 Thomas Princen's The Logic of Sufficiency builds on the sustainable economics theory of Herman Daly, which I've written about before on these pages. In this book, sufficiency is suggested as the underlying organizing and decision-making principle for economic activities, replacing efficiency.
After laying out the theory in Part One of the book he illustrates its
application (and how it came to him) through a series of real-life case
studies taken from very different economic situations around the world.
The
principle of efficiency, which is currently driving our global economy
over a cliff, is compelling because it is simple: even people as
unimaginative, lacking in foresight, and stupid as corporate
executives, politicians, lawyers and speculators can 'get it' and see
how to make it work for them. No matter that it is unsustainable --
that is not their problem. The principle of efficiency (my paraphrasing) is:
Produce
as much as you can of everything as cheaply as possible. Ignore or
refuse all costs that can be 'externalized' (dumped off on others, like
foreigners, breathers of fouled air, and future generations). Let the
'market' (i.e. those who've inherited the money, or who have had the
guile to get it one way or another) decide who gets what's produced,
and at what price.
Can't get much dumber than that, in either sense of the word.
By contrast, the principle of sufficiency (again my paraphrasing) is:
Through
collective, networked community-based self-management, allow an
understanding of what would optimize the well-being of all life in the
ecosystem, balancing all interests and appreciating natural
constraints, to decide what is needed.Agree to produce only, but generously, what is needed, accepting and addressing all costs of production. Collectively, distribute what is needed to those who need it.
Much
more complex, and vastly more difficult to scale. As Princen shows,
this works fine, in the absence of efficiency-cult competitive
pressure, for family farms, locally owned hardware stores,
owner-operated fishing boats, and timber companies with no place to
expand. But sufficiency, unlike efficiency, requires broad,
decentralized, consensual, networked decision-making to assess what is
needed, who needs it, and how best to produce and distribute it. Messy,
time consuming and, of course, inefficient. It works fine at the small,
local level where the ecosystem is already sustainable and where
self-management is intuitive. But what happens when you have a city of
20 million people, with no raw materials of their own for production,
in a climate that is fiercely hostile unless mitigated by ubiquitous
and horrifically expensive artificial environments, and surrounded by a
rural area that is desertified or soil- and water-impoverished to the
point that almost all production materials need to be brought in from
the opposite side of the world?
Princen uses three main
examples (the Pacific Lumber Company, Monhegan Lobstering, and Toronto
Island's refusal to accept a fixed link or automobiles), and a host of
smaller examples (Swiss dairy commons, cod fishing in Northern Norway,
beef grazing on Marajo Island in the Amazon) to show that the principle
of sufficiency can work and is working, and that it is consistent with
human nature and collective human interest to strive for it. Alas, the
Pacific Lumber example, after decades of success, has succumbed to the
cult of efficiency, and, thanks to massive right-wing lobbying by huge
moneyed interests, Toronto Island is being forced to accept it against
its will. "Non-ecological rationalists will never be convinced. We're
talking about two fundamentally opposed worldviews. One sees human
potential everywhere, irreversible decline nowhere. The other sees
trends that portend permanent diminution of livability, even of life on
Earth...Even the most committed environmentalists have trouble
imagining approaches that do not emphasize taxes and subsidies,
lawsuits and boycotts, and most prevalent perhaps, 'environmental
education'."
The most important part of this book is left unfinished: The Logic of Sufficiency
lays out the beginnings of a set of principles, assumptions and
connecting theory for rationally and collectively self-managing complex
adaptive systems (which almost all natural and social systems
substantially are). It is to be hoped that Princen will work with
Snowden and other thought leaders working in the practical applications
of complex adaptive systems theory to move these principles,
assumptions and theory forward into something truly workable.
A
significant part of the book is devoted to deconstructing the well-worn
arguments in favour of sticking with the cult of efficiency as the
driver and decision-maker of our economy, and the related principles
used to prop it up when it falters: cooperation (which is as likely to
thwart sustainability as promote it), equity, sovereignty and 'private'
property, maximization of output, productivity*, the 'sovereign
consumer', specialization, mobility. I'll avoid trying to summarize
this section of the book, since I suspect I would be preaching to the
choir.
I confess the elements of the theory of sufficiency come
across as a bit incoherent to me, and Princen says specifically that
the book offers only some 'possible directions' towards such a theory.
But here is a catalogue of some of these elements, that presumably have
a place in such a theory:
- the principle of restraint (changing one's own behaviours to adapt to changes in constraints -- 'absorbing the problem' rather than trying to 'solve' it)
- the resiliency principle (creating buffers, cushions and reserves to reduce vulnerability and fragility)
- the
principle of resource primacy (valuing a resource as a part of a
functioning, self-managing system, not as a consumable for liquidation)
- decision
criteria that resist overharvesting, depletion, waste accumulation,
incomplete costing, uncontrolled 'positive feedback', irreversibility,
nonsubstitutability, overconsumption, excess throughput, and limited
regenerative capacities
- the principle of respite
- mechanisms that enable 'negative feedback' to be introduced to counter and rebalance unsustainable 'positive feedback'
- the precautionary principle
- the polluter pays principle
- the principle of selectively permeable boundaries
- the principle of zero tolerable limits on and virtual elimination of persistent toxins
- the reverse onus principle (burden of proof of safety and sustainability is moved to the proposed resource developer/user)
- the principle of self-determined and self-directed work
- a long-term decision-making orientation
- self-acknowledgement
of humans and human activity as part of (not apart from) the ecosystem
-- we are part of the environment, it is not 'out there' (giving a
whole new much broader meaning to self-management than merely
management by humans)
- the principle of information preservation
(appreciation of the value of long-standing, proven human practices,
techniques and preferences)
- appreciation that in complex adaptive systems, predictability is highly limited
These
elements together are not only practical, but inherently rational --
they create a coherent economic framework that is sustainable and that
works. This 'ecological rationality', in complexity terms, is an
emergent self-organizing property of communal effort cognizant of the
biophysical and social constraints of capacity and impact. In short, it
makes sense, and can be
proffered as a superior model to the efficiency model, as more and more
people come to realize that that the efficiency model is unsustainable
and no longer makes sense.
The book includes a great quote from Kay & Schneider's article Embracing Complexity from the 1994 Alternatives journal:
Systems
theory suggests that ecosystems are inherently complex, that there may
be no simple answers, and that our traditional managerial approaches,
which presume a world of simple rules, are wrong-headed and likely to
be dangerous. In order for the scientific method to work, an artificial
situation of consistent reproducibility must be created. This requires
simplification of the situation to the point where it is controllable
and predictable. But the very nature of this act removes the complexity
that leads to emergence of the new phenomena which makes complex
systems interesting. If we are going to deal successfully with our
biosphere, we are going to have to change how we do science and
management. We will have to learn that we can't manage ecosystems, we manage our interactions with them. Furthermore, the search for simple rules of ecosystem behaviour is futile.
One
of the interesting arguments of the book is that the cult of
efficiency, despite its ease of grasping, implementation, scaling and
exploitation, is inherently contrary to and troubling to human nature.
A truly untrammeled efficient market would allow the rich, for example,
to harvest vital human organs from the poor, and to buy and sell
children for labour and recreational purposes, yet such 'sensible'
markets are anathema to every principle of humanity. While we do have
tendencies toward self-interest, we also often show deep-rooted
altruism and appreciation of thinking far beyond our own areas and
life-spans. People have an innate sense of activity that is excessive
and irresponsible and an instinctive revulsion to it (Bhopal, Exxon
Valdez). We revile the crooks of Enron, rather than admiring them as
models of self-interested economic opportunism. We don't like clear-cut
forests, strip mines and vast, relentlessly cruel factory farms. We do
care about future generations, about struggling nations that accept our
toxic waste out of desperation. We know that collectives, though they
may not scale well, can work well on a small scale. We are inherently
joiners and believers in doing the right thing, and, even, activists.
We are inherently, and always have and always will be, problem-solvers,
not passive consumers and not material maximizers. We have it in us to
create a sustainable economy, an economy of sufficiency.
Here are my two favourite quotes from the book:
Today,
with the imperative to translate the self-evident limits of a single
planet into the limits of everyday life, the organizing principle might
be sufficiency. Such a translation is unlikely, arguably impossible,
under the logic of a consumer economy where specialization, large-scale
operation, and consumer demand prevail. It is possible, though, when
work follows the rhythms of task and nature, when the work is
self-directed and generalist, and when work is more a calling than a
job. It is possible under a logic of enough work and enough consumption.
Go
to your local transport planning board meeting (or city council or
zoning meeting) and wait for the issue of parking to arise. After all
the proposals for dealing with 'inadequate' parking are aired, stand up
and say something like this: "Maybe we have too much parking. Or we
will have too much parking if present trends continue. Maybe what we
should be doing, rather than planning for new garages and bigger lots,
is deciding how much parking is too much, and then plan everything else
around that: bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, public transit and
whatnot." Then brace yourself for the barrage.
This book is an
important advance in thinking about complexity and sustainability, and
I recommend it for anyone planning to create, or even thinking about
creating, models of a better way to live or make a living. We need to
work together to develop a theory of sufficiency and sustainability, so
that, in the face of the deniers and technophiles and efficiency
luddites, we can not only say that our models are intuitively superior,
but also show compellingly that they are more rational. We have a lot
of work to do.
* The book includes a wonderful side-essay
deconstructing the myths of 'productivity', remarkably similar in
sentiment and argument to my recent controversial article on the subject. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
