the 'recycling' of buildings which in turn is a very labour-intensive activity and therefore a major means of reducing local unemployment.
Political decisions are necessary to set the limits in which market mechanisms can operate. It is not a question of state planning or a free market, but of creating an ecological frame work to guide the overall economy. Within this framework what matters is what is most appropriate-public or private pro vision, individual or collective enterprise. Water supply, for example, is best kept in public hands, because its provision is essential to life; the supply of shirts, on the other hand, is better left to private initiative and creativity.
Far from seeking global integration, an ecologically guided economy would mean a comparative disengagement to protect ourselves from the anarchy and instability now endemic in the world market. Such a programme is often attacked as 'autarchy' and 'siege economics yet it really boils down to self-defence. Trade would become something to be done only when necessary and to mutual benefit, rather than regarded as an intrinsically good thing to be maximised as far as possible.
A programme for economic stability would include:
governmental powers to control, as necessary, foreign trade, including the use of 'green tariffs'
increased public expenditure to harness, protect and, in many cases, restore the productivity of our soils, forests, and waters as well as to switch to renewable sources of energy
maximum use of local and national government purchasing power to facilitate the switch to local sources of supply and greater self-reliance
legislation to bring company structures into harmony with the needs of local communities and environments, including a breaking of the stranglehold of the big banks and systems of interest-charging that prohibit the kind of long-term projects needed to build a sustainable economy.
Some of the necessary measures have been sketched out already (see, for example, A Green Budget by David Kemball-Cook et al) while others require more work. Particularly important will be 'industrial conversion' schemes for industries like car manufacture. The market alone cannot do this in an orderly or compassionate way; only collective planning can achieve this goal. Similarly we need to begin to sever the link between economic livelihood and formal employment by the phased introduction of universal basic income programmes. All taxes and public subsidies would be reviewed to reward those activities and businesses that help to take us towards a more sustainable way of living.
For all her problems Britain still remains a comparatively wealthy country so it is primarily a question of the political will to mobilise those resources now in the hands of super-rich individuals and institutions. A country that can 'afford' follies such as the mad proposal for a 14-lane M25 can pay for what needs to be done to make herself a truly 'green and pleasant land'. It is also important to note that programmes for resource conservation and recycling are inherently labour-intensive and therefore job-creating on a sustainable basis to an extent that no other policies can rival. Similarly, green work such as the manufacture of offshore wind turbine platforms can provide the means to convert decaying industries such as the shipyards to productive use.
However, the most fundamental change required is at a conceptual level, as reflected in the growing work on new yardsticks of well-being. Only if we give up the illusion of ever-growing Great Britain Limited will we find the door to an economy built to last. The economic de-linking and other policies outlined above will be far from easy but, on a sinking ship, the only option is to search for the lifeboat.
Backstrand, G. and L Ingelstam. Should We Put Limits on Consumption? The Futurist, June, XI, 1977: 157-162.
Boulding, K. Towards a New Economics: Ecology & Distribution. Elgar, 1992.
Constanza, R. & H. Daly. Toward an Ecological Economics. Ecological Modelling, 38, 1987: 1-7
Daly, H. Steady-State Economics. Earthscan, 1992 New edition of a true classic.
Daly, H. Allocation, Distribution & Scale: Towards an Economics that is Efficient, Just & Sustainable. Ecol. Econs., 6, 1992: 185-193.
Daly, H, ed. Economics, Ecology, Ethics. Freeman, 1980
Daly, H. & Umana, A., eds. Energy, Economics & Environment. Westview, 1980.
Dauncey, G. After the Crash. Green Print, 1988
Ekins, P., ed. The Living Economy. RKP, 1986. Collection of papers on the new economics, though ecological economics seems to blur into a turquoise Keynesianism.
Hamrin, R.D. Renewable Resource Economy. Praeger, 1983. An excellent primer on 'bioeconomics'.
Hueting, R. New Scarcity & Economic Growth: More Welfare Through Less Production? North-Holland, 1980.
Hueting, R. An Economic Scenario that Gives Top Priority to Saving the Environment. Ecological Modelling, 38, 1987: 123-140
Martinez-Allier, J. Ecological Economics. Blackwell, 1987. Historical study of some past economists who were more conscious of the 'eco' of economics than their contemporaries.
Robertson, J. Future Wealth: The New Economics for the 21st Century. Cassell, 1990.
Robertson, J. Transforming Economic Life. Green Books, 1998. A succinct survey.
New Economic Indicators
Anderson, V. Alternative Economic Indicators. Routledge, 1991.
Anon. Green Gauge 96': Indicators for the UK Environment. WWF-UK and other UK organisations, 1996
Anon. Signals for Success: a Users' Guide to Indicators. WWF-UK, 1997.
MacGillivray, A. & S. Zadek. Accounting for Change. New Economics Foundation, 1995.
Possible Ecologically Guided Economic Measures, including taxation.
Anon. Distributional Effects of Eco-taxation. WWF_UK, 1996.
Barker, T. Taxing Pollution instead of Employment: Greenhouse Gas Abatement through Fiscal Policy. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Discussion Paper 9, 1994.
FoE. Beyond Rhetoric: an Economic Framework for Environmental Policy. FoE, 1989.
FoE. Green Dividends: Why the Chancellor Should Invest in Ecotax Reform. Foe (London), 1996.
Harrison, F, ed. The Losses of Nations; Deadweight Politics versus Public rent Dividends. Othila Pr., 1998. The Case for the society as a whole should reap the benefit from increases in site value due to public infrastructure investment and other such factors, other than the site oowner's own efforts.
Kemball-Cook, D., et al. The Green Budget. Green Print, 1991.
O'Riordan, T., ed.. Ecotaxation. Earthscan, 1997.
Weizsåcker, E von, & Jesinghaus. Ecological Tax Reform. Zed, 1992.
Employment
Barbier, E. Earthworks: Environmental Approaches to Employment Creation. FoE, 1981.
Brandt, B. Whole Life Economics. New Society Publishers, 1995. Much, perhaps most, real work is unpaid and unvalued, especially that done in the home, without which no society can be sustained. This book looks at ways to revalue all those vital activities performed outside the formal economy of employment.
Goldsmith, E. Work! Work! Work!. Real World, 9, 1994: 4-5. The destruction of jobs by 'development'.
Grossman, R. & R. Kazis. Fear at Work: Job Blackmail, Labour and the Environment. New Society, 1991. How fear of unemployment is used to win worker support for environmentally destructive industries.
Irvine, S. Active Service. Real World, 11, 1995:9. Critique of notion of salivation via a service economy.
Jacobs, M. Green Jobs The Employment Implications of Environmental Policy. Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University/WWF-UK, 1994.
Jenkins, T. & D. McLaren. Working Future? Jobs & the Environment. FoE, 1994.
Kazis, R. & R. Grossman. Environmental Protection: Job-Taker or Job-Maker? Environment, 24(9), 1982:
Renner, M. Jobs in a Sustainable Economy. Worldwatch Institute, 1991.
Waring, M. If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. Harper & Row, 1988. Alongside the visible and usually environmentally destructive formal economy there is the comparatively invisible informal economy, in which a lot of the labour unfairly falls on female shoulders. Yet it could be the basis of more sustainable and fulfilling way of living.
Currency and Investment Control-Alternatives
Alperson, M. et al. The Better World Investment Guide. Council for Economic Priorities (USA), 1991.
Bramble, B. The Debt Crisis: The Opportunities. The Ecologist, 17(4/5), 1987: 192-199. Looks at debts-for-nature' swaps.
Cahn, E. & J. Rowe. Time Dollars. Rodale Pr., 1992. An alternative to community- and environment-destroying ways of organising money.
French, H. Investing in the Future: Harnessing Private Capital Flows for Enviromentally sustainable Development. WorldWatch, 1998.
Henderson, H. & R. Theobold. Money vs. Wealth: The Need for New Economic Tools. The Futurist, 22(2), 1988: 34-35.
Kennedy, M. Interest and Inflation Free Money. New Society Publishers, 1995.
Meeker-Lowry, S. Economics as if the Earth Mattered: A Catalyst Guide to Socially Conscious Investing. New Society, 1988.
Meeker-Lowry, S. Invested in the Common Good. 1995.
Mikesell, R. & L. Williams. International Banks & the Environment. Sierra, 1992.
Walker, P. & E. Goldsmith. A Currency for Every Community. The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 216-221.
Weston, D. Green Economics-the Community Use of Currency. Paper to the Other Economic Summit, London, 1985. A look at non-monetary local exchange systems and other tools for more sustainable communities.
Land Ownership
Holiday, J.C. Land at the Centre. Shepheard-Walwyn, 1986
Norton-Taylor, R. Whose Land is it Anyway: How Urban Greed Exploits the Land. Turnstone Pr., 1982. The distorting and unsustainable impacts of land ownership concentration and inadequate planning systems in the Britain.
Shoard, M. This Land is Our Land. Paladin, 1987.
Greener Businesses
The overall perspective of this Website is that ecological sustainability depends upon a root and branch change not just in specific technologies and regulations but also in the institutional framework of society, lifestyles and, most important of all, our values and goals. More specifically, there is little long-term point in making specific activities in business and commerce more environmentally friendlier if the entire business or industry and the lifestyles it services are ecologically unsustainable. There is a limit to, say, the number of cars that the earth can sustain and, in turn, to what can be achieved by better environmental management by car manufacturers and garage owners.
However, in the short term, there is a great deal can be done to improve the environmental performances of individual businesses and other organisations. In many areas, there is needless resource consumption and careless disposal of wastes, not only damaging the environment but also wasting money, increasing possible liabilities and, more generally, generating a poorer public image.
The following refer to what elsewhere has called reformist or shallow environmentalism-business-as-usual with a greenish tinge. Yet it is clearly better to have businesses that make even limited environmental improvements to their activities than ones which make no effort at all. Even though they are subject to the same market and regulatory forces, different businesses do exhibit widely varying environmental track records. Such variations owe much to the personnel making key decisions and to the overall culture of a given business.
Adams, R., et al. Changing Corporate Values: a Guide to Social and Environmental Policy and Practice in Britain's Top Companies. New Consumer, 1991.
Bennett, S.J. Ecopreneuring: The Complete Guide to Small Business Opportunities from the Environmental Revolution. Wiley, 1991.
Body Shop. The Green Book. Body Shop, 1993. Review of its activities by leading 'green' firm
Bragg, S. et al. Improving Environmental Performance: A Guide to a Proven and Effective Approach. Stanley Thornes, 1994.
Cannon, T. Corporate Responsibility: A Textbook on Business Ethics, Governance, Environment: Roles & Responsibilities. Pitman, 1994.
Carley, M. & I. Christie. Innovative Management for Sustainable Development. In Part 1V of their Managing Sustainable development. Earthscan, 1992. Some interesting ideas and case studies, though rooted in a reformed growth model.
Choucri, N. The Global Environment & Multinational Corporations. Technology Review, April, 1991: 52-59. Argues that responsiveness to changing values and norms will decide which businesses prosper and which go under.
Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies. The 1990 CERES Guide to the Valdez Principles. CERES, 1990.
Conn, E. The Ecological Organisation: New Perspective. Management Education and Development, 22/3, 1991: 227-233
Council on Economic Priorities. The Better World Investment Guide. Prentice-Hall, 1991.
Forrester, S. Business & Environmental Groups-A Natural Partnership? Directory of Social Change, 1990.
Gilbert, M. Achieving Environmental Management Standards: A Step-by-Step Guide to BS 7750. Pitman, 1993.
Handy, C. The Future of Work. Blackwell, 1985
Hardin, H. Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry. Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1992: 4-19. Hardin is representative of the cutting edge of big business thinking on green issues in North America.
Hemming, C. Business Success from Seizing the Environmental Initiative. Stanley Thornes, 1994. Case studies in fields such as waste management, byproduct utilisation and cleaner technologies
Hutchinson, C. Business and the Environmental Challenge: A Guide for Managers. Conservation Trust, 1991.
Koechlin D. & K. Müller. Green Business Opportunities. Pitman, 1992.
Ledgerwood, G., et al. The Environmental Audit and Business Strategy: A Total Quality Approach. Pitman, 1992.
Phillips, M. and G. Alexander. A New Way To Do Business. In M. Money, ed. Health and Community Green Books, 1993: 52-60
Post, J. Managing as if the Earth Mattered. Business Horizons, July/Aug., 1991: 32-38.
Robertson, J. Future Work. Temple Smith, 1985.
Rothery, B. BS 7750. Gower, 1993.
Schmidheiny, S. Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment. MIT Pr., 1992.
Stead, E., & J. G. Stead. Management for a Small Planet: Strategic Decision Making and the Environment Sage, 1992. Argues for long-term greener business planning which takes into account environmental constraints and opportunities
Taylor, B. Environmental Management Handbook. Pitman, 1994.
Vaitilingham, R., ed. Industrial Initiatives for Environmental Conservation. Pitman, 1993.
Welford, R. and A. Gouldson,. Environmental Management and Business Strategy. Pitman, 1993.
Welford, R. ed. Cases in Environmental Management and Business Strategy. Pitman, 1994.
Wheatley, M. Green Business: Making It Work For Your Company. Pitman, 1993.
Woodruff, D., et al. The Greening of Detroit. Business Week, April 8, 1991: 54-60
Purchasing Policy
Anon. The Green Office Handbook. Environment Pr., 1994(?). A manual and source book. In case of difficulty in locating it, the ISBN is 0 9519996 7 3.
Anon. British Telecom: Putting Greener Purchasing on a Systematic Footing. ENDS Report, May 208: 22-24, 1992.
Anon. Scott Ltd: Cleaning Up The Paper Chain. ENDS Report, 214: 16-19, 1992 A look at how one company assessed its suppliers
Battersby, S and J. Barwise. The Greening of Local Government Purchasing Policies Environmental Policy Unit, University of Surrey, n.d.
Business in the Environment. Buying into the Environment: Guidelines for Integrating the Environment into Purchasing and Supply Business in the Environment, n.d. A government sponsored look at greener purchasing by companies in a glossy ring binder. Some useful case studies.
Colcutt, R. Buying A Better Future. Oxfordshire County Council, n.d.
Gore I and S. Lansdell. Environmental and Social Issues in Your International Supply Chain. Out of Sight, Out of Mind?, Greener Management International, Jan.,1993: 80-84
Local Government Management Board. Environmental Practice in Local Government. LGMB, n.d. There is a section on purchasing with case studies
Specific Business Activities: Retailing
Enormous chain stores now not only dominate retail sales but also exercice firm control over their suppliers, particularly of foodstuffs. In less than 7 years the number of superstores in Britain has doubled from 750 to 1,500 with more than 700 of these occupying out-of-town sites. Small shops have been driven to the wall. Britain is no longer a 'nation of shop keepers'. Similar trends are at work across most countries. In France, for example, local cafés are disappearing just like corner shops.
Big centres include Thurrock Lakeside, Sheffield's Meadowhall, Dudley's Merry Hill and the Gateshead Metro Centre. On e of the biggest is the 1.2 million sq. feet shopping mall at Milton Keynes, with nearly 200 shops, estate agents, and banks. It is a temple not just to consumerism but also the private motor car, with 12,000 free parking spaces.
One of the major impacts of the increase in out-of-town retail space has been the demise of our town centres. Today fewer than one third of the independent grocers that existed 30 years ago are still trading and many town centre bakers, butchers, hardware stores and many others are having to shut up shop. As town centres and corner shops decay, some sections of society are hit worse than others, not least the elderly and those without a car. Meanwhile, on the edge of towns, vast tracts of green belt and open countryside are swallowed up to be replaced by acres of featureless retail warehouses and sprawling car parks.
And what of the 15,000 different food lines on offer at these superstores? Strawberries in the middle of winter, all the way from Zimbabwe, raspberries from Chile and green beans from Kenya, not to mention exotics such as papaws, rambutans and physalis, are just some of the goods to tempt the superstore shopper-if they can afford them.
Gone are the days of buying locally produced, seasonal foods. Supermarket standardisation has been a driving force in the elimination of traditional varieties of animal, fruit and vegetable produce. The environmental as well as the economic costs of this trend are enormous. The dominance of foreign produce in the British economy is graphically illustrated by an annual food and drink trade deficit of £6.8 billion. While we continue to import garlic, asparagus and a host of other vegetables, the government pay farmers to set-aside their land.
Food processing increases the number of links in the chain between the producer and the consumer and each link adds 'food miles' and extra environmental cost. Instead of bacon from locally reared pigs which has been cured locally, shoppers today are offered imported Danish bacon which has been cured in one part of Britain before being transported to another part to be sliced and packed. Produce is distributed largely from a few centralised and lorry-serviced distribution centres. The chains have long supported increases in the permitted size of lorries, leading to more juggernaut vehicles on the road and pressure for bigger roads to take them.
The use of fertilisers and pesticides add a further environmental cost to food production, especially in countries where their use is not tightly controlled. Most other goods on sale in the superstores, from clothing to DIY, clock up massive amounts of environmental damage in their production, use and disposal. A few firms like B&Q have tried to make some 'green' changes to their product lines but most businesses use the defence of 'consumer choice' to justify the continued sale of environmentally damaging and socially exploitative produce.
The increasingly long distances between producer and final consumer have increased the amount of packaging used as well as, in the case of foodstuffs, the use of chemical preservatives and energy-intensive refrigeration. Supermarket chains have opposed consistently measures to reduce packaging and increase the use of returnable containers. Other changes in the retail industry are having equally bad effects. Since many of the new hyperstores are sited in suburban and out-of-town malls, to which most shoppers drive, the total impact in terms of greenhouse gases as well as additions to the acid rain burden and other pollution is greater than before. Extended opening hours also increase the environmental cost (through extra heating and lighting)
In March, 1994, Britain's government announced new planning guidelines designed to curb out-of-town supermarkets, shopping malls and warehouse development. Such moves may well have come too late, however, to save our town centres and are likely to do little to change the damaging consumer habits promoted by the superstore culture.
Dadd, D., & A. Carothers. A Bill of Goods? Green Consuming in Perspective. Greenpeace Magazine, May/June, 1990: 8-12
Irvine, S. The Limits of Green Consumerism. FoE, 1989.
Lang, T. & H. Raven. From Market to Hypermarket: Food Retailing in Britain. The Ecologist, 24(4), 1994: 124-129
Mander, K. & A. Boston. Wal-Mart Worldwide: The Making of a Global Retailer. The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 232-237.
Warwick, H. Stacking the Odds: Behind the Shopping Revolution. Real World, 8, 1994: 8. A critical look at the environmental impact of current retail trends
Wheeler, D. Why Retailers Should Take Responsibility for Post-Consumer Waste. Greener Management International, 9, 1995: 62-72.2
Consumer Protection
'Consumer sovereignty' is one of the hallowed shrines of main stream economic theory. 'Shopping around' will, we are told, avoid the bad aspects of the market economy. Human needs are equated with the purchase of commodities, and all we have to do is rationally to select those which best match our needs. Happi ness is ours for the buying. The reality is different. With the volume and rapidly chang ing range of products on the market, many with specifications comprehensible only to the expert, an individual's judgment is inadequate. Even experts do not know the potential conse quences of many of the complex chemical substances in some of today's manufactured goods. Even with all the relevant infor mation, consumer choice can be a time-consuming process, and when the right product is identified, the price may be beyond the consumer's means. We need a collective rather than a private approach, in which society sets appropriate parameters for the quantity and quality of goods and services available.
Contemporary consumer movements reflect the values of the individual as maximizing consumer, rather than as co-operating citizen. Magazines and television reports discuss which of several items is the 'best buy'. No mention is made of the resources used up in their manufacture, the boredom and health hazards of their production lines, reusability or recyclability, nor pollution. They seldom ask whether the items are necessary, or whose interests and priorities they serve. Electric salad shakers are, in the consumer test lab, as worthy a use of natural resources and human creativity as anything else. The constant priority is more consumer choice from an ever-increasing number of products to sell. Consumer organizations have made constructive suggestions for improving the legislation about the description and sale of goods. What they seem unable to comprehend is how little this has to do with real self-determination and self-reliance, concepts alien to the whole consumerist ethic.
Lilliston, B. & R. Cummins. Organic Vs. 'Organic': The Corruption of a Label The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 195-200. American bureaucrats misleading the public in the interests of agribusiness.
West, K. Ecolabels: The Industrialisation of Environmental Standards. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 16-20.
Specific Business Activities: Advertising and Public Relations
Linking mass production and mass consumption is the advertising industry. It bombards us daily with messages about every area of life. The public images of leading politicans are as carefully managed as those of toilet cleansers, and are often as accurate. Relatively minor among the costs of advertising are the direct financial ones, many of them passed straight on to the public. More serious is the imbalance in access to the 'means of per suasion'. The management of public opinion and consumer spending is monopolized by and for those with the most money: just compare the resources devoted to the sale of cigarettes with those deployed to discourage smoking. It becomes more dangerous when the communication is not about actual facts and figures, but the subtle weaving of seductive images around a product or an institution.
The dynamics of advertising add to the social and ecological disruptions from mass industrialism, and not just because they exploit our hopes and fears by harnessing them to the purchase of a particular commodity. Advertising delivers well-tutored consumers to the shop counter. Modern ideas about marketing developed hand in hand with the growth of mass-production. Both depend on discouraging self-reliance on one's own resources and judgment. Marketing people study human psychology to identify feelings that can be converted to needs, which can in turn be commercialized. Drug companies might compete to sell you a headache cure, but are united in working to ensure you do not find a non-drug solution.
Advertising dangles new (or repackaged) products before the consumers' eyes, promising satisfaction. Then the story starts again as newer goods and services come on line. Who we are and what we own become blurred in a world of style, fashion and image. Advertising sells best when appealing to individuals to look after themselves and their immediate family. That is, it maximizes self-concern at the expense of social cohesion. While causing individual insecurity, mass advertising also promotes external insecurity, in the ecolo~y. Notions such as durability, reduced or shared consumption, or substituting non material pleasures for the use of objects, conflict with the requirements of mass marketing.
Advertising is tied to an expanding economy, the one thing that we, living on a finite planet, must avoid. The message of advertising is always more consumption. It disfigures landscapes and townscapes. It encourages waste, from unnecessary model changes to gimmicks which supposedly differentiate identical products. Its bottom line can only be environmental destruction. This in turn can become a marketing opportunity, as the consequent scarcity of open space, wildlife or clean streams is turned into a chance to market what still survives, or to sell technological 'substitutes'.
An increasing number of firms have been projecting a greener image around themselves and their products. Often labels proclaim that the produce is 'dolphin-friendly' (tuna), derived from sustainable managed forests (paper goods) or CFC-free. Sometimes ridiculous claims have been made, for example that cars using unleaded petrol 'protect the ozone layer'. On other occasions, the language used gives an impression somewhat different from reality-'farm-fresh eggs' does not conjure up images of hens squeezed into rows of cages. Most subtle is the weaving of attractive imagery around a firm or activity-British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield is perhaps the best example of the use of photographs and film of clean high tech. control rooms in buildings set amongst the Lakeland Fells.
Many high quality products seem to sell themselves, often by word-of-mouth recommendation. Restricting mass marketing will benefit reputable manufacturers, consumers and the environment alike. There need to be three types of control. The first is quantitative, reducing the volume of marketing by ending large-scale advertising as a legitimate expense, and by progres sively taxing all expenditure on sales promotion above a minimum level. This recognizes that some advertising is concerned with information, and is therefore not necessarily undesirable. The second problem is the techniques of persuasion, and the imagery and language of advertisements. The present regulation system lacks both independence and teeth. We need to find a more comprehensive set of standards and means of enforce ment. Following the example of cigarette advertisements, one idea would be to require full information in publicity and packaging - for example pollution warnings on phosphate washing powders.
How, though, can we lay down precise standards for mean ings in messages? Some products pose special threats to people or the environment. Here all forms of advertising, including sponsorship, would be immediately prohibited. This would cover cars, airlines, energy supply, drugs, and meat products. For the first three, the reason is the resource depletion, environmental pollution and safety hazards from their manufacture and use. High levels of meat consumption, for example, waste food resources, and cause environmental damage, cruelties and health hazards. Yet, on the same TV channels, within a few minutes of each other, we see news of famine and advertisements trying to persuade us to eat more meat products. Such advertisements should be banned. Exemptions could be allowed to announce cleaner, safer or more frugal specifications. The advertising of energy-saving techniques, for example, would be encouraged.
The consequences of promoting drug consumption among the general public is well known. The problem of the army of pharmaceutical sales reps, with free samples and promotional items aimed at medical practitioners, is more complicated. A special unit of an Office of Technology Assessment to deal with new medicines might be the proper channel to communicate appropriate innovations to the medical world at large. We have not yet mentioned advertising aimed at children. The problem is not so much the products themselves as the nature of the audience. Programmes are used as vehicles to push some new toy, while many advertisements promoting sugar seem designed to create jobs for dentists. Packaging and free gifts with food items such as breakfast cereals pervert nutritional sense, and make the responsible parent's job harder. Similar controls need to be applied in those areas.
Mander, J. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Advertising. In Rotzoll, K., ed. Advertising and the Public. Univ.Illinois Pr., 1980.
Stauber, J. & S. Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies & the Public Relations Industry. Common Courage Pr.,1995.
See also the excellent magazine Adbusters produced by the Media Foundation of Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Housing
In housing, the key issues are (i) the right kind of buildings in the right places; and (ii) the provision of the means whereby people can afford to live in them. These two issues raise a variety of questions about homelessness, slum districts and shanty towns, rent exploitation, crippling mortgage repayments, empty dwellings, houses in disrepair, building standards, optimum living space and suburban sprawl. Housing cannot be separated from a consideration of population, family structure, land ownership and planning.
Obviously population growth is a major influence on the provision of shelter, even of a basic kind. If there are homeless people now, in many countries there will be more tomorrow. Lack of livelihood forces people towards already congested centres, compounding the problems. The plight of those living on the streets of Calcutta is echoed by those under the railway arches of London.
Except in a few experimental initiatives, housing has barely begun to be understood as part of a socio-ecological system. The approach to house-building is short-life and resource-intensive, geared to growth-oriented economics. Without curbs on this kind of building, the difficulties in the future will increase. The home building of the '50s and '60s often created instant slums, which have had to be either demolished or expensively refurbished. As Fraser and Sutcliffe comment, 'having demolished slums which stood for a century, we constructed homes which lasted a decade'. The social utopia their designers promised failed to materialise, unlike the profits of those who built them. Conventional critics of the failings of the private sector usually see the housing problem in terms of more units-hence the rhetoric of crash programmes of house-building. Unfortunately such large-scale plans usually fail to respect local people or local environments, with disastrous results.
Bad buildings are not the only failing in contemporary housing. The problems of mass public housing have been compounded by bureaucratic strangulation; an outstanding example of this has been the arbitrary use of building standards as a means of clearing whole communities, against the wishes of the inhabitants. Their preference to stay where they were and have public money spent on renovations, rather than on estates and tower blocks, is now generally accepted by those who once dismissed it.
The private sector causes its own problems. The property market has often produced inflated prices at one end of the country, while identical houses in other areas sell for far less. In time this can only tear the social fabric further apart. The roots of these distortions partly lie in the centripetal forces of our economic and political system, which draw decision-making, job and career opportunities, the arts and other aspects of life from the peripheral regions to the centre. Part of the housing solution must lie in general decentralisation and far greater regional self-reliance. Inflated house prices cannot be separated from the high cost of land. Land ownership brings the right to sell, which fuels the fires of speculation-to the detriment of the overall community. We need to dampen this process, with land value tax schemes one way forward..
Buildings them selves are another matter. Private ownership, whether by individuals or associations, is a major bulwark protecting the citizen against the abuse of state power. Also, the dividends of pride in appearance and maintenance accrue to all. There will always be those who either want or need accommodation to rent rather than to buy. What matters is a rich diversity of choice within localities, providing of course that they are designed and constructed to proper standards of conservation. There is such pressure to fulfil immediate needs that to advocate a policy of high-quality, long-life and energy-efficient building, which would mean high initial cost, is to fly in the face of present philosophy. We cannot afford the 'luxury', it claims, of such a policy. But to do otherwise is merely to repeat the mistakes that now disfigure our towns and cities. Minimal standards in materials, cost-cutting and a naive faith in the latest technology represent a false economy.
Homes are of course to be lived in: they are not just machines for living, profligately or frugally. With a holistic approach, standards for the design and construction of tomorrow's housing can satisfy all these needs. Existing housing presents a massive challenge since so much of it was based, in its design and location, on the assumption of cheap energy. We need an extended programme of ecological upgrading. It may take many decades, but the optimum conversion or recycling of the present stock will bring direct benefits and many desirable spin-offs, not least in work creation. Wherever possible primary consideration must be given to refurbishment and renewal rather than clearance and rebuilding. Developments that go beyond renovation and infill in built-up areas would be given planning permission only as a last resort. If society were really concerned about housing shortages, it would start with compulsory purchases of office and other such space, converting to more urgent human needs whilst sparing green spaces from destruction.
Of course, trends such as family breakdown and the rise in single households need to be addressed, otherwise unsustainable demand for new units will continue to be stoked up. Whatever happens, the Earth must come first. Just because someone feels the need to split up from their partner and move to new housing out 'in the sticks' does not create the right to have such wants satisfied by planning and housing policy. Accommodating such demands can only encourage further community disintegration and environmental degradation
Conserver building policies would demand the highest craft skills. It is the cost of these skills that in part fuelled the switch to industrialised techniques. Since a conserver economy would make resources more expensive than labour, there would be greater scope for human skills. Training would have to be overhauled to incorporate the best of skills, traditional and modern. If humankind is going to solve the problems it faces over the coming decades, then it must make use of both old and those new technologies that do not conflict with ecological principles.
We must acknowledge that, in a transitional period at least, such a housing policy could incur a greater initial costs, though these would be offset by low running costs and long life. However people choose to pay for their housing, it is vitally important that those on low incomes are aided. Just as we need mixed communities of varied houses, where single-person flats, sheltered accommodation for the elderly and family homes are grouped together, so we also need a range of funding arrangements which take account of the new greening of architecture. These options must be such that they allow people of all incomes and status to be accommodated without fear of harassment or financial distress.
Alexander, C. The Production of Houses. OUP, 1985.
Broome, J. & B. Richardson. The Self-Build Book. Green Books, 1991.
CPRE. Our Common Home. CPRE, 1993. A look at the pressure for new housing and the limited environmental capacity of areas like SE England.
CPRE. Home Truths. CPRE, 1990. Linking the provision of affordable housing with environmental protection.
CPRE. A Place in the Country. CPRE, 1990. The use and abuse of planning controls over new building in the countryside.
Day, C. Building with Heart. Green Books, 1990. Advocates community based, self-built schemes
Ospina, J. Housing Ourselves. Hilary Shipman, 1987. Study of ways in which we can help ourselves through self-build schemes to reduce housing problems, with British and Third World examples.
See also sections on Architecture and Building Design under heading of Technology
Health and Health Care-General
Physical and mental well-being is the basic measure of the true wealth of a people. Good living and good health tend to march hand in hand. An ecological perspective on health is holistic-well-being is perceived as the product of a dynamic interaction between individuals and their social, biological and physical context. However, the production systems and lifestyles of modern industrial society systematically threaten human health, undermining the undoubted achievements of modern medicine. This happens directly, for example via pollution, and indirectly, as a result, for instance, of the side-effects triggered by human-induced climatic change and other forms of environmental dysfunctioning.
It helps to put all the above issues in a broader context, tracing changes in the human health-environment interaction down the ages. Such an approach can shed new light on the claims made for modern medicine in particular and increased affluence in general. It may also suggest alternative ways in which human health might better be served. There is a very real danger in our technological age that we look back with condescension at the allegedly short and brutish lives of our ancestors and fail to see some positive lessons that they-and people in other cultures today-might teach us.
Some interesting points emerge. For example, in 1871, the life expectancy of a newly-born child was not much different from that of the days of Elizabeth 1. The period in which the lives of ordinary people began to improve was the latter decades of the 19th century, a time when economic growth was levelling off. The reason was partly that the bargaining power of poorer people improved, enabling them to take a bigger slice of the national cake. Extensions to the franchise also led to social reforms concerning working conditions and municipal improvements such as better sanitation (i.e. responses to the damage done by economic growth).
Access to cheaper food also helped a great deal (e.g. end of Corn Law monopoly and the import of food from South America and Australasia). The redistribution of economic and political power was decisive in improving the health of the ordinary person. Despite such gains, only 33% of young men examined for military service in 1917 were in satisfactory shape. In any case, those improvements were made sometimes at the expense of people in the colonial lands and at the expense of the future since the resource base was a non-renewable and heavily polluting one.
A broader spotlight might reveal that there have been many instances of peoples who have not gone through industrialisation nor experienced high levels of per capita consumption but who have enjoyed long lives which have been free from many of what rightly have called the 'diseases of civilisation'. Physiologically (and psy