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Forum on Economic Reform In recent decades the alliance of neoclassical economics and neoliberalism has hijacked the term “economic reform”. By presenting political choices as market necessities, they have subverted public debate about what economic policy changes are possible and are or are not desirable. This venue promotes discussion of economic reform that is not limited to the one ideological point of view. Towards a Concrete Utopian Model of Green Political Economy: ©
Copyright: John Barry 2006 Abstract
Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to
underpin sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’
political views) or ‘business as usual’ approaches. This article suggests that ‘ecological
modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’
within the UK and other ‘developed’ Northern polities and most
corporate/business interests, and illustrates
this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from
the UK Government. While critical of
the reformist ‘policy telos’ of ecological
modernisation, supporters of a more radical version of sustainable
development need to also be aware of the strategic opportunities of this
policy discourse. In particular, the
article suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’, which can be
attached to a radicalised notion of ecological modernisation, ought to be
used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding
of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and
policy-relevant path to outlining aspects of a ‘green political economy’ to
underpin sustainable development. Introduction
One of the weakest and less
developed areas of broadly green/sustainable development thinking has been
its economic analysis. What analyses
there are within the green political canon are largely utopian – usually
based on an argument for the complete transformation of modern society and
economy as the only way to deal with ecological catastrophe, often linked to
a critique of the socio-economic failings of capitalism that echo a broadly
radical Marxist/socialist or anarchist analysis – or underdeveloped – due, in
part, to the need to outline and develop other aspects of green political
theory and the challenge of sustainability.
However, this gap within green thinking has recently been filled with
a number of scholars, activists, think tanks, and environmental NGOs who have
outlined various models of green political economy to underpin sustainable
development political aims, principles and objectives, of which ecological
modernisation is pre-eminent. The aim of this article is to
offer a draft of a realistic, but critical, version of green political
economy to underpin the economic dimensions of radical views of sustainable
development. It is written explicitly
with a view to encouraging others to respond to it in the necessary
collaborative and interdisciplinary effort to think through this political
economy ‘bottom line’ of sustainable development. The combining of realism and radicalism
marks this article which takes as its starting point that we cannot build or
seek to create a sustainable economy ab nihlo, but must begin from where we are, with the
structures, institutions, modes of production, laws, regulations and so on
that we have. This does not of course
mean simply accepting these as immutable or set in stone - after all, many of
the current institutions, principles and structures underpinning the dominant
economic model are the very causes of unsustainable development – but we do
need to recognise that we must work with (and ‘through’ – in the terms of the
original German Green Party’s slogan of ‘marching through the institutions’)
these existing structures as well as changing and reforming and in some cases
abandoning them as either unnecessary or positively harmful to the creation
and maintenance of a sustainable economy and society. Equally, the realism that this
article promotes also recognises that an alternative economy and society must
be based in the reality that most people (in the west) will not, under
current political and economic conditions, democratically vote for radical
changes to how society and the economy operate, especially if those changes
are viewed as involving ‘sacrifice’ and a diminution in life chances or a
narrowing of aspirations for a better life for them and their children. Realism
and strategic considerations suggest that we must accept that any
putative ‘green or sustainable economy’ must
be one that is recognisable to most people and indeed safeguards and
guarantees not just their basic needs but their aspirations (within
limits). That is, the realistic
character of the thinking behind this article accepts that consumption and
materialistic lifestyles are here to stay (so long as they do not transgress
any of the critical thresholds of the triple bottom line) and indeed there is
little to be gained by proposing alternative economic systems which start from
a complete rejection of consumption and materialism.1 The appeal to realism is in part an attempt
to correct the common misperception (and self-perception) of green politics
and economics as requiring an excessive degree of self-denial and a
puritanical asceticism (Goodin, 1992: 18; Allison,
1991: 170-8). While rejecting the
claim that green political theory calls for the complete disavowal of
materialistic lifestyles, it is true that the politics of sustainability does
require the collective re-assessment of such lifestyles. But it does not mean that we need
necessarily require the complete and across the board rejection of
materialistic lifestyles. It must be
the case that there is room and tolerance in a green economy for people to
live putative ‘ungreen lives’ so long as these do
not ‘harm’ others, threaten long-term ecological sustainability or create
unjust levels of socio-economic inequalities, or that the socio-economic and
ecological costs of such lifestyles are paid by those who choose to live them. Thus, realism in this context is in part
another name for the acceptance of a broadly ‘liberal’ or ‘post-liberal’ (but
certainly not anti-liberal) green perspective.2 At the same time, while
critical of the ‘abstract’ and ‘unrealistic’ utopianism that peppers green
and radical thinking in this area, I do not intend to reject utopianism. Indeed, with Oscar Wilde I agree that a map
of the world that does not have utopia on it, isn’t worth looking at. The spirit in which this article is written
is more in keeping with framing green and sustainability concerns within a
‘concrete utopian’ perspective (Hayward, 1995) or what the Marxist geographer
David Harvey calls a ‘utopianism of process’ (1996), to be distinguished from
‘closed’, blueprint-like and abstract utopian visions. Accordingly, the model
of green political economy outlined here is in keeping with Lukes’ suggestion that a concrete utopianism depends on
the “knowledge of a self-transforming present, not an ideal future” (1984:
158). It accepts the current
dominance of one particular model of green political economy – namely
‘ecological modernisation’ (hereafter referred to EM)
– as the preferred ‘political economy’ underpinning contemporary state and
market forms of sustainable development, and further accepts the necessity
for green politics to positively engage in the debates and policies around EM from a strategic (as well as a normative) point of
view. However, it is also conscious of
the limits and problems with ecological modernisation, particularly in terms
of its technocratic, supply-side and reformist ‘business as usual’ approach,
but nevertheless seeks to explore the potential to radicalise EM or use it as a ‘jumping off’ point for more radical
views of ‘greening’ the economy in a more thorough manner. The article begins by
outlining EM in theory and practice, specifically
in relation to the British state’s ‘sustainable development’ policy agenda
under New Labour. While EM as currently practised by the British state is ‘weak’
and largely turns on the centrality of ‘innovation’ and ‘eco-efficiency’, it
then goes on to investigate in more detail the role of the market within
current conceptualisations of EM and other models
of green political economy. In
particular, a potentially powerful distinction (both conceptually and in
policy debates) between ‘the market’ and ‘capitalism’ has yet to be
sufficiently explored and exploited as a starting point for the development
of radical, viable and attractive conceptions of green political economy as
alternatives to both EM and the orthodox economic
paradigm. In particular the role of
the market in innovation and as part of the ‘governance’ for sustainable
development in which eco-efficiency and EM of the
economy is linked to non-ecological demands of green politics and sustainable
development such as social and global justice, egalitarianism, democratic
regulation of the market and the conceptual (and policy) expansion of the
‘economy’ to include social, informal and non-cash economic activity and a
progressive role for the state (especially at the local/municipal
level). Here, the argument is that the
‘environmental’ argument or basis of green political economy in terms of the
need for the economy to become more resource efficient, minimise pollution
and waste and so on, has largely been won.
What that means is that no one is disputing the need for greater
resource productivity, energy and eco-efficiency, even as current production
systems are woefully ecologically inefficient in reality. Both state and corporate/business actors
have accepted the environmental ‘bottom line’ (often rhetorically, but
nonetheless important) as a conditioning factor in the pursuit of the
economic ‘bottom line’. However, what has been less
remarked upon is the social ‘bottom line’ and the centrality of this
non-environmental set of principles and policy objectives to green political
economy. In particular the argument
for lessening socio-economic inequality and redistributive policies to do
this have not been as prominent within green political economy and models of
sustainable development as they perhaps should be. One of the reasons for focusing on the
‘social bottom line’ is to suggest that the distinctiveness and critical
relevance of a distinctly ‘green’ (as opposed to ‘environmental’ or
‘ecological’) political economy will increasingly depend on developing a
political agenda around these non-environmental/resource policy areas as
states, businesses and other political parties converge around the EM agenda of reconciling the environmental and economic
bottom lines, through an almost exclusive focus on the environmental bottom
line.3 It is in developing
a radical political and economic agenda around the social and economic bottom
lines that green political economy needs to focus, which enables an
acceptance of an eco-efficiency view without constraining the focus on
eco-efficiency to a ‘business as usual’ agenda. It is for this reason that the
final part of the paper looks at the long-standing green commitment to
re-orientate the economy towards enhancing and being judged by ‘quality of
life’ and ‘well-being’. The more
recent discourse around ‘economic security’ is then discussed as building upon
and related to the quality of life perspective, and is viewed as a
potentially important driver and policy objective for green political economy
in practice, in succinctly presenting the green economic case for a new type
of economy, in which redistribution and reducing socio-economic inequality is
central. The model of green political
economy presented here is defined in part by its commitment to ‘economic
security’, which has the strategic political advantage of presenting a
positive and attractive discourse for sustainable development arguments,
unlike the (still prevalent) negative and often disempowering discourse of
‘limits to growth’, which does not of course mean denying the biophysical
reality of limits, which are not just ecological, but include social,
cultural and psychological and biological dimensions. The point is that using the language and
analysis of economic security is a more attractive and compelling way of
arguing and presenting the case for a less growth-orientated economy and consumption-orientated
society and one that aims for putting quality of life at the heart of
economic thinking and policy. Ecological Modernisation in Theory and
Practice in Britain
The
New Labour government is clearly committed to an EM
approach to sustainable development.
In a speech on sustainable development Tony Blair stated that,
“tackling climate change or other environmental challenges need not limit
greater economic opportunity…economic development, social justice and
environmental modernisation must go hand in hand” (Blair, 2003). This ‘win-win’ logic has also
been echoed by the deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who in a speech to the
Fabian Society held that: There
is a widespread view that environmental damage is the price we have to pay
for economic progress…Modern environmentalism recognises that…an efficient,
clean economy will mean more, not less economic growth and
prosperity…Treating the environment with respect will not impede economic
progress, it will help identify areas of inefficiency and waste and so
unleash whole new forces of innovation. (Prescott, 2003) Like EM
discourse, New Labour sustainable development policy rhetoric adopts the
language of business and orthodox economic growth, emphasising the business
case for sustainability by linking environmental management with greater
resource efficiency, innovation, cost reduction, enhanced competitiveness and
‘moving up the value chain’. Typical
of this is the Department for Trade and Investment, which notes that, “The environment
is a business opportunity...there are economic benefits in reducing waste,
avoiding pollution and using resources more efficiently…Reducing pollution
through better technology will almost always lower costs or raise product
value/differentiation” (DTI, 2000: 7). This business
case for rendering orthodox neo-classical economic growth compatible with
environmental considerations can also be found outside Westminister in the
devolved adminstrations in the UK. In
Scotland, the Scottish Exective’s Enterprise Minister Jim Wallace has
recently announced a ‘Green Jobs Strategy’, stating that: Economic
growth and job creation can and should go hand in hand with promoting
Scotland's natural environment and, through exports, sustaining good
environmental practice overseas. A Green Jobs Strategy will focus our efforts
on delivering sustainable growth, which will generate employment while
improving our environment and raising living standards across the
country. As well as creating new
business opportunities, better waste management and more efficient use of
resources benefits the bottom line - raising productivity and making a big
contribution to environmental targets. (Scottish Executive, 2005) The notion that orthodox
economic growth, employment investment patterns and the cross-sectoral goals of sustainable development might be in
serious tension is excluded from the government’s rhetoric on the environment
and the ‘greening of the economy’; it is certainly not presented as a
possibly problematic issue for industrial production processes or for global
capitalism or the new orthodoxy of export-led growth. Instead, environmental protection and
economic growth are portrayed as a positive-sum game, a ‘business
opportunity’, suggesting that EM is indeed the
basis upon which current debates on environmental and sustainable development
policy in the UK are founded (Barry and Paterson, 2004). EM as the principle ‘policy telos’ (Levy and Wissenburg,
2004) for environmental and sustainable development policies within the UK
(but also in other states) stresses innovative policy tools such as
market-based incentives and voluntary agreements that ‘steer’ businesses
towards eco-efficient practices, which do not undermine ‘competitiveness’ and
ideally should create new markets, employment, investment opportunities and
technological advances.4
This does not rule out legislative sanctions, but EM
strongly emphasises voluntary action and ‘partnership’ forms of environmental
governance, which is in perfect keeping with not just New Labour’s view of
the role of the self-limiting role of state via-a-vis
the market and market actors, but with other governments in Europe, North
America and international institutions such as the IMF
and World Bank. Having established the
imperative for environmental improvement with its policies, the state also
plays a key role in improving the capacity of industry to respond to that
imperative via, for instance, public investment in clean technology and
research and development programmes and provision of information on
environmental best practice, such as the recently announced ‘Environment
Direct’ initiative contained with the latest sustainable development
strategy, or funded programmes in energy efficiency such as the Energy
Savings Trust, or programmes to encourage clean technology innovation, such
as the Green Technology Challenge and the Sustainable Technology Initiative.
Other EM initiatives include the state establishing
or supporting new ‘network organisations’ tasked with promoting and encouraging
‘win-win’ environmental solutions to business, such as the WRAP (Waste and
Resources Action Programme) aimed at pump priming the market for recycled
materials, or other agencies charged with informing and helping businesses
(especially the small and medium sector) in respect to environmental
legislation (particularly European Union directives), or other dissemination
initiatives such as the Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme and
the Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme within the DTI.5 Market-based
solutions have become a favoured policy tool to encourage eco-efficiency in the UK, and various
environmental taxes have been introduced such as the climate change levy,
congestion charging in inner London, the landfill tax, aggregates tax and the
fuel duty levy. These market-based
approaches based on a voluntary and partnership approach are hall-marks of
the EM portfolio of ‘policy drivers’ of UK
sustainable development, in comparison to the more legalistic approach of
other European countries such as Germany.
One important element of such
innovation is to create ‘closed-loop’ production, whereby waste materials are
minimised and wastes themselves then become inputs to other industrial processes
– central aspects of the emerging interdisciplinary science of ‘industrial
ecology’. The development of new markets, new commodities and services are
crucial to creating the possibility of continued capital accumulation and the
imperative to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)
while other markets are being restricted. This efficiency-oriented and
supply-side approach to environmental problems is central to understanding
how EM is both attractive to state and business
elites and managers, and some environmental NGOs.6 But it is importance to point
out that EM processes tend to require significant
state intervention, even if it is that the state ‘steers’ rather than ‘rows’.
For some EM writers, there is a reliance on a
notion of an ‘environmental Kuznets curve’, whereby
the ecological impacts of growth go through a process where they increase but
beyond a certain point of economic output start to decline.7 For
most, this is not likely to occur, except in relation to certain measures of environmental
quality, without significant state intervention to enable shifts in economic
behaviour (Ekins, 2000). It is thus perhaps not an
accident that EM discourse has arisen principally
in social democratic countries in continental Europe where corporatist policy
styles are still well established. EM as a ‘policy
ideology’ has largely been developed in government programmes and policy
styles and traditions, particularly those of Germany, The Netherlands,
Sweden, Japan and the European Union (Weale, 1992:
76-85; Dryzek, 1997, pp. 137-141). And while in the
European countries where some of the policy outcomes associated with EM strategies, notably voluntary agreements or
public-private partnerships, are often regarded as elements in a
‘neo-liberalisation’ of those countries, nevertheless their development still
occurs within a style of policy development and implementation which is
corporatist.8 Corporatist arrangements are
therefore usually regarded to be the most conducive political conditions for
successful environmental policy reform (e.g. Young, 2000; Dryzek
1997; Scruggs, 1999). On this view the state policy-elites act as brokers and
prime movers in encouraging interest groups, trades unions, industry,
consumer groups and sections of the environmental movement, to accept the
agenda of EM. What then becomes interesting in the
UK case we develop below, is the way that globalisation acts to create
potential for EM strategies in the absence of
corporatist political arrangements. One argument similar to EM but couched in language more common in neoliberal countries such as the UK and US was
popularised in an influential article by Porter and van der
Linde (1995). They argue that the assumption of an
economy-environment contradiction is premised on a static account of costs
and fails to account for the dynamic effect which innovation has on the costs
to firms of implementing environmental regulations. Thus policies can be
pursued which promote competitiveness for firms while reducing the
environmental impacts of those firms’ operations. Porter and van der Linde emphasise regulation
– that state regulation can create a dynamic of technical innovation by firms
which is a ‘win-win’ scenario in economy-environment terms – but nevertheless
the presumed relationship between states and firms is neoliberal
rather than corporatist. However, one
may posit that the lack of corporatist arrangements in the UK may partly
explain why EM within the UK is almost exclusively
concerned with resource efficiency and technological and supply-side
solutions and has little in the way of the political and social aspects of EM one can find in more corporatist states such as
Austria or Germany. EM of course has its critics. Critics of EM in general suggest that the reliance on a set of technological fixes to solve what are widely seen as political problems is often seen as a key weakness, and one of its principal limitations when compared to its sister discourse of sustainable development which has explicit political bargains about limits and global justice built in, even in its relatively conservative versions (WCED, 1987; Langhelle, 2000). The focus on efficiency gains is often seen as wildly optimistic where all current experience suggests that in most areas, efficiency gains per unit of consumption are usually outstripped by overall increases in consumption and resource and energy use. This is another way of saying that the notion of an environmental Kuznets curve, which underpins claims for the potential compatibility of growth and environmental sustainability, is implausible; drawing as such arguments do on a narrow set of processes and measures of environmental quality (Ekins, 2000). But EM discourse is explicit about not attempting to limit overall levels of consumption. Indeed, one of the main points of this article is to suggest that if EM is to be used as basis for developing a realistic but critical model of green political economy, EM needs to be integrated with a model of sustainable political economy in which consumption is also addressed within the context of a far more radical economic vision which focuses on economic security, sufficiency and quality of life, rather than orthodox economic growth, and associated policies to increase formally paid employment, attract foreign direct investment and fully integrate local and national economies into the global one. Ecological Modernisation and the UK’s Sustainable Development
Strategy
Of particular
interest in Chapter 3 of the Strategy, ‘One Planet Economy: Sustainable
Production and Consumption’. While
containing some positive features, not least the over-arching idea of living
within a sustainable ‘ecological footprint’; greater support for ecological
innovation and resource productive technoologies; enabling us to ‘achieve
more with less’. In relation to the key but challenging issue of consumption,
the report while woefully inadequate, does at least place the issue of
tackling and adddressing consumption alongside the more long-standing
productive focus of United Kingdom sustainable development strategy. The strategy document studiously avoids what many would see as
the real issue with consumption – i.e. how to reduce it rather than simply
focusing on making it ‘greener’ or lessen its environmental impact. The report notes that “there will also be a
need for households, businesses and the public sector to consume more
efficiently and differently, so that consumption from rising incomes is not
accompanied by rising environmental impacts or social injustice. The challenge is big. But so too are the opportunties for
innovation to build new markets, products and services” (DEFRA, 2005:
51). At no point in the report is the
question of reducing or maintaining consumption discussed, or relating
consumption and patterns of consumption to quality of life or well-being. That is, there is no dicussion which views
consumption as a means to some other end, rather than an end in itself. The extent of
government action or policy in respect to consumption amounts to a series of
‘processes’ such as ·
“building an evidence base around the environmental impacts
arising from households and how patterns of use can be influenced ·
woking on a new information service – ‘Environment Direct’… ·
through a refocused Environmental Action Fund… ·
delivering a large-scale deliberative forum to explore
public views on sustainable consumption and lifestyles… ·
the new Round Table on Sustainable Consumption” (DEFRA,
2005: 52). Of these,
perhaps most hope lies in the deliberative forum and the Round Table in
raising the central but complex and difficult issue of reducing consumption and
not simply changing current patterns of consumption per se. Before going on to look at the way in which
the document articulates an EM view, it is worth briefly looking at the role
of consumption both within EM as the dominnat view of sustainable development
within government thinking. One of the limitations
with EM as many authors and critics have pointed out (Barry, 2003) is its
focus on the production side of economic activity and its impact on the
environment – leading to its main focus on finding ways of increasingl
resource efficiency. What is missing
from the EM agenda is a concern with sustainable consumption to balance with
sustainable production patterns and technologies. Indeed, I would suggest that the
integration of serious consideration as to how to tackle consumption into the
EM framework holds out the possibility of a positive and more robust model of
green political economy which is more consistent with basic green political
and normative goals (particularly, as indicated in the concluding sections of
this paper, EM can be framed within an overarching policy approach to
sustainable development aimed at producing economic security, sufficiency and
‘well-being’ rather than orthodox ‘economic growth’). The thinking behind Tim Jackson’s recent report for the Sustainable
Development Research Network entitled Motivating Sustainable Consumption (Jackson, 2005) seems to
have influenced the Strategy’s focus on the need for innovative deliberative
and participative mechanisms for policy making around regulating consumption
as well as the need for government leading by example in terms of public
procurement, as the main policy contribution towards addressing sustainable
consumption. Changing behaviour is difficult. The evidence in this review is
unequivocal in that respect. Overcoming problems of consumer lock- in,
unfreezing old habits and forming new ones, understanding the complexity of
the social logic in which individual behaviours are embedded: all these are
pre-requisites for successful behaviour change initiatives. But in spite of all appearances this
complex terrain is not intractable to policy intervention. Policy already
intervenes in human behaviour both directly and indirectly in numerous ways…a
genuine understanding of the social and institutional context of consumer
action opens out a much more creative vista for policy innovation than has
hitherto been recognised. Expanding on these opportunities is the new
challenge for sustainable consumption policy. In following up on these possibilities, Government can draw some clear
guidance from the evidence base. In the first place, leading by example is
paramount. The evidence suggests that
discursive, elaborative processes are a vital element in behaviour change –
in particular in negotiating new social norms and ‘unfreezing’ habitual
behaviours. This shift from ‘deliberation’ to ‘elaboration’ as a working
model of behavioural change can be seen as a key message of this study.
(Jackson, 2005: 132-3) He goes on to point out that there is perhaps some hope to be found in
more participatory community-based approaches to changing patterns of
consumption. According to him, In particular, the relevance of facilitating conditions, the role of
lock-in and the critical importance of the social and cultural context emerge
as key features of the debate. The role of community in mediating and
moderating individual behaviours is also clear. There are some strong
suggestions that participatory community-based processes could offer
effective avenues for exploring pro-environmental and pro-social behavioural
change. There are even some examples of such initiatives which appear to have
some success. What is missing from this evidence base, at present, is
unequivocal proof that community-based initiatives can achieve the level of
behavioural change necessary to meet environmental and social objectives.
(Jackson, 2005: 133) This does seem to suggest that there is a role not just for deliberative,
community-based processes (as indicated in the DEFRA
strategy document) as enabling processes to overcome the obstacles to more
sustainable patterns of consumption, but also of the possible role of
community-based initiatives for delivering sustainable consumption
itself. Here, the role of the social
economy and community-based enterprises and the wider informal economy, can
be seen as important loci for sustainable consumption as well as sustainable
production, suggesting a happy marriage between the three bottom lines of
sustainable development within this sector (Barry and Smith, 2005).9 Jackson concludes that, It is clear from this that behaviour change initiatives are going to
encounter considerable resistance unless and until it is possible to
substitute for these important functions of society in some other ways. In
this context, motivating sustainable consumption has to be as much about
building supportive communities, promoting inclusive societies, providing
meaningful work, and encouraging purposeful lives as it is about awareness
raising, fiscal policy and persuasion. This is not to suggest that Government
should be faint- hearted in encouraging and supporting pro-environmental
behaviour. On the contrary, a robust effort is clearly needed; and the
evidence reviewed in this study offers a far more creative vista for policy
innovation than has hitherto been recognised.
(Jackson, 2005: 133-4). A central aspect of the state
in EM is its ‘enabling’, co-ordinating and
supporting role, in terms of encouraging technological innovation and greater
economic and ecologically efficient use of resources and energy. Through
subsidies and research and development assistance for renewable energy, or
investment in fuel cell technology, to forms of environmental regulation,
setting emissions standards, environmental taxes and other regulatory
mechanisms: “Regulation can be used to drive the process of industrial
innovation with environmental and economic gains realised as a result”
(Murphy and Gouldson, 2000, p. 43). Indeed, much of
the ‘modernisation’ aspect of EM rests on the
central emphasis on innovation, both technologically as well in production
processes and management and distribution systems.10 Smart
production systems, ‘doing more with less’, applying novel scientific
breakthroughs (for example in renewable energy, biotechnology and information
and communication technology, such as nanotechnology) and developing and
utilising ‘clean’ technologies, are all hallmarks of the modern, dynamic,
forward-looking, solutions-focused character of EM.
While the state ‘enables’ and supports innovation, it is left to the private sector
to develop, test and market these new ecologically efficient innovations and
production methods. However, while the issue of
consumption is not (yet) integrated within EM
thinking, a related and perhaps more damning critique from a robust or radical
conception of sustainable development, is that EM
is explicitly viewed as contributing to rather than challenging or changing
the orthodox economic policy objective of growth in the formal economy as
measured by GNP/GDP. In short, EM – at most –deals with the effects rather than the
underlying causes of unsustainable development. From Economic Growth to Economic Security
The critique of conventional
economic growth has been a long-standing position of green thinking and more radical
conceptions of sustainable development.
Indeed, I would suggest that for any plausibly ‘green’ model of
political economy to be classed as ‘green’, this critique of conventional,
neo-classical economic growth as the main economic policy objective of any
state or society is a sine qua non.
Now while there are many debates as to understandings and measurements
of ‘economic growth’ (does growth refer to increases in monetary value or
does it refer to physical/resource measures?), a ‘post-growth’ economy is one
that has featured prominently within green political and economic discourse,
most usually associated with the environmental benefits of a less growth
orientated and programmed economic system.
A major report by the
International Labour Office Economic Security
for a Better World (ILO, 2004) found that
economic security coupled with democracy and equality and not economic growth
per se, were key determinants of well-being and social stability. According to this report People in countries that provide citizens
with a high level of economic security have a higher level of happiness on
average, as measured by surveys of national levels of life-satisfaction and
happiness…The most important determinant of national happiness if not income
level – there is a positive association, but
rising income seems to have little effect as wealthy countries grow more
wealthier. Rather the key factor
is the extent of income security, measured in terms of income protection and
a low degree of income inequality. (ILO, 2004: emphasis added) Such findings give empirical
support to long-standing green arguments stressing the need for policies to
increase well-being and quality of life, rather than conventionally measured
economic growth, rising personal income levels or orthodox measures of wealth
and prosperity. In particular, the report
confirms the long-standing green critique of economic growth as necessarily
contributing to well-being. It states
that, “there is only a weak impact of economic growth on security measured
over the longer-term. In other words,
rapid growth does not necessarily create better economic security, although
it sometimes can do if it is accompanied by appropriate social policies” (ILO, 2004). Of
particular note is that many of the policies the ILO
recommends to accompany an orthodox growth objective go against the
neo-liberal/Washington consensus model – premised on increasing the openness
national economies to one another, integrating them into the global market
and prioritising trade and Foreign Direct Investment as the main determinants
of domestic economic growth. The ILO report makes the point that: For developing countries national level of
economic security is inversely related to capital account openness, implying
that it would be sensible for developing countries to delay opening their
capital accounts until institutional developments and social policies were in
place to enable their societies to withstand external shocks. In other words, countries should postpone
opening their financial markets until they have the institutional capacities
to handle fluctuations in confidence and the impact of external economic
developments. (ILO, 2004) At the same time, that a
democratic political system has no necessary connection with ever increasing
levels of material consumption is a touchstone of green democratic arguments
(Barry 1999), and indeed democratic and egalitarian principles are at the
heart of sustainable development (Jacobs, 1999). More important to a democratic polity is a
well developed ‘democratic culture’, a shared sense of citizenship, plurality
and socio-economic and political equality.
Plurality and equality are more significant than prosperity as
preconditions for an ongoing and vibrant democracy. In other words, a shift away from ‘economic
growth’ and orthodox understandings of ‘prosperity’ should be taken as an
opportunity to redefine basic political and economic concepts. It asks us to consider the possibility that
human freedom and a well organised and governed polity does not depend, in
any fundamental sense, on increasing levels of material affluence. Indeed, there may be a trade-off between
democracy and orthodox economic growth and a related government policy
heavily or exclusively focused on improving material well-being. According to a study by Lauber (1978) in the late 1970s, there is evidence to
show that the relatively democratic and liberal, and consequently less
powerful, British state was an important determinant of the stagnation and
decline of its economy since the second world war. Relying on the comparative studies of Schonfield (1965), he states that, “the governments that
have been most successful in the pursuit of the new [economic] goals have
been those which had few doubts about the extensive use of non-elected
authority, for example, France. The
more ‘timid’ governments were less successful” (Lauber,
1978: 209). Having ‘modernisation’ and
the pursuit of orthodox economic growth as one’s highest goal can lead to
non-democratic, illiberal forms of state action, or policies and styles of
governance that at the very least are at odds with a pluralist and liberal
democratic system. It needs to be recalled that the ‘free
market’ revolution ushered in by the likes of Thatcher in the United Kingdom
and Regan in the US were also accompanied by a centralisation and
strengthening of the state, and an redrawing of the relationship between
state and civil society which privileged the former over the latter. The ‘free market and strong state’ are both
still with us, increasingly integrated under economic globalisation and those
governments – such as New Labour – that embrace and promote a broadly
neo-liberal version of globalisation (Barry and Paterson, 2004) . The ILO
report quoted earlier provides other evidence of the dangers of economic
growth policies that undermine economic (and communal) security. The report finds that the global
distribution of economic security does not correspond to the global
distribution of income, and that countries in South and South-East Asia have
a greater share of global economic security than their share of the world’s
income…By contrast, Latin American countries provide their citizens with less
economic security than could be expected from their relative income levels. Indeed, being insecure has resonance in
people’s attitudes, which at times can be detrimental to their ideas of a
decent society. In a recent survey
taken by the Latino barometro in Latin America, 76%
of the people surveyed were concerned about not having a job the following
year, and a majority said that they would not mind a non-democratic
government if it could solve their unemployment problems (ILO, 2004). So, not only states, but
citizens can contemplate and act in non-democratic ways in pursuit of orthodox
economic modernisation and economic growth objectives. If one values democracy and its values of
pluralism, freedom, equality and so on, then one has to seriously question
any putative or enforced connection between its maintenance and further development
and orthodox policies aimed at economic growth.11 The ILO report
goes on to note that “economic insecurity fosters intolerance and stress,
which contribute to social illness and ultimately may lead to social
violence” (ILO, 2004).12 An economy less geared towards
universalising and promoting materially affluent lifestyles and consumption
may be consistent with enhanced democratic practice since the decrease in
complexity, social division of labour, inequality and hierarchy, allows the
possibility of greater participation by individuals in the decisions that
affect their lives and that of their communities. For example, a shift away from economic
growth as a central social goal would undermine the justification of
socio-economic inequalities on the grounds that they are necessary
‘incentives’ to achieve economic growth.
At the same time, as early proponents of the steady-state economy
pointed out, the shift from a society geared towards economic growth, to a
society where material growth is not a priority may lead to more extensive
redistributive measures, a point made many years ago by forerunners of green
economic thinking such as Herman Daly (Daly, 1973). This
redistributive aspect to the sustainability critique of excessive material
development echoes the socialist critique of the disparity between formal
political equality and socio-economic inequality within capitalism. Indeed, the findings of the ILO report not only strengthen sustainability arguments
concerning the non-democratic and non-well-being contribution of economic
growth policies, but also the dangers of authoritarian positions. Over 150 years ago Alexis de
Tocqueville suggested that, “General prosperity is favourable to the
stability of all governments, but more particularly of a democratic one,
which depends upon the will of the majority, and especially upon the will of
that portion of the community which is most exposed to want. When the people rule, they must be rendered
happy or they will overturn the state: and misery stimulates them to those
excesses to which ambition rouses kings” (de Tocqueville, 1956: 129-30). This assumption of the
positive correlation between material affluence and the stability of a
democratic political order is one which is closely associated with ‘modern’
political traditions such as liberalism and Marxism.13 In this section it is the negative
corollary of this assumption, i.e. that material scarcity creates the
conditions for political instability and a shift to authoritarianism that will
be examined. What can be called a
‘Hobbes-Malthus’ position underpins the
‘eco-authoritarian’ school of green thought (Barry, 1999), which in the
literature is most closely associated with Ophuls
(1977), Hardin (1968, 1977) and Heilbroner (1980).
The eco-authoritarian implication of the link between scarcity and political
arrangements has been forcefully made by Ophuls. He begins from the assumption that, The institution of government whether it takes the form of primitive taboo or parliamentary democracy...has its origins in the necessity to distribute scarce resources in an orderly fashion. It follows that assumptions about scarcity are absolutely central to any economic or political doctrine and that the relative scarcity or abundance of goods has a substantial and direct impact on the character of political, social and economic institutions (1977: 8). Calling the affluence
experienced by western societies over the last two hundred years or so
‘abnormal’, a material condition which has grounded individual liberty,
democracy and stability (1977: 12), he concludes that with the advent of the
ecological crisis, interpreted as a return to scarcity (following ‘the limits
to growth’ thesis), ‘the golden age of individualism, liberty and democracy
is all but over. In many important
respects we shall be obliged to return to something resembling the pre-modern
closed polity’ (1977: 145). These eco–authoritarian arguments can be countered if one focuses not on economic prosperity or growth as the main connection between democracy and individual freedom and social and political stability, but on economic security. In part, what this implies is that economic growth policies to be effective in promoting the goal of economic security need to be connected to redistributive and other policies. In particular, as well as supporting policies promoting job security (and job/skill satisfaction)14, and ones promoting income security within employment (such as minimum wage legislation), greens have also been long-standing advocates for income security outside the formal employment sphere, through a universal, rights-based provision of a basic citizen’s income, and also promoting the basic claim that ‘work’ (socially useful, necessary but often in the non-monetised and informal economy) should not be either conflated with nor deemed to be less socially valued than formally paid employment.15 Conclusion: Integrating Ecological modernisation, Innovation and
Economic Security? While viewed by itself EM is a reformist and limited strategy for achieving a more sustainable economy and society, and indeed questions could be legitimately asked as to whether the development of a recognisably ‘green’ political economy for sustainable development can be based on it, I nevertheless contend that there are strategic advantages in seeking to build upon and radicalise EM. While there are various reasons one can give for this, in this conclusion I will focus on two – one normative/principled the other strategic. From a strategic point of view, it is clear that, as Dryzek and his colleagues have shown (Dryzek et al, 2003) , if green and sustainability goals, aims and objectives are to be integrated within state policy, these need to attach themselves to one of the core state imperatives – accumulation/economic growth or legitimacy (Barry, 2003a). It is clear that the discourse of EM allows (some) green objectives to be integrated/translated into a policy language and framework which complements and does not undermine the state’s core imperative of pursuing orthodox economic growth. Therefore if (in the absence of a Green Party forming a government or being part of a ruling coalition, or even more unlikely of one of the main traditional parties initiating policies consistent with a radical understanding of sustainable development), the best that can be hoped for under current political conditions is the ‘greening of growth and capitalism’ i.e. EM. On a more principled note, the adoption of EM as a starting point for the development of a model/theory of green political economy does carry with it the not inconsiderable benefit of removing the ‘anti-growth’ and ‘limits to growth’ legacy which has (in my view) held back the theoretical development of a positive, attractive, modern conceptualisation of green political economy and radical conceptualisations of sustainable development. Here the technological innovation, the role of regulation driving innovation and efficiency, the promise that the transition to a more sustainable economy and society does not necessarily mean completely abandoning current lifestyles and aspirations – strategically important in generating democratic support for sustainable development, and as indicated above, important if the vision of a green sustainable economy is one which promotes diversity and tolerance in lifestyles and does not demand that everyone conforms to a putative ‘green’ lifestyle. Equally, this approach does not completely reject the positive role/s of a regulated market within sustainable development. However, it does demand a clear shift towards making the promotion of economic security (and quality of life) central to economic policy. Only when this happens can we say we have begun the transition to implementing the principles of sustainable development rather than fruitlessly seeking for some ‘greenprint’ of an abstract and utopian vision of the (as opposed to a) ‘sustainable society’.
1.
Indeed, critiquing consumption on moral grounds as somehow ‘ethically
impoverishing’, is a strategic distraction from aligning a vision for a more
sustainable economy and society with the aspirations of people for a better
life. 2. On the
relationship between ‘liberalism’ (and liberal democracy) and green politics
and sustainability, see Eckersley (1992), Barry and
Wissenburg (2001), Hailwood
(2004), Wissenburg (1998), Bell (2002). 3. By
distinguishing ‘green’ from ‘environmental’ and ‘ecological’, I am indicating
that we need to place non-ecological and non-environmental considerations of
social and global justice, democracy, human rights, gender equality and so on
at the heart of sustainable development, rather than narrowly focusing on
ecological or socio-ecological issues. 4. For a
survey of ecological modernisation in non-Northern states, see Mol and Sonnenfeld (2000). 5. US
President George Bush’s 2006 state of the union address in which he
explicitly focused on technological solutions to reducing America’s addition
to oil is a good example of a narrow ecological modernisation approach. 6. A
graphic illustration of the unrealistic assumptions made for technological
improvements as the way to ‘innovate’ ourselves out of unsustainability
is given by Jacobs with his ‘sustainability equation’ (1996: 27) . The relationship between environmental
impact and human activity can be expressed as follows: I = Environmental Impact P = Population, C =
Consumption per person T =
Environmental Impact per unit of consumption (measure of how efficiently the
economy is using environmental resources and producing wastes). I = P × C
× T To
decrease I, either P has to fall, C has to fall or T has to fall (implying an
increase in environmental efficiency). T is therefore a measure of
‘environmental efficiency of production’.
Thus, to
decrease I by 50% over the next 50 years while the world economy grows by
2-3% per annum (implying a four-fold increase in consumption and a doubling
of world population), T would have to be one-sixteenth its present level by
2050. That is, technologies and living patterns would have to be 91% more
environmentally efficient than they are now.
To think that such levels of technologically-induced efficiency is
possible is wishful thinking, but this is precisely the way in which
sustainable development is viewed by central government, since it does not
question growth in consumption, energy use, air travel, car and road building
etc. Hence the UK’s government’s
commitment to building a new generation of nuclear power stations fits perfectly
into a ecological modernisation view of sustainable development in that, from
the government’s point of view: -
it requires technological innovation – the new
generation of nuclear power stations will be better than previous models; -
it will create new markets and (hopefully) can be
left to the private sector -
it does not require policies to manage energy
demand, but is a supply-side policy response -
it does not fundamentally challenge the orthodox
economic growth model underpinning government policies. 7. The
‘environmental Kuznets curve’ (EKC)
approach is the principal site where an attempt is made to demonstrate
(rather than assert) the potential to combine environmental improvements with
economic growth (Ekins, 2000; Cole, 1999). The
basic assumption of the EKC analysis is that
continued economic growth passes a point beyond which environmental
degradation begins to decrease (Ekins, 2000, pp.
182-3). 8. By
‘neo-liberalism’ I mean the ideology which promotes the deregulation of
markets, the rolling back of the state, and the progressive dismantling or
‘hollowing out’ of the welfare state, the opening of domestic markets to the
world economy and the creation of the ‘competition state’ (Sklair, 2001). By
corporatism, I mean institutionalised regimes and procedures within a society
whereby the elites and representatives of the state/government of the day,
dominant market interests and actors and organised labour together
‘corporately’ set the framework of public policy. 10.
‘Innovation is central to ecological modernisation of production because it
is through innovation and change that environmental concerns can begin to be
integrated into production’ (Murphy, 2001, p. 9). 11. At
this point the ‘liberal/post-liberal’ character of the model of green
political economy outlined here needs to be again stressed, particularly in
the way that, as I have argued elsewhere (Barry, 2001), this green,
post-liberal model of green political economy requires a separation of a)
liberalism from capitalism and b) the separation of democracy from currently
liberal democratic forms. He goes on to point out that, “Everywhere market ‘restructurings’ and ‘adjustments’
have escalated social inequalities, consistently increased real unemployment
rates and part-time jobs without benefits, eliminated or reduced minimum
wages, and reduced the lifelines of funding to every public form of social
security, learning, health-care, culture, and transportation which societies
have achieved over half a century or more of social development” (McMutry, 1996: 148). 13.
Classical liberals such as Tocqueville assumed a relationship between an affluent
economy and political democracy. One
aspect of Tocqueville’s thought turns on the idea
that “a flourishing economy is essential to the stability of democracy, since
it gives defeated politicians an alternative, which makes them more likely to
accept defeat rather than attempt to illegally to hold on to office” (Copp et al, 1995: 3).
Classical Marxism, on the other hand, assumed a connection between
‘emancipation’ and material abundance.
The roots of the different understandings of the connection between
the two may lie in the inter-relationship between the logics and legacies of
the Industrial and French Revolutions, understood as expressing the core
values of modernity, one relating to economic abundance and the other to
political democracy. 14.
Another of the ILO report’s findings was that one
of the seven forms of work-related security, skills security was “inversely
related to well-being when jobs are poorly attuned to the needs and
aspirations of people, especially as they become more educated and acquire
more skills and competencies. At present, too many people are finding that
their skills and qualifications do not correspond to the jobs they have to
perform, resulting in a ‘status frustration’ effect” (ILO,
2004). One of the clear implications
of this is that the mantra that job creation per se is all that matters is
one that does not necessarily support economic security and the promotion of
well-being. From a purely economistic and orthodox position promoting economic
growth, employment creation is completely indifferent to the quality or the
types of jobs that are being created.
On this orthodox economic view, short-term, low-paid, low-skilled jobs
(‘McJobs’ or jobs in call-centres for example) are
to be judged as the same as skilled, highly-paid jobs with high levels of job
satisfaction and job security. 15. In
this way it is clear that the model of green political economy outlined here
necessarily goes beyond the conventional understanding of the ‘economy’ and
moves in the direction of an expansive view of the economy which includes the
unpaid gendered caring work of women and others, and non-market contributors
to human well-being and quality of life.
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