Context to Strategic Sustainablity |
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This sets the stage for the discussion of Strategic Sustainability |
Assumptions are presented here. Listen closely. |
BTW, World Sustainability is not about global warming per se. |
The popular media currently features Al Gore's campaign on global warming, which is fine. However, the engine of this course is elsewhere. As already stated, Money makes the world turn. As I see it, Peak Oil trumps global warming. But economic globalization trumps global warming. Stay tuned: |
The operating system of economic globalization must be replaced by World Sustainability |
Don't lament. This is generative and an all-around good thing, if potentially disruptive in the short term. So, Strategic Sustainability is meant to help get us there. However, the new OS has not yet been fully defined, yet operational. Your participation is essential. Check your assumptions at the door. |
TINA: "There is no alternative," Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of U.K., circa 1981 |
"In economics, politics, and political economy, the acronym TINA refers to a slogan attributed to Margaret Thatcher, once prime minister of Britain, i.e., that 'There Is No Alternative' to global free-market capitalism. This is the central slogan of economic liberalism, arguing that free markets, free trade, and capitalist globalization are the only way in which modern societies can go." (Wikipedia, TINA) See my commentary, below. |
The last hold-out of TINA is U.S. Witness Bush. |
With under 5% of world population, the U.S. uses about 25% of energy, causes 25% of pollution, and attempts, through military and economic means, to dominate the rest of the world. Count on serious opposition, generationally speaking. Guess what: sustainability is patriotic and consistent with the American character. |
Disabling analysis: TNC have amassed huge power over governments, communities, and people |
TNC comprise the major player in economic globalization. See data provided by Sarah Anderson of the Institute of Policy Studies. David Korten offers a glimpse of what corporate power means in his essay, For the Love of Money, excerpts cited below. |
TNC have but a single interest: profit. All the rest is P.R. |
These legally artificial persons must provide a maximum of returns for their shareholders. Your interest and mine are irrelevant. Theoretical speculation, along the lines of Invisible Hands claim that corporate power is in our interest. Are you skeptical? |
Neo-liberalism, the doctrine of economic globalization, is incompatible with |
Neo-liberalism cannot be reconciled with sustainability; there exists no middle ground. The principles underlying each and the dynamics they drive are thoroughly incompatible. If neo-liberalism triumphs, sustainability cannot be achieved, with drastic implications for future generations of humans and for the hospitality of the Earth for life. The stakes are high and the prospects grim. |
The primary target of the anti-globalization movement: Trans-National Corporations, TNC |
See these readings:
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Remember my statement on Alchemy: The problematic: How can the economy be harnessed to serve sustainability? |
What makes this question so ironic is that the growth in the physical scale of the economy under the prevailing regime of economic globalization has depleted resources, destroyed ecosystems, overwhelmed natural waste disposal sinks, waged war on subsistence cultures, and produced shocking maldistribution of wealth and income. How, then, can the economy be turned around to reinforce sustainable development rather than to destroy ecosystems, resource endowments, and indigenous cultures? (emphasis added) |
The move here: Strategic Sustainability |
Rather than join in the criticism, I will try to figure out a coping strategy, against the odds. Thus, I offer a disclaimer. |
Did you catch the arrogance and implicit domination in the slogan of the Neo-liberalism and Washington Consensus, as delivered by Maggie Thatcher, PM of U.K.: "There is no alternative." Duh. Talk about disabling!
When the head of any state starts dictating terms and conditions, stating "My way or the highway, watch closely." ^
Sample excerpts from the testimony of a veteran of economic development all over the world, David Korten:
Those of us who seek to intervene in policy debates in favor of economic justice and environmentally sustainability are regularly assured by the world's power brokers that they are fully committed to these goals so long as economic growth and the expansion of free trade are not compromised by governmental restraints on the market. So sacred have growth and free trade become in our modern culture that only rarely do we find the courage to ask why they should be given precedence over the needs of people and nature. Indeed, why should we consider accelerating growth and trade to be of any importance at all except to the extent that they serve people and nature?
And further:
Evidence is mounting that economic growth and free trade are not leading us toward economic justice and environmental sustainability. To the contrary, they are taking us in the direction of increasing economic injustice and environmental unsustainability. The debates over jobs versus the environment miss a basic point. Assuring everyone the means to meet their basic needs and achieving a sustainable balance with the environment are mutually supportive goals. Indeed, there are powerful theoretical arguments why, in a resource scarce world, neither is possible without the other. There is, however, an irreconcilable conflict between the goal of creating economically just and environmentally sustainable societies and embracing sustained economic growth, unregulated markets, and free trade as the organizing principles of public policy. The resulting policies are well suited to producing more millionaires and billionaires. They are ill suited to achieving justice and sustainability. ^
This whole effort might prove foolhardy and plain silly. What, however, is my alternative? Join the anti-globalization chorus in bemoaning the TNC Goliaths? My tendency is otherwise: How to respond? What are the possibilities, despite the odds. You judge, dear students.
Three disclaimers:
Finally, I simply can't resist the challenge, which I will approach strategically. Now, on to the Alchemy. ^