Global Economy

"Rethinking the Good Life"

by Amata Miller, IHM

Inherent in the economic models which generate the abundance of the rich nations of the world is neglect of the environmental and social costs of economic growth as it is currently conceived and achieved. It is increasingly evident that we are on an unsustainable path. Economic growth, widely accepted as the essential means to progress and poverty alleviation, will ultimately be self-defeating in the most fundamental sense.

Industrial countries with 25 percent of the world's population consume 70 percent of all resources and generate most of the pollution. This gross inequity forces the world's poor majority into environmentally damaging behaviors for survival.

Ecological economists and environmentalists tell us we are exceeding the earth's absorptive capacity. For example, burning fossil fuels in our gas tanks yields waste at a rate that is impossible for nature to digest (100 pounds of carbon per tank burned in a medium-sized car).

We in the rich nations of the world run huge "ecological deficits" to support our lifestyle. We use up resources of the poorer nations, locate high-pollution industries and landfills there, and damage the global ecosystem on which all peoples depend for life. Living beyond one's means is not tenable for the long term. Both self-interest and our obligation to our brothers and sisters in the poorer nations now require dramatic change in our way of thinking and living.

Moving toward sustainable economic development calls for rethinking the purpose of society, refashioning the relationships between humans and nature and renewing commitment to social justice. No wonder those who gain from the present system are resisting!

What does sustainability require us to do?

Reconceptualize the "good life." Social psychologists report that Americans define happiness as "having more, always more." Since this is untenable we have to redefine progress in terms of improved quality of life in which non-material needs are met more fully.

Though it would not be ecologically possible in an equitable world for everyone in the world to live a U.S. lifestyle, it would be possible for all to live at the Western European standard. This is less resource-consuming, more environmentally friendly. It means less red meat (less grain consumption), more public transit, smaller houses, shared appliances, less wasteful packaging, more use of shared recreational spaces (parks).

Re-imagine the focus of economic life. We need to imagine what a sustainable society might look like. David Korten contrasts the focus of the current growth-centered economy with that of a "people-centered" one. He envisions an economy focused on quality of life not material consumption; the needs of all not the wants of the moneyed; economic return to households instead of to capital; community cooperation not individual competition; local diversification and self-reliance in basics instead of international specialization; financial and environmental conservation and saving instead of borrowing a debt.

Wendel Berry proposes rules for sustainable local communities:

• Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community?
  
• Always include local nature - the land, the water, the air, and the native creatures - within the membership of the community.
  
• Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.
  
• Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products - first to nearby cities, then to others).
  
• Strive to produce as much of the community's own energy as possible.
  
•  See that the old and the young take care of one another.
  
• Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
  
• Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalized. Debit them against monetary income.

Redesign production processes. Economist Eban Goodman points out that in nature all waste is food. Technologies should evolve into interrelated systems where all byproducts become inputs into a different state of production. Waste which cannot be digested should not be introduced into the ecological-economic system. Production processes yielding dangerous byproducts should be minimized if not eliminated. Production should utilize renewable energy sources like wind or solar energy instead of fossil fuels.

Amata Miller, IHM is a Professor of Economics at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul Minnesota.