>Samuel Levesque
Position Paper 1: Taking Sides
On the issue of whether or not sustainable development is compatible with human welfare my answer is a resounding “yes”, though not for any of the reasons put forward by Dinah M. Payne, Cecily A. Raiborn, or Ronald Baily. While the authors question if sustainable development is compatible with human welfare, they fail to ask if industrialized capitalist corporatism is compatible with sustainable development.
Both articles are based on the premise that Globalist corporate capitalism and the so-called free market are inevitable, unchangeable, and therefore a given. While Baily argues that continuing the current course of development will result in the system curing the very ills it produces, Raiborn and Payne argue that while the system produces ills, it can be reformed from within and without into a higher-minded force for ecological and social good. In essence Raiborn and Payne argue for the physician to heal himself, where as Baily argues that smoking cures cancer.
It is my contention that any system in which a relative few control the vast majority of available resources in order to further profit those who own shares of said resources will never lead to a socially just, ecologically sound, and economically prosperous future for the vast majority of humanity. Instead the continued accumulation of resources necessary for life (land/soil, water, food, etc) into the hands of a select elite will result in a continuance of manufactured scarcity (which drives up profits) and manufactured needs (which increase consumption and drive up pollution) with all the human and ecological degradation that such a system entails, no matter how sustainable the practices of individual institutions become.
From my point of view, the authors of both works are simply engaged in greenwashing a toxic rainbow of capitalist dogma. Capitalism, at least in its current corporate form, works on laws that stand in stark contrast to those of sustainability, requiring infinite “growth” within the confines of a finite planet, requiring profitability no matter what the ecological cost, and concentrating wealth and power into tiny pockets, leaving a vacuum of the sort nature abhors everywhere else. Payne and Raiborn try to skirt this issue with a bit of semantics, using the word “business” when most often they mean “corporation”, the difference being that a business owned by a single individual, small cadre of partners, or cooperative members can legally take actions that are unprofitable if they feel the ethical need to do so, a corporation answers to its shareholders, who are legion, and is required by law to make decisions based not on the general good, but on how to maximize profits for their shareholders. If that can be achieved with sustainable practices, fine. However, if an ecologically unsound but more profitable option opens up, they are required by the rules of the market to take advantage of it.
Under capitalism “human welfare” is defined primarily in monetary values, and we humans are factored in as just another resource. True sustainability would (within the limits of human ability) strive to ensure that an empowered, prosperous humanity lives within its means as part of the nature world. Any system founded on the idea that some should gorge while others starve, that a distant elite should have the “right” to dictate local livelihoods based on their supposed ownership of local resources, and that “a rising tide lifts all boats” (which ignores the fact that it drowns all the boat less) cannot achieve the sort of sustainability that I feel is necessary for a just and fulfilling existence.
