“The earth has enough for the needs of all, but not the greed of a few.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Sustainability means living within the Earth’s limits. In a sustainable future, air and water would be clean, so that no Canadian would ever think twice about going outside or drinking a glass of tap water. Food would be free from pesticide residues, antibiotics, and growth hormones. Air, water, and soil would be uncontaminated by toxic substances…Clean, renewable energy would be generated by harnessing the sun, the wind, water, and the heat of the Earth.” (Boyd, 1)

Biological diversity is under assault, the ozone layer is being depleted, weather patterns are changing, sea levels are rising, and human society, particularly industrial society, is the primary culprit. This scientific reality is so well-documented that it hardly bears citation (Boyd, 5, 6); in fact, these scientific realities are the premises of all the books cited in this argument. It is not a question of whether sustainable economics is possible. It is a question of when, how easy the transition can be made, and what the implications of implementing sustainable economics will be.

From the ancient native civilizations of pre-Westernized North America to the modern-day Indians of the Narmada Valley southwest of New Delhi, sustainable societies have existed and continue to exist (Shiva, preface x). They provide models for a necessary transformation of the Western industrial model of political economy and political philosophy.

Industrial economies in the liberal democracies of the West are based on flawed pillars that sustain them at the expense of the South and of their own peoples’ long-term well-being. The twin pillars of corporate personhood and technology (in the machine sense only, viewed as separate from nature) are the modern-day foundation of the West’s consumption culture. These concepts have poisoned the well of democracy – the only check available to us on the activities of ecologically destructive practices – and have enabled the spread of an economic and political movement known as globalization to infect the rest of the world. The result is an increase in conflicts over the commons [things we all depend upon for life: air, water, food, etc.] in many developing nations and an acceleration of environmental destruction throughout the planet (Shiva, preface xii).
Getting to an economics and politics of sustainability is a challenge with many obstacles. There are three primary and three secondary obstacles to sustainability and in examening them it will become clear that in saving the planet through sustainable economics we also reinvigorate our democracy and prevent further decay to self-rule.

The first obstacle is the most powerful institution the world has ever known: the corporation and a legal device that gives it inordinate power. That device, ‘corporate personhood,’ must be eliminated or radicallly altered. Currently corporations can legally own property, enter into contracts, and claim the vast majority of rights that the average citizen has. But this ignores the reality that corporations are not people. Corporations are, in effect, immortal and have sums of money at their disposal that gives them extreme and unfair weight in society. They are morally neutral entities who often act immorally in the pursuit of profits – their only mandate as chartered under the law. Corporations, in effect, have rights but no responsibilities. Citizens have rights and responsibilities under the law. Corporations must be subordinate to the democratic will, not the other way around.

When 4,000 Indians died as a result of the Bhopal chemical disaster, the company responsible, Union-Carbide promised aid. To this day, not one dime has been paid to the victims’ families nor the estimated 12,000 survivors who suffer ill effects from the disaster (Cavanagh, 136, 138). Had an individual negligently killed 4,000 people, there would not be discussion of whether or not they should pay, they would be jailed or executed in short order. The fiction of the corporate person gives the corporate entity too much power. The weight and power of these institutions can save the Union-Carbides of the world, enabling them to evade justice. This legal fiction also insulates the shareholders from moral responsibility for the way in which their wealth is created. This must change.

Another reason to eliminate corporate personhood is to save democracies like that of the United States from de facto oligarchic corporate rule. Currently the vast majority of political campaign money comes from corporate sources. The voting records of the senators and congressmen who ostensibly represent us are more in tune with the desires of corporations than the constituencies they are from (Political Moneyline). This is, in practical effect, corporate bribery of our governing institutions. This must stop.

Lastly, corporate personhood has enabled the growth of dangerous concentrations of power and wealth that effectively create centralized economic systems – antithetical to Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and other liberal thinkers. “Centralized economic systems also erode the democratic base of politics. In a democracy, the economic agenda is the political agenda. When the former is hijacked…democracy is decimated. The only cards left in the hands of politicians eager to garner votes are those of race, religion, and ethnicity, which subsequently give rise to fundamentalism. And fundamentalism effectively fills the vacuum left by a decaying democracy.” (Shiva, preface, xii).

This recognition of the corrosive power of corporations on democracy requires that citizens once again be given control of the economic reigns and levers of political power. Only then can prudential decisions be made. Capturing the power of democracy for the citizen can be accomplished through constitutional amendment or respective legislation to create public financing of all political campaigns at the national (and state or provincial) level in all democratic states. If individual citizens and, more importantly, corporations are forbidden from contributing to political campaigns, then they cannot control the legislative game directly. Ownership of the representatives and levers of power would be returned to the citizenry.

At this point it is important to acknowledge that just because corporations are stripped of their legal entitlements and politicians are wedded to the public through campaign finance reform does mean sustainable economies will immediately emerge. But it is fair to say that without these two reforms that corporations will not have any incentive to permit the change of the status quo which has so greatly enriched them.

A third key in bringing sustainability into existence is to change the ways in which we measure our economies. We must measure the economy based not simply on production, but also on consumption and ecological impact. Currently no nation counts deforestation, denuding of wetlands, and desertification in its economic statistics. China’s explosive economic growth might look substantially different if the tremendous pollution and environmental destruction that has accompanied that growth were calculated as part of its GDP. This change in economic measurement would, in turn, economically motivate policymakers and members of the economy alike (Daly, 62-79).

In a paper this brief, a thoroughgoing examination of the last three recommendations is not possible. But they must be mentioned before providing the strongest evidence for the possibility of a sustainable economy on a national and global scale.

First, the environmentally and culturally destructive policies of the Bretton Woods institutions must be ended. End globalization; begin internationalism and the international civil society movement. Second, end the concept of technology as merely machine; integrate ecology into technological development (many universities are already doing this). This would provide us with the technologies of humanity’s teenage years, not the technology of our infancy which has treated the environment as an object, not companion to our survival and prosperity. Last, but not least, integrate whole-systems thinking into the scientific, social, political, and economic fields of study. We must see the intricate and interrelated nature of all fields of study to understand more completely our place in nature and its effect on our lives, our societies, and our politics (Cavanagh, Mander, Shiva).

The eco-technologies, sustainable economic measuring systems, and democratic political theories that would permit the flowering of a new international culture and civil society of sustainability exist today, right now. Whether the sustainable agricultural technologies of John Jeavons, Elaine Ingham, or Bill Mollison; whether the water conservation techniques of the Narmada Indians; whether the breakthroughs in hydrogen fuel-cell technologies; whether the recycling systems of Japan which reclaim 80% of consumer waste; or whether the economic theories of Herman Daly or John Cobb, Jr. the pieces are assembled and ready to be used. All that is necessary is the political will of citizens and government to implement them (Boyd, 1, 2). In fact, the David Suzuki foundation prepared a report on how Canadian policymakers could convert the entire Canadian society and industry to a sustainability using current technologies within 30 years time. Within that 30 year timescale the economy would benefit and the environment be improved.(Boyd, 1-48). Duplicating such a plan globally is in our vital self-interest.

The obstacles to their implementation are the twin pillars of the Western industrial model, a social tendency to guard the status quo, and the institutions that support the globalization movement (Cavanagh, 3-16). But to permit our comfort to lull us into thinking that we can wait another day could prove fatal. As the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita already know, a disturbed environment can be fatal in every way.

Beyond natural disasters we run the risk of more frequent wars over dwindling resources, economic collapse, destroyed cities, vanishing island nations, refugees, and ultimately the possible extinction of our species.

If sustainable economics is possible and the tools to make it a reality are before us, why not make the change now? Why wait until disaster forces our hand and millions suffer for our inaction?

A sustainable economy is one of abundance, centered around community and democracy. It is a vision of liberal and social democracy that integrates the commons with the individual, a vision of what is ecological with what is desirable and consumable. It is a vision that corrects the errors of our technological infancy while giving a gift of life to our posterity. It is a vision we must embrace before our children pay the price for our shortsightedness.


Works Cited

Boyd, David Richard. Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada. Vancouver, BC: David Suzuki Foundation, 2004.

Cavanagh, John, et. al. Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2004.

Daly, Herman E. “Sustainable Economic Development: Definitions, Principles, Policies.” The Essential Agrarian Reader. Ed. Norman Wirzba. Washington: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2003. 62-79.

Mander, Jerry. “Machine Logic: Industrializing Nature and Agriculture.” The Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Ed. Andrew Kimbrell. Washington: Island Press, 2002. 39-48.

Political Moneyline. 2005. <>

Shiva, Vandana. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002.

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