Vision of Hope

A Vision Of Hope for the Future

1. Introduction

From Stardust to UsAs one contemplates our tiny island of Life floating in the unimaginably vast, hostile reaches of space one is filled with awe. Awe that every atom of our being (except hydrogen) was forged in the nuclear fires of stars, most when stars exploded as supernovae. Awe that this stardust has evolved through the eons of time into conscious, sentient beings inhabiting our tiny island of Life. Awe that this consciousness is the Universe’s way of knowing itself. Awe that while the Universe as a whole is running down and decaying, our miniscule island of Life – Spaceship Earth – is running up, becoming ever more structured, organised and complex. Awe at the processes called life and photosynthesis that draw on the radiant energy of the Sun and continuously recreate material order and complexity, over-riding the Universe’s natural tendency to decay and rundown.

The Fish of Life Awe at the metaphor of our tiny island of life swimming like a small fish and making headway against the inexorable running down of the Universe. Awe that every living thing on this planet is a cousin, however remote, to every other living thing.

And yet through our economic system, we the conscious, sentient beings that inhabit this planet are unintentionally destroying the web of life and the biogeochemical cycles that are the very basis of our existence. It is as if we are mindlessly attacking and destroying the life-support systems of our Spaceship.

Is it our destiny, our fate, that stardust evolves into consciousness, knows itself briefly, and then extinguishes itself?

This is a vision of hope that it need not be this way. A vision of how the crew on Spaceship Earth can work together to ensure that our beautiful planet with its intricate mantle of life and the wonder of human consciousness can continue on its evolutionary journey into the unknown.

Spaceship Earth is Like Apollo 13

Life Support Rapidly Ebbing Away - Apollo 13 had 6 daysSpaceship Earth is in very deep trouble. Few of us realise that humanity is in an emergency situation like that of the Apollo 13 astronauts whose spaceship suffered an explosion that severely damaged their life-support systems as they were hurtling towards the Moon. For the next six days, their survival hung in the balance as their life-support ebbed away.

Spaceship Earth has 30 – 70 yearsSimilarly, the ecological systems and processes that constitute the life-support systems of Spaceship Earth are in rapid decline as a result of the scale and impact of human economic activity. This reality is widely documented by respected authorities including the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute in their report People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life. Specific examples of unsustainable human impacts include massive soil degradation and loss, declining quantity and quality of drinkable water, 4/21/23 Vision of Hope 1

fisheries in decline, ecosystems being destroyed and degraded, the ozone ‘hole’, global warming, and so on. The evidence suggests we have somewhere between 30 and 70 years before the situation becomes untenable for the continuation of human civilisation as we know it. Although it is largely invisible, we are in the midst of an extreme emergency. Making the invisible visible is part of the challenge.

The Window of Survival

Apollo 13’s WindowApollo 13 had lost its main engine and could not turn back. In order to survive, the crew had to steer for a point not far above the Moon’s surface such that its gravitational attraction would loop them around the Moon and slingshot them towards a ‘window’ in space a quarter of a million miles away and just one mile across. If they hit above the ‘window’, they would have bounced off the atmosphere and been lost in space. If they hit below the ‘window’, they would have nose-dived into the atmosphere and vapourised. Against all the odds, they survived.

Spaceship Earth’s WindowSimilarly, humanity’s challenge is to pass through a narrow ‘window of survival’ defined by ecological conditions that must be met if Spaceship Earth’s life-support systems are to continue to function. This is a huge challenge but like the Apollo 13 astronauts, we can do it.

Going the wrong way - Must Change CourseCurrently, our economic system places us on a trajectory that is taking us in almost the opposite direction. We need to make a very significant course correction if we are to pass through the ‘window’. In other words, our economic systems must urgently, with the stress on urgently, become compatible with the planet’s ecological life-support systems if human civilisation is to survive.

Multifaceted CrisisThe ecological crisis is not the only crisis confronting humanity. As we enter the third millennium, the passengers and crew of Spaceship Earth also find ourselves in the midst of social crisis, economic crisis, and spiritual crisis.

Social CrisisAt the core of the social crisis is growing inequity, the rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor. At one end of the scale, are the poor of the world (in both rich and poor counties) living in abject poverty, unhealthy, malnourished and starving to death. We are witnessing rapidly growing numbers of refugees as a consequence of ecological breakdown, war, and poverty.

At the other end of the scale, the ‘wealthiest’ 20% are mindless consumers in an increasingly stressful and purposeless rat race that is increasingly devoid of meaning. One in twenty Australians are on prescribed medication for stress, gambling is endemic and suicide has reached frightening proportions. Family and community is breaking down into a sea of individuals as Margaret Thatcher’s words, “there is no such thing as society, only individuals” become realised through the neoliberal ideology she championed.

It is these extremes of wealth and poverty that drive ecological breakdown. The rich consume the world to death while the poor degrade ecosystems in their struggle to survive.

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Economic CrisisThe economic system is clearly unstable, jobs are increasingly insecure, corporations are downsizing while others collapse. For those with jobs, we need to work longer and harder just to stay where we are. We are moving into global recession. The financial system is teetering on the brink and could collapse at any time, throwing humanity into ugly chaos that would make the Great Depression look mild by comparison.

Democratic CrisisThe so-called ‘free’ trade agenda is about dismantling democracy. It is about facilitating economic colonisation by global corporations. It establishes enforceable rules to allow private corporate power to over-ride government decisions and the democratic will of the people. ‘Free’ trade also leads to a progressive downward spiral in social and environmental standards – the so-called ‘race to the bottom’. We must never forget the immortal words of Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than that of the state itself. That, in essence, is fascism.”

Spiritual CrisisIn this newly emerged age of rampant competitive individualism we are increasingly isolated, stressed, and struggling to find meaning as we witness the social fabric unravelling around us. People are becoming increasingly disillusioned with life as it is today and seek a slower pace, less consumption, more meaning and a sense of purpose in their lives. And yet we continue to consume our planet to death as we seek to fill the spiritual void that lies within. But consumption only provides temporary relief and we continue to seek one consumption fix after another.

The Roots of the CrisisThe ecological, social, economic and spiritual crises are all inter-related and their symptoms merge, one into another. This is not surprising when we realise that they are all symptoms of the same underlying cause.

Humanity is the victim of a worldview that, while once useful, has now outlived its usefulness and become the instrument of our destruction. Our economic system and its structures and institutions are expressions of that worldview and lie at the root of each of these crises, which together constitute the sustainability crisis. In particular, the financial system and the market lock us into the unsustainable trajectory that is taking us in almost the opposite direction to where we need to be heading if we are to pass through the ecological window of survival’ that is sustainability.

The financial system locks us into exponential material growth that is eventually impossible on a finite planet. Furthermore, market forces, particularly when given free reign as is the trend of the past 25 years, powerfully promote both behaviours and outcomes that are ecologically unsustainable, inequitable and unjust, anti-democratic, anti-social and undermine the common good.

In short, our economic system is ecologically unsustainable, socially unsustainable and economically unsustainable. Our economic system lies at the root of the sustainability crisis.

Sustainable Development is Our Response to this CrisisHumanity’s response to this multifaceted sustainability crisis is the concept we call sustainable development. It recognises that human economic activity lies at the root of the environmental and social crises we face. It recognises that humanity is living beyond the carrying capacity of the planet and that we need to live within ecological limits. It identifies equity as the key to living within ecological limits while ensuring enough for everybody. More specifically, it identifies intergenerational equity and intragenerational equity as the fundamental requirements for sustainability. 4/21/23 Vision of Hope 3

Equity Within and Between GenerationsIntergenerational equity is equitable access to the material basis of human existence between the people who are alive today and all future generations, indefinitely into the future. It is about sharing Nature’s endowment amongst all generations forever. The last few generations have plundered this endowment leaving little legacy for future generations. We are stealing from our children, their children, and all future generations.

Participatory DemocracyIntragenerational equity is equitable access to the ecological and material basis of human existence for all the people alive today. It is about closing the gap between rich and poor countries and between the rich and poor within countries. It is about social and political equity, which translate into social justice and participatory democracy.

Rebuilding Community & Serving the Common GoodPerhaps less explicit in the concept of sustainable development is the condition of community although it is explicit in documents such as the Earth Charter as respect and care for the community of life, both human and non-human. No person is an island. What we are and what we do, our sense of purpose and meaning are socially defined by and through our relationships with others. Civilisation itself is a social enterprise. Rebuilding community, cultivating the nobler side of human nature and remembering that freedom cannot exist if individual freedoms ride roughshod over the common good – these are also requirements for sustainability.

In summary, the fundamental necessary conditions for sustainability are: Living within ecological limits; Equity, within and between generations; Participatory democracy; and finally, Rebuilding community and serving the common good.

There is more or less agreement that these are the basic necessary conditions for sustainability.

SD is a Flawed Paradigm – We Won’t Make It!Unfortunately, the popular model of sustainable development is not the answer to the sustainability crisis. While the necessary conditions spelt out in the sustainable development model are valid, the means it proposes to achieve these conditions are not. The primary means to achieving sustainable development are economic growth and a reliance on market forces – the very forces that are driving unsustainability! Sustainable development will continue to drive us along an unsustainable path (possibly a fraction more slowly although this is doubtful) in a world of deregulated markets where there is a rapidly growing demand for material things. Returning to our spaceship metaphor, sustainable development is little more than a minor course correction.

Our survival depends on developing a new and very different socio-economic system that is consistent with the necessary conditions for sustainability, which define the window of survival through which we must pass. At the very least, the financial system must be modified (fortunately, the necessary changes are not technically difficult) and market forces need to be constrained and channelled to serve the common good in much the same way as was done during the Keynesian era.


Crisis and OpportunityThis all sounds pretty pessimistic, but whether we like it or not, this is the reality we find ourselves in. However, one need not necessarily be pessimistic, for in crisis lies the seeds of opportunity. The ecological crisis provides a survival imperative to change direction. Fortunately, the necessary conditions for ecological survival are also the key to addressing the social, spiritual and economic crises confronting us.

The imperative of ecological survival provides humanity with the opportunity to create a truly civilised and spiritually fulfilling world that is ecologically sustainable, socially cohesive and just. Before presenting a vision of how this can be achieved we must first understand the nature of the problem and how we got ourselves into it.

The Argument in a NutshellEach section of the argument provides a further insight to help better understand our world, our plight and how we can constructively respond to it.

A Flawed WorldviewThe root of the problem is a worldview or map of reality that has outlived its usefulness. When Copernicus shifted the Earth from the centre of the universe to the position of a lowly planet circling the Sun, our worldview changed radically. This change of perception gave birth to the new idea of Progress and drastically changed the course of human evolution through the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. While the idea of Progress lifted the people of Europe out of the Dark Ages, it also set us on the trajectory of exponential growth and global domination by the European worldview. But nothing can grow forever. Now we need another Copernican change of perception, a new worldview that sees our planet as Apollo 13 and recognises and responds to the ecological survival imperative. Like all living systems humanity must stop growing and start maturing as a species. More on Worldviews

Once we realise our worldview is flawed, we need to understand sustainability as this is the new reality we must conform with. Sustainability is about having a viable material relationship between human and ecological systems. Life (Nature’s economy) creates order using solar energy and photosynthesis to concentrate, structure and organise dispersed matter from the environment into plants, animals, iron ore bodies, fossil fuel reserves, ecosystems and ultimately, the intricate web of living and non-living ecological relationships that constitute the biosphere. Life (and geological processes) makes matter useful and human economic systems survive by consuming useful matter or ‘usefulness’. The catch is that ‘usefulness’ is used up or degraded by modern economic activity. Sustainability requires humans to consume ‘usefulness’ no more quickly than Nature’s economy produces it.

Until the Copernican revolution, the relationship between the human system and the global ecological system was viable (although there were localised examples of unviable relationships). Then suddenly the human system’s consumption of ‘usefulness’ exploded exponentially as industrial production fuelled by vast stores of fossilised solar energy took off. Consequently, the ecological and material basis of our existence, which consists of ‘usefulness’, is disappearing. Now we have no choice but to create a new kind of economic system that consumes ‘usefulness’ no more quickly than Nature’s economy produces it. More on Sustainability

Once we understand sustainability, the next thing we need to understand is how we got here - our evolutionary journey and the evolving relationship between human and ecological systems through time. This relationship is an economic one – it is about how we meet our material needs. We travel the path from hunting and gathering to agriculture and on to the industrial age; the great transformation of society into


economy, our economic path to the present and the emergence of the sustainability problem as the global economy outgrew the supporting ecosystems on which it and we depend. More on Our Evolutionary Journey

Once we understand our evolutionary journey to the present, the next thing we need to understand is our economic system, and that it is a system of power created by the powerful for the powerful. We need to understand that the economic theory that legitimises this system of power is an unintentional fraud. That economists’ overwhelming desire to give theoretical support to Adam Smith’s dream - that the ‘invisible hand’ of the market will magically transform individual self interest into the greatest good for the greatest number - has resulted in a theory being unwittingly stitched together as an act of wish fulfilment to which most economists are blind.

We need to understand that the financial system is behind the growth explosion and that it locks us into exponential growth. The absurd mathematical logic of this system is to transform one cent at 6% compounding interest into a value equivalent to a universe made of pure gold in just 2000 years!

We need to understand that the theory of comparative advantage that underpins so-called ‘free’ trade isn’t true if money can cross national borders (which it does). We need to understand that ‘free’ trade agenda is about dismantling democracy. That it is about facilitating the economic colonisation of countries by global corporations. That it establishes enforceable rules to allow private corporate power to over-ride government decisions and the democratic will of the people.

We need to understand that the market is the most efficient means ever devised for transferring the effort and the money of the many upwards into the hands of the already wealthy and that this is why there is an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. This is why we have the obscene reality where the 290 richest people in the world have more wealth that the poorest half of the world’s population!

We need to understand the market as autopilot steering us in the wrong direction.

We need to understand that ‘free’ markets powerfully promote both behaviours and outcomes that are ecologically unsustainable, inequitable and unjust, anti-democratic, anti-social and undermine the common good. More on Understanding Economy

Once we understand the economic system, the next thing we need to understand is how consent for this system of power is manufactured in a democracy. Putting it bluntly, propaganda is used as a tool of disempowerment and to ‘manufacture consent’ for maintaining the status. In the words of Alex Carey, propaganda is used to “take the risk out of democracy”. It is also used to promote excessive levels of mindless consumption. More on Propaganda

Once we understand the economic system and how it is perpetuated, the next thing we need to understand is the incompatibility between the economic system and sustainability. As already mentioned, the financial system locks us into exponential material growth which is a long-run impossibility on a finite planet, and market forces, particularly when they are given free reign, powerfully promote both behaviours and outcomes that are ecologically unsustainable, inequitable and unjust, anti-democratic, anti-social and undermine the common good. The sustainable development paradigm is flawed because it assumes that the economic system is compatible with sustainability – indeed, it relies heavily on market forces and economic growth and does not question the financial system. More on Sustainability - Economy Incompatibility

Once we understand the incompatibility between the economic system and sustainability and that sustainable development is not the answer, the next thing to consider is the nature of a sustainable alternative. The economic system of a sustainable society will have to consume a trickle of ‘usefulness’ compared to the


current flood. The only way to do this is to build a new economic infrastructure that is solar powered and highly durable and will provide a flow of service rather than monetary income into the community.

This infrastructure would be more or less the same in all locations across the planet but adapted to, and reflecting local culture. Few people will ‘go to work’. Rather, people will engage in purposeful activity in their community. Life will be more social than economic. Life will be comfortable but not ostentatious. Communities will co-own their local economic infrastructure. Transport will be predominantly public and will be powered electrically. Economic activity will primarily consist of maintaining the durable infrastructure, food production and the production of non-durable goods.

A good metaphor to illustrate the durable infrastructure is the light bulb. Thomas Edison's light bulb still burns in the Smithsonian Institute a century after being made. If his crude bulb can last that long, there is no reason why we can't make light bulbs that lasts one or two thousand years. Existing fossil fuelled power stations could be retrofitted to solar thermal where one square kilometre of mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a boiler and large vacuum flasks store molten salt to generate electricity at night or when it is raining. There is a 385-megawatt plant in California that demonstrates the viability of this technology. If this infrastructure is built and co-owned publicly then all can share in its benefits which will be in the form of a direct flow of service (eg. light) rather than income (to keep buying light bulbs). The only ecological impact will be in the initial construction of the infrastructure. More on a Sustainable Alternative

Once we understand the nature of a possible sustainable alternative, we need to look at the transitionary path to take us from where we are to where we need to be. The proposal is for a 25-year period of economic growth during which we progressively build the durable sustainable infrastructure, rebuild community and educate society to the coming reality. This will be politically attractive, as it will address current problems of unemployment and recession.

The first step would be to wind back economic rationalism and implement a more Keynesian economic environment with increased government intervention in the economy to promote the public good. A staged transition of the financial system from a fractional reserve to 100% reserve would begin as soon as possible to stave off financial collapse and to remove the exponential imperative from the financial system.

The first step would also include education and research initiatives to provide the necessary knowledge and information to underpin the transition.

The next step would be to establish public companies (owned by all) to build and distribute the durable things of the sustainable economy (light bulbs, solar refrigeration, etc). Mass production that is unnecessary or has high ecological impact will be progressively phased out. Strong mutually supportive relationships would be established between rich and poor countries with the rich providing material support and the poor teaching how to rebuild community and community spirit. More on Transitionary Path

Once we understand the transitionary path, we need to look at how we can make it happen. A necessary pre-condition for such a transition is a vision of the destination, a viable pathway to get there, discontent with the status quo and a means to empower the citizenry.

The conditions are now ripe for making all this happen. People have become increasingly disillusioned with where society is heading. For some, it is simply a sense of disillusion, for others, it is a single issue they are passionate about. For yet others, there is an explicit recognition that rather than leading us to a brighter future as the propaganda would have us believe, economic rationalist policies such as deregulation, privatisation, trade liberalisation and the erosion of democracy are actually leading us ever deeper into crisis. There is a huge voice of concern but it is currently fragmented amongst countless groups, communities and issues.


This document provides both a vision of a destination and a pathway to get there. All that remains is to empower and mobilise the citizenry in an expression of informed democracy. A community not-for-profit organisation called Quest 2025 has been established as a vehicle to facilitate the education, empowerment and coordinated mobilisation of concerned citizens and organizations through the Internet, through National Community Discussion days to be held every two months, and through high profile people championing the cause. Through this process, on-the-ground community grassroots networks will be created and networked so that the fragmented voice of concern can be channelled and heard loud and clear.

The fragmented voice can be harnessed by identifying economic rationalism as a common denominator underpinning almost every issue that is of concern. Few if any issues can be won while we remain in the economic rationalist context. However, by uniting in our diversity we can wind back economic rationalism through coordinated, empowered, mass participation in the democratic process, we can make our politicians serve the common good. If they don't, we will vote for the servant-leaders within our communities who are not beholden to political parties and will serve the common good.

Having achieved this, and as the mindset of society changes to embrace sustainability as the new guiding vision, the transitionary path to a sustainable society can be implemented through the democratic process. More on Making It Happen

We should see this quest as an exciting adventure to create a better world that people across the world can participate in. It can unite humanity in common cause while maintaining our diversity and it can bring out the very best in human nature. Through this quest, an empowered citizenry can transform economy back into society and turn consumers back into citizens, we can reinvigorate democracy, rebuild community, create a more meaningful, cohesive and equitable society, and heal the planet’s ecosystems on which our existence ultimately depends. We have little choice but to work together to salvage our world before it is too late. More on the Quest Adventure

2. Understanding Worldviews – Our Tool of Survival

IntroductionThe Web of Life consists of millions of species that have coevolved from a common ancestor into a complex network of interdependent relationships that we know as the planet’s ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. The Web of Life is a single family with each species being a different expression of Life’s creative adaptation to the challenge of survival. Every living thing carries the spark of life that has been passed down through the ages in an unbroken chain from our shared original ancestor.

The survival of each species is dependent on its web of relationships with the other species that make up the ecosystem it lives in. Similarly, the human species is a dependent subsystem of the Web of Life although western civilisation has lived with the illusion for the past five centuries that humanity is separate from and above Nature (part of the flawed worldview). It is only in the last few years that we have rediscovered our total dependence on the Web of Life and that it is our life-support system.

The survival of all species depends on their ability to adapt to a changing environment and changing relationships with other species in the Web of Life. Those that can’t adapt quickly enough eventually disappear. The key to adaptation and survival is the extremely slow process of Darwinian evolution that involves the transmission of ‘successful’ genetic information and the occasional ‘successful’ mutation from one generation to the next.


Through this evolutionary process, the human strand of the Web of Life developed the ability to form and manipulate concepts, to plan and predict and to communicate ideas through language. These abilities have made possible a novel and potentially rapid evolutionary means of adaptation and survival – the transmission through language of ‘successful’ ideas from one generation to the next.

So humans have two modes of adaptation and survival - the very slow Darwinian mode via the transmission of genes and a potentially rapid Lamarkian mode via the transmission of ideas or ‘memes’ where great change is possible within the space of a single generation.

This ability to conceptualise and to transmit learned knowledge from one generation to the next has conferred an adaptive advantage on humans. Innovations such as fire, clothing and shelter have allowed humans, a tropical animal, to occupy some of the coldest regions of the planet.

Our principal tool of survival is our worldview, our conceptual map of reality. It is the consistent, comprehensive and interwoven explanation of everything that each language group has developed over time and transmitted as a part of culture from one generation to the next. It is the accumulated wisdom, passed down through the ages, of what works and what doesn’t.

A culture's worldview is the basis for its values, beliefs, attitudes, concepts, and behaviours and how it organises to meet its material needs. It influences how its members interact amongst themselves, with other cultures and with their environment.

Worldviews are codified as language. Our worldview is the interpretive lens through which we perceive, understand and experience our world. It is important to realise that we are totally unconscious of our worldview, that what we perceive is simply an interpretation and that people with different worldviews may experience the same reality in very different ways.

For example, ‘tree’ in one language may convey the idea or image of a single tree as in a colour photograph, as an object or noun. The observer and the observed may be seen as separate. ‘Tree’ in another language may convey the idea or image of seed becoming tree, tree becoming forest, as a process or verb. There may be no sense that observer and observed are separate – lung and tree may be seen as inseparable and there may be no sense of a boundary between oneself and the broader environment.

As our principal tool of survival, worldviews are inherently conservative, preserving the wisdom of the ages. However, when circumstances change, a worldview may need to change accordingly if it is to continue to facilitate survival. If it doesn’t adapt to the new reality, it may promote behaviours at odds with the new circumstances and become the tool of that culture’s extinction.

When Copernicus shifted the Earth from the centre of the universe to the position of a lowly planet circling the Sun, our worldview changed radically. This change of perception gave birth to the new idea of Progress and drastically changed the course of human evolution through the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. While the idea of Progress lifted the people of Europe out of the Dark Ages, it also set us on the trajectory of exponential growth and global domination by the European worldview. But nothing can grow forever. Now we need another Copernican change of perception, a new worldview that sees our planet as Apollo 13 and recognises and responds to the ecological survival imperative.

3. Understanding Sustainability


Sustainability is concerned with the viability of the material relationship between human systems and the ecological systems on which humanity is totally dependent. Ultimately, sustainability is about survival.

Life is a spontaneous, self-organising and self-sustaining process that has created the world we know today. Life creates order using solar energy and the wonder of photosynthesis to concentrate, structure and organise matter that was dispersed through the environment into useful forms (that we might call ‘usefulness’) that animals and other life forms must consume to stay alive. Animals (including humans) cannot live without a source of ‘usefulness’ (plants/animals) to feed off. From a human point of view, Life concentrates and transforms matter from the environment into countless forms of ‘usefulness’ beyond food – timber, crops, animals, iron ore bodies, fossil fuel deposits, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystems and ultimately, the intricate web of living and non-living ecological relationships that constitute the biosphere and our life-support system.

Consider, for example, that as a seed grows into a tree the dispersed minerals, water and gasses drawn from the environment are concentrated, organised and structured into the form of a tree. These elements are not useful until life has transformed them into a useful form. Similarly, mineral and fossil fuel deposits are only useful when they exist as concentrated deposits. Iron is one of the most abundant minerals in the Earth’s crust. It is everywhere in dilute form but is only useful and useable in those few places where certain bacteria concentrated it over billions of years into the iron ore bodies of today.

In other words, Life – or what we might call Nature’s economy – produces material things and material and energy flows that have the quality of ‘usefulness’ to humans. In addition to Life, some geological processes, such as glaciation that grinds rock to powder to become soil, also produce ‘usefulness’.

A catchHowever, there is a catch and this is the key to understanding sustainability. When we use useful matter, we use up its quality of ‘usefulness’ and return it to the environment in a less useful form. Consider our iron ore example: Economic activity mines the ore, produces iron and steel products that after a short life (50 years at most) dissipate back into the environment as rust. It is impractical to get down on hands and knees with a pair of tweezers and try to recover the rust. Similarly, when we use petrol, we cannot burn the exhaust again. Its ‘usefulness’ has been exhausted.

Unsustainability is the situation where the human economy consumes ‘usefulness’ more quickly than Nature’s economy can produce it. If we consume ‘usefulness’ more quickly than Nature produces it, then it will run out and we can’t live without it. The sustainable economy requires us to consume ‘usefulness’ no more quickly than Nature’s economy produces it.

Human economic systems, by which I mean the systems we establish to meet our material needs, are essentially systems designed to harvest or extract ‘usefulness’ or wealth from Nature’s economy or ‘the environment’ as we call it. Hunter-gathering generally has a minimal impact with the level of consumption of ‘usefulness’ being significantly less than Nature’s production. Agriculture, which involves modifying ecosystem processes to enhance their productivity, has a greater potential to be unsustainable as the collapse of the Mesopotamian and Mayan civilisations and the ‘granary of Rome’ are testament to. However, if designed to emulate ecological principles, it can be sustainable as forty centuries of continuous agricultural production in parts of China prove. In both hunter-gathering and pre-industrial agriculture where the ecological impact is limited by the availability of muscle power, ecological collapses have been localised to a few areas of very high population density.

The invention of the industrial economic system overcame the limitation of muscle power by drawing on vast quantities of fossilised energy (coal and oil) and sucking ever-increasing quantities of ‘usefulness’ (both


living and non-living) from the environment, processing it, using it for a while and then returning it to the environment as waste. So much energy has become available that the impacts are now global in scale and threaten global ecological collapse as far as the viability of human civilisation as we know it is concerned. We are running out of ‘usefulness’.

WealthIt is this ‘usefulness’ produced by Nature’s economy that is true wealth. It is extremely important to understand that economic systems do not produce wealth. They actually consume wealth! What the modern economy produces is money and money is not wealth, it is simply an entitlement to consume wealth. Since under the current financial system the quantity of money grows exponentially, the demand for ‘usefulness’ is also growing exponentially and exceeds Nature’s capacity to supply. The current financial system is the root cause of ecological collapse.

Solar and terrestrialThere is one last matter we need to consider. It is a law of Nature that the total ‘usefulness’ of any system runs down over time. Although Life is using solar energy to slowly produce a trickle of ‘usefulness’ on the Earth, this is at the expense of the Sun running down (burning out) and so the Earth-Sun system as a whole is running down. However, if terrestrial energy is used to create ‘usefulness’ for human purposes, then the total stock of ‘usefulness’ on Earth will run down as the benefits are outweighed by the greenhouse effect, pollution, and so on. It is for this reason that a sustainable society must be primarily solar powered.

The only way that a decent quality of life can be achieved for the 6 billion (and potentially 9 billion) passengers on Spaceship Earth is to produce extremely durable things that can last for hundreds and even thousands of years and for the economy to be solar powered.

4. Understanding Our Evolutionary JourneyOnce we understand sustainability, the next thing we need to understand is how we got here - our evolutionary journey and the evolving relationship between human and ecological systems through time. This relationship is an economic one – it is about how we meet our material needs. We travel the path from hunting and gathering to agriculture and on to the industrial age; the great transformation of society into economy, our economic path to the present and the emergence of the sustainability problem as the global economy outgrew the supporting ecosystems on which it and we depend.

5. Understanding the Economy Once we understand our evolutionary journey to the present, the next thing we need to understand is our economic system.

Financial System We need to understand that the financial system is behind the economic growth explosion and that it locks us into exponential growth. The reason is that under a fractional reserve financial system, all money comes into existence as interest bearing debt. Because of this, the money supply grows exponentially at the interest rate. When the money supply for most countries is plotted on a graph, the curve is one of about 6% compounding. The absurd mathematical logic of this system is to transform one cent into a value equivalent to a universe made of pure gold in just 2000 years!


Value of gold = $328 per oz x 16oz per lb x 2240 lb per ton x 2.19 x 1027 tons (mass of sun) x 109 suns per galaxy x 105 galaxies = $2.5 x 1048

‘Free’ Trade We need to understand that the theory of comparative advantage that underpins so-called ‘free’ trade isn’t true if money can cross national borders (which it does). We need to understand that ‘free’ trade agenda is about dismantling democracy. That it is about facilitating the economic colonisation of countries by global corporations. That it establishes enforceable rules to allow private corporate power to over-ride government decisions and the democratic will of the people.

The Market We need to understand that the market is the most efficient means ever devised for transferring the effort and the money of the many upwards into the hands of the already wealthy and that this is why there is an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. This is why we have the obscene reality where the 290 richest people in the world have more wealth that the poorest half of the world’s population!

Shortcomings of the MarketEconomic theory is based on a number of assumptions. One is the assumption limitless material progress. Sustainability is an issue because this is not true. Even if it were true, the market still has some well recognised shortcomings. Will look at these first before moving onto the contradictions of the market in the real world of absolute limits.

InequityThe nature of the market is to channel the wealth and the effort of the many into the hands of the few. This is why we see growing inequity, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, both within and between countries. The market is not a democratic institution because the rich have more dollar ‘votes’ than the poor. This means that the poor are either excluded or marginalised from deciding what happens and what is produced. This can lead to scarce resources being allocated to the production of luxury goods and services while the basic needs of the poor go unmet. Is it efficient for 80% of the world’s resources to support 20% of the world’s population while 80% of the population struggles to survive on the remaining 20%? The market only responds to the signals of those with money because money is the only signal that is recognised.

Economists claim that the market is value free, that it takes the existing distribution of money as a given and efficiently allocates resources according to that distribution. What they ignore is the tendency of the market to skew the existing distribution in favour of the wealthy over time.

Tendency away from Pure CompetitionPerfect competition is a fundamental condition for economic efficiency. It is also the controlling mechanism of capitalism. The basic condition for efficiency is a very large number of buyers and sellers. Because of the market’s inherent tendency to channel wealth to the already wealthy and to monopoly control, there is a tendency towards fewer sellers and away from perfect competition. There is also a tendency for producers to collude on prices, again undermining perfect competition.

Market Failure: Externalities and Public GoodsExternalities and public goods are two forms of market failure acknowledged by economists. Externalities exist when the market fails to price all the costs and/or benefits associated with a good or service. Typically, this occurs for things that are not privately owned – for common property. Most environmental problems are assumed to be due to externalities


Markets are institutions that can respond only to individual wants and needs. They cannot respond to social or collective needs because societies do not send out price signals as individuals do. The market cannot provide for public goods such as defence, lighthouses and many aspects of sustainability because most individuals will not voluntarily pay for things where everybody benefits because they know most people will not pay their share if they don’t have to – the ‘free rider’ problem. Consequently, taxes have to be collected from everyone in society to pay for the provision of public goods.

ValuesAll values are reduced to one value, the monetary value determined by the market.

6. Understanding the Economy as a System of Power - Manufacturing Consent

Once we understand our economic system, the next thing we need to understand is that the economic system is a system of power created by the powerful for the powerful. We need to understand that the economic theory that legitimises this system of power is an unintentional fraud. That economists’ overwhelming desire to give theoretical support to Adam Smith’s dream - that the ‘invisible hand’ of the market will magically transform individual self interest into the greatest good for the greatest number - has resulted in a theory being unwittingly stitched together as an act of wish fulfilment to which most economists are blind.

Once we understand the economic system, the next thing we need to understand is how consent for this system of power is manufactured in a democracy. Putting it bluntly, propaganda is used as a tool of disempowerment and to ‘manufacture consent’ for maintaining the status. In the words of Alex Carey, it is used to “take the risk out of democracy”. It is also used to promote excessive levels of mindless consumption.

7. Understanding the Incompatibility between the Economic System and Sustainability

Once we understand the economic system and how it is perpetuated, the next thing we need to understand is the incompatibility between the economic system and sustainability. As already mentioned, the financial system locks us into exponential material growth which is a long-run impossibility on a finite planet, and market forces, particularly when they are given free reign, powerfully promote both behaviours and outcomes that are ecologically unsustainable, that are inequitable and unjust, that are anti-democratic, that are anti-social and undermine the common good. The sustainable development paradigm is flawed because it assumes that the economic system is compatible with sustainability – indeed, it relies heavily on market forces and economic growth and does not question the financial system.

The popular model of sustainable development is not the answer to the sustainability crisis. While the necessary conditions spelt out in the sustainable development model are valid, the means it proposes to achieve these conditions are not. Sustainable development is a flawed paradigm. Its fundamental flaw is the assumption that sustainability can be achieved within the current socio-economic system.

Sustainable Development (Brundtland’s Compromise)Economic growth is seen as the key to development


The thrust of my argument is that humanity is the victim of a flawed worldview and a flawed economic theory that reflects this worldview. Furthermore, this economic theory has been taken to fundamentalist extremes through the free market neoliberal ideology that has been imposed through a massive propaganda effort. The concept of sustainable development is similarly flawed, since it had to be made consistent with the flawed worldview and the neoliberal view of reality in order to be politically acceptable to those in power.

The model of sustainable development was largely the product of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development and was popularised in their 1987 report, Our Common Future, better known as the Brundtland Report. Prior to Brundtland, sustainability was understood to be in conflict with economic growth, largely as a result of the 1972 publication, The Limits to Growth. This made sustainability a political impossibility in a world wedded to economic growth. However, Limits lost credibility due to the failure of its predictions that oil and some natural resources would run out or that their prices would become very high. The perceived failure of Limits opened the way for the new concept of sustainable development.

Brundtland’s success in popularising the concept of sustainable development was achieved by transforming the politically impossible concept of sustainability into that of sustainable development, a concept that appeared to reconcile the contradiction between growth and limits and conformed to the prevailing economic worldview. For Brundtland, the key to sustainable development was a new kind of economic growth and a market-based approach to solving the sustainability problem. While this modified concept satisfied those in power, its prescriptions of economic growth and a reliance on market forces provide false hope in steering us towards sustainability.

Brundtland’s model is valid in its acceptance of the fundamental necessary conditions for sustainability:

Living within ecological limits; Equity, within and between generations; Participatory democracy; and finally, Rebuilding community and serving the common good.

Unfortunately, the Brundtland model uses flawed logic to arrive at its conclusion that these conditions can be achieved through economic growth and market forces. Also, it takes no account of the fundamental contradiction between the financial system and sustainability. This not to suggest that the Brundtland model was intentionally deceptive. It is more likely that it is the product of ignorance. The starting point in this flaw of logic is the way in which the relationship between economy, society and ecology is conceptualised.

Flawed Economy – Society – Ecology RelationshipThe ultimate human objective is the welfare of society. To ensure this in today’s world where we are exceeding the ecological carrying capacity of the planet, ecological sustainability must be the over-riding organising principle shaping society and economy.

A key principle of sustainable development is that social, economic and ecological considerations are competing considerations of equal importance and that decisions should be based on striking a balance between these competing considerations (a compromise between economic growth and sustainability). The market is a tool that facilitates such trade-offs in a way that is seen to be efficient. This adds weight to the idea that the market is a good tool for achieving sustainable outcomes.

There are a number of problems with seeing the social, the economic and the ecological as being of equal importance although it is an improvement on the current wisdom that sees the economy as everything, society as secondary and ecology (the environment) as an afterthought.


The key problem is that neither view reflects the current reality humanity finds itself in. Society is a totally dependent sub-system of the planet’s ecosystems and the human economy is one of the many sub-systems of society. Therefore, we need to adopt a systems view and see economy nested within society and society nested within ecology – the exact opposite of the traditional wisdom.

The following logic supports this approach. The over-riding concern of sustainability is the long–term welfare of society. A necessary precondition for this to occur is to ensure that the ecological and material basis of society is sustained in perpetuity. Otherwise, the material basis of economic activity dwindles and society eventually disappears, as was the case with Easter Island. So maintaining ecological integrity is the highest priority to ensure the long–term welfare of society. The next priority is to maximise the welfare of society within what may be thought of as an ecological budget constraint. This requires an economy that meets human material needs while maintaining ecological integrity and the stock of natural capital. The sustainability challenge is to design such an economy.

The problem with seeking to strike a balance between social, economic and ecological considerations is that there is no more room left to move, to trade of, on the ecological front. We have almost certainly exceeded ecological limits and sustainability will require us to claw our way back through ecological rehabilitation. Ecologically, we need to draw a line in the sand now, and go no further. Otherwise, we will go the way of the Easter Islanders.

Furthermore, it is irrational to see social and economic considerations as being in competition if economic activity is a means to achieving social ends. The reality is that economic activity serves the interests of the powerful and that this is in conflict with the interests of society at large. The equity principle of sustainability requires that economic activity serve the interests of all people in society and in such a context economic considerations cannot be in competition with social considerations.

The Reconciling Growth with Limits FlawBrundtland’s model proposes a new kind of economic growth - growth that is less material and energy intensive in its impact – as the way of getting around the problem of living within ecological and material limits. The argument is that if we can decrease the energy and material content of each unit of growth at the same rate as the economy grows, then the total material and energy content of the economy will remain constant.

The key flaw with this argument is that economic growth, being a percentage per annum, is exponential, which means it doubles every so many years. Whether the doubling period 15 years or 70 years, the economy will grow in the following pattern: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. To be sustainable, the material and

energy content of each unit of growth must decrease in the following way: 1, , , , , , , etc. The

logic of this is to move towards a spiritual economy in which each unit of economic activity will have no material or energy content!

Growth and the Financial SystemThe (exponential) economic growth being referred to is actually growth in the amount of money or purchasing power. This exponentially growing pool of purchasing power is the root of the sustainability problem. A market based economy without external constraints ensures that the material and energy demands of humanity (those with purchasing power) are met although the level of demand is unsustainable. Ironically, the current state of inequity reduces the global level of demand on the planet because the majority signal little if any demand. If all the world’s wealth were redistributed equally amongst all humanity, the demand would consume the ecological and material basis of our existence in a few short years.


Alternatively, we would currently need four or so planets to allow humanity to live a western standard of living and at a 3% growth rate, this number of planets would have to double every 24 years.

Clearly, neither economic growth nor wealth redistribution is an answer.

Misplaced Faith in the MarketSustainabilty is an economic problem in that it is about how people meet their material needs including those needs provided by ecological systems. But the sustainability problem is much broader than that addressed by the market. The market is limited to dealing with one aspect of the economic problem, the efficient allocation of resources. The market cannot deal with the sustainability conditions of living within ecological limits and equity, within and between generations.

Reliance on the market is the major flaw with the Brundtland model of sustainability. This flaw derives from the environmental economic school of thought that sees environmental problems, including unsustainability generally, as cases of market failure. Because air and water and other environmental factors are unpriced or underpriced, they get over-used resulting in environmental problems. The way to fix the market failure is to ‘get the prices right’ on those things that are unpriced or underpriced and then the market will solve the problem. Under ideal conditions, the market gives rise to something called economic efficiency. When you fix a market failure in this way, the outcome is economic efficiency, not sustainability.

A slightly different argument leading to the same conclusion begins with the valid observation that sustainability requires the dematerialisation of the economy. This can be achieved if we can use matter and energy more efficiently. This idea is called eco-efficiency. It is then assumed (incorrectly) that eco-efficiency is the same as economic efficiency and can be achieved through the market, again, by getting the prices right.

The key flaw in these arguments is to equate sustainability with economic efficiency when they are, in fact, very different things. The objective of sustainability is to constrain economic activity within the planet’s carrying capacity. It is about living within limits – living within a material/ecological budget constraint. The objective of economic efficiency is to maximise the dollar value of economic output from a given dollar value of inputs. Economic efficiency knows no limits. As the supply of dollars grows exponentially, so the dollar value of economic output can grow accordingly.

EfficiencySome ecological economists argue that the answer is to set ecological/material constraints and then allow the market to achieve economic efficiency within those constraints. But is economic efficiency a meaningful goal to pursue?

As we saw earlier, economic efficiency has two dimensions – efficient production and efficient allocation. Efficient production means maximising the dollar value of economic output from a given dollar value of inputs. There are a number of problems with this. It means the cheapest, not the most sustainable. At a deeper level, the problem here is that there is no way to get the abstract one-dimensional world of dollars to correspond to the multi-dimensional complexity of the material world. The values placed on things in the material world are not determined by the intrinsic values of those things but by the interactions of supply and demand. In other words, those values are not objective and based on a deep understanding of the thing in question; they are subjective and based on fashion and whim. Furthermore, the pursuit of economic efficiency require us to reduce all values to a single value, that of the dollar. Values are transformed into price. This removes the subtlety of making human judgements, of selecting from the range of values that are


in all things and replacing human judgement with a simplistic economic calculus. It also means that what happens is determined by what makes the most dollars.

The other dimension of economic efficiency is allocative efficiency. This means that resources are channelled into producing what is demanded in proportion to the price signals in the market. This means that the wants of the more wealthy in society (and in the world as global markets are ‘freed’) tend to be met while the basic needs of the poor can go unmet because they can’t compete against the wealthy in the market. If a sustainability constraint were put in place limiting production to sustainable levels, prices would rise substantially, further excluding the poor. If, wealth were redistributed (highly improbable), there would be very high prices and intense competition for resources and a possible breakdown of social order.

A suitable metaphor for our plight is that of passengers on a lifeboat (Apollo 13) with limited supplies. Do we allocate provisions through a competitive market or do we establish a regime of rationing? If we wish to maximise the welfare of all those on board, it would surely be the latter.

Aggregation ProblemPutting efficient production and allocation together, what the market does is ensure that what people want is produced at the cheapest price. In other words, its ethos is one of people getting whatever they want (so long as they have the money) at the cheapest possible price. However, while it may be rational for individuals to want a particular thing, the impact of millions of people wanting that thing may be socially and /or ecologically irrational. For example, the private car is an individually rational form of transport while public transport is socially rational; and visiting a wilderness is meaningless if thousands are doing it together.

Markets often create socially irrational outcomes and they detract from socially responsible behaviour in that each individual feels the right to consume whatever they like and for those who may feel a pang of social conscience can quickly dismiss this with the idea “my not buying (or buying) one will make no difference”. It is the unsustainable level of aggregate demand for unsustainable things that has created the Apollo-like ecological emergency we find ourselves in. An unconstrained market facilitates demand being met and as global income rises, already unsustainable levels of demand will continue to rise. As we have seen, even a constrained market is not the answer.

Relative vs. AbsoluteMarkets only work in the world of relative scarcity. Relative scarcity simply means one thing is more scarce relative to another thing. Price is simply the measure of the scarcity of one thing relative to the scarcity of another. In the economists’ world of relative scarcity, there may be some specific things that do run out, but overall nothing runs out because, as a thing gets close to running out, market forces will force its price to rise and this incentive plus human ingenuity will lead to more being found or a substitute being found. This is fine for things for which there are substitutes but for things without substitutes, things that are absolutely scarce such as ecological systems and the life-support functions they perform, this is a serious problem. This problem is compounded by the reality that markets have no way of dealing with absolute scarcity as prices, by definition, cannot reflect absolute scarcity.

Time – Bias to the PresentMarkets devalue or discount future values. Markets are inherently biased to maximising present day values due to the phenomenon of discounting. Discounting exists because we have interest rates and essentially, the discount rate equals the interest rate. If the interest rate is 10% then $100 invested today is worth $110 in one year’s time. Conversely, $110 worth of value in one year’s time is considered to be worth only $100 in present value terms. The present value of $110 worth of value in 5 and 10 year’s time is worth only $x and $y when discounted at 10%. Even at low discount rates, values 30 years into the future have almost no value in present day terms.4/21/23 Vision of Hope 17

In other words, markets place no value in the values of the next generation, let alone, the values of future generations. This is the opposite of sustainability, which is primarily about the values of future generations. How markets deal with the issue of time is to define an ‘optimal depletion path’ for all resources. This path is such that present values are maximised. According to this approach, as a particular resource gets scarcer its price will rise until an economic substitute is found. This perverse logic is such that it is economically rational to harvest whales as fast as possible (as opposed to a ‘sustainable’ rate) until it becomes uneconomic and then invest the proceeds in harvesting something else (say forests), and so on. Eventually, there is nothing left to harvest and future generations are deprived of these things. The philosophical position of conventional economists is the assumption that the future will take care of itself - that rising prices, resource substitution, technological progress and human ingenuity will solve the problems of future generations.

CommodificationThe neoliberal agenda of market rule is seeing the increasing commodification of people, the environment and the ‘commons’ as those in power seek to take control of as much of the world as possible in order to make money. As the market embraces more things, they are moved beyond democratic control.

Exclusion of Poor and Future GenerationsOnly those with money can signal their needs and wants in the marketplace. This excludes the majority of the world’s population from making all but the feeblest signals in the marketplace for the barest of necessities. The sustainability condition of equity requires that all people’s needs be met.

As the neoliberal agenda transfers more and more decision making from the democratic arena into the marketplace, the poor (and even middle income earners) are increasingly excluded from influencing or participating in decisions affecting their future.

Future generations are also excluded from signalling their needs in the marketplace, simply because they do not exist.

8. Envisioning the Sustainable AlternativeOnce we understand the incompatibility between the economic system and sustainability and that sustainable development is not the answer, the next thing to consider is the nature of a sustainable alternative. The economic system of a sustainable society will have to consume a trickle of ‘usefulness’ compared to the current flood if its availability is not to run down. The most feasible way to do this is to build a new solar powered economic infrastructure that is highly durable and will provide a flow of service rather than monetary income into the community that owns it.

The new economic system should be solar powered because it mimics Nature’s economy and is the cleanest source of energy with the least ecological impacts. We need or want physical things such as cars, light bulbs and power stations not for themselves but for the services of transport, light and energy they provide. Mass production and ownership of short-lived physical things is a very inefficient way of delivering the services we need. This is why physical things in the new economic system need to be highly durable. The physical infrastructure (the physical things) needs to be publicly produced and owned to meet the fundamental sustainability condition of equity. That ensures everyone is an equal stakeholder in the infrastructure and has equal access to its benefits and costs. Otherwise it will be owned by the wealthy and most benefits will flow to them leading to the kind of growing inequity we are witnessing today. Finally, it is important to receive the benefits of the infrastructure directly in the form of service rather than indirectly as a monetary income to purchase that service because money is a form of power that can be accumulated and allow some to get more


benefits at the expense of others, and more importantly, give some people power over others. Since the infrastructure and the service it provides is co-owned, there is no need to buy the service and since sustainability limits the total availability of service its distribution will need be rationed. That doesn’t mean that there is no money or that we don’t have personal things, it’s just that we share the basic essential services of life.

A good way to picture the durable infrastructure is to think of the light bulb. Thomas Edison's light bulb still burns in the Smithsonian Institute a century after being made. If his crude bulb can last that long, there is no reason why we can't make light bulbs that lasts one or two thousand years. Existing fossil fuelled power stations could be retrofitted to solar thermal where one square kilometre of mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a boiler and large vacuum flasks store molten salt to generate electricity at night or when it is raining. There is a 385-megawatt plant in California that demonstrates the viability of this technology. If this infrastructure is built and owned publicly then all can share in its benefits which will be in the form of a direct flow of service (eg. light) rather than income (to keep buying light bulbs). The only ecological impact will be in the initial construction of the infrastructure.

This infrastructure would be more or less the same in all locations across the planet but adapted to, and reflecting local culture. In such a society, economic production will be a relative trickle. Economic activity will primarily consist of maintaining the community owned durable infrastructure, food production and the production of non-durable goods from renewable materials. This will probably take up one or two days a week. Few people will ‘go to work’. Rather, people will engage in purposeful activity in their community. Life will be more social than economic. Life will be comfortable but not ostentatious. The rest of the time will be devoted to bettering our societies, education, art, leisure and social pursuits - a society where our human potential can grow and civilisation flourish. This is not a primitive society but a sophisticated one, it is not communism but humans working cooperatively in order that civilisation may simply survive.

9. Feasible Transitionary PathTo be editedThe transitionary path to sustainability needs to be planned. We need to decide roughly where we need to be in 25, 50 and 100 years. If we have no idea of the destination, we’ll never get there. This Vision provides a crude compass to point us in the right direction. ‘Free’ market worshippers believe that the market (Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’) is like an automatic pilot that inevitably steers us along the path of progress and continual betterment, maximising the welfare of society as we go. This was to some extent true in the earlier days of the modern economic system (in those countries that were the leading edge of development) when meeting basic needs and aspirations drove technological progress. However, it was always exploitative and inequitable with a minority benefiting at the expense of the majority both within countries (rich vs. poor) and between countries (colonisers vs. colonised). As the economic system has evolved, it has become less true. Now the economic system largely ignores the needs of the poor (eg medicines for malaria and HIV in Africa and food for the starving and malnourished) and technological progress facilitates making money out of those who are already wealthy. Today the market is blind and takes us only where profit leads, serving the wealthy at the expense of everything else. As we have seen, it promotes economic, social and ecological outcomes that are the opposite to those of sustainability and human dignity.

This is why we need to work out a viable path into the future and consciously steer society in the right direction if Spaceship Earth is to remain a viable home. The following transitionary path sketches out such a path, a path that is based on meeting the necessary conditions of sustainability and creating a decent and rewarding life for all the people of the planet, no matter which part of it they may live on. Whatever plan we come up with, it will almost certainly be along the general lines described. The range of viable options


defined by these conditions is fairly narrow. Fortunately, the future that is portrayed is highly attractive, much more desirable than the stressful rat race we currently find ourselves caught up in.

This vision sees the transitionary path as one of intense social and economic activity for the next 25 years or so as we build the physical and social infrastructure of the sustainable society. It will be a period of full employment and will bring us out of the current global recession until we have made the transition and these considerations will no longer be important once the mass production economy is superseded by the sustainable society.

The transition will necessarily have many facets or dimensions. From a spiritual/social/psychological perspective, it will be about cultivating and encouraging the better qualities of human nature. It will be about people all over the world working together for the common good, about helping and lifting up the less fortunate rather than exploiting and pushing others down. It will be about cultivating the emerging new worldview that more accurately reflects our understanding of the world and human nature. From a material/ecological/economic dimension, it will be about building a new physical infrastructure that is highly durable and meets our material needs with minimal ecological impact and repairing the ecological damage of the past 200 years as best we can.

Some Transitionary DetailsIn simple terms, the transition is a response to an emergency situation on Spaceship Earth and involves a period of roughly 25 years of directed incremental global change, driven by the democratic process, to transform our societies into sustainable ones.

Reclaiming Government The first step involves the citizenry reclaiming government from political parties and the powerful vested interests they serve. It is about reclaiming democracy, because the necessary changes cannot occur without democratic oversight and public control. The necessary changes will only be possible to put into effect in the short timeframe available through our governments. Reclaiming government would mean government is ‘us’, not ‘them’. Government would evolve towards less bureaucracy and more community participation, involvement and local control. Government would play a much more facilitatory role, enabling communities to evolve in a sustainable direction.

It is about a participatory process of planning our way forward. The necessary biophysical constraints need to be understood, discussed and agreed upon. We need to decide what material flows and processes are essential and viable and those that are not on the basis of biophysical sustainability. It will be important to create a basis of social support as some economic activities are curtailed. Increasing public ownership will provide a basis for social support

Undoing Economic RationalismThe first economic step in the transition is to undo economic rationalism (neo-liberalism) as a matter of urgency and move towards a more Keynesian economic environment with increased government intervention and the re-establishment of publicly owned enterprises in key areas such as infrastructure construction, energy generation and banking.

The new economic paradigm of ecological economics (not environmental economics!) will need to be fostered and serve as the basis for designing and creating the sustainable society. It should be noted that this vision is inspired and shaped by the insights afforded by the ecological economic paradigm based on the foundational work of Kenneth Boulding, Nicholas Georgescu-Rogen and Herman Daly. An early initiative will be ecological tax reform to create a set of incentives/disincentives that promote sustainability. 4/21/23 Vision of Hope 20

Financial ReformAddressing financial reform is of the highest priority, first because the financial system is the fundamental driver of unsustainability, and second, because the financial system is highly unstable and collapse is a very real possibility. The chaos, anarchy, martial law and profound human suffering that would follow such a collapse must be avoided at all costs. Consequently, it is vital to put in place an emergency plan to deal with financial system collapse, hopefully to pre-empt such a collapse.

It is also important to begin measures to put the financial system onto a sounder footing such as the re-introduction of Statutory Reserve Deposits and preparing for a 10-year transition to 100% reserve. This is necessary to remove the exponential growth imperative and will also make public funds available for the necessary education and research to underpin the transition as well as the funds necessary for the construction of the sustainable infrastructure.

Research Significant funding needs to be spent on mapping all resource flows, particularly their rates and ecological impacts as the initial phase of planning our way into the future. The reason is that we need to understand the economy as a system of material flows and transformations because these are what are currently unsustainable. We can’t understand this problem from the abstract perspective of economics because it only deals with monetary flows. Additionally, things that are possible in the abstract world of economics are impossible in the real world. Or more accurately, they may be possible in the short run, but become completely untenable in the long run, ultimately destroying the ecological and material basis of our existence.

There is an urgent need to start identifying, researching and measuring these resource flows on a prioritised basis, addressing the most pressing sustainability constraints first. Establish sustainability clearinghouse to pool all available research and information on sustainability. Fund the establishment of think tanks where paradigm shifted researchers and thinkers can work together on addressing sustainability issues and in mapping the way forward. This must be open to all comers with something to offer. Design eco-efficient systems and processes because we know that markets have no incentive to do this.

Initiate the necessary research to fill the key gaps in understanding sustainability and the limitations of the market. Research and initiate the necessary paradigm shift in all levels of education and through the media so that the necessary path into the future becomes obvious common sense to society at large. Initiate research into defining and designing the durable physical infrastructure of the sustainable society and prioritise the retro-fitting of a coal-fired power station to solar thermal based on the Mojave Desert station as a practical example of a first step in the transition.

EducationBegin a public education campaign on sustainability and what it really means, and more importantly, the necessity and benefits of changing course and steering for a sustainability goal. Educate about the next 25 years of directed and planned economic growth and the leisure society at the end of it when we will have greatly reduced the volume of production and consumption. Begin an advertising campaign to cultivate and encourage values consistent with our better nature and with sustainability. In particular, it is important to transcend ‘making money’ as our purpose in life and to realise the higher quality of life we can achieve through adopting this approach. It is important to cultivate a sense that all purposeful activity is of equal worth, that we all have something of value to contribute.

Educate to dispel the ‘virtual reality’ created by spin doctors and advertising.


Informed ConsumptionEncourage discerning consumption and greatly increase the information (labelling) associated with goods and services so that the impacts of consumption choices on sustainability, equity and democracy are transparent when buying decisions are made.

Corporate ReformBegin a process of corporate reform where all corporate entities have to re-apply for a charter. This needs to be on the original basis of serving the public good. Encourage shareholders to transfer their shares progressively into public ownership. This may not be so difficult when people realize we are all in this together, that Spaceship Earth will be a lifeboat for a while and that lifeboat ethics will have to prevail.

Collective Decision MakingThere is a need to make a transition from individual decision-making to collective decision-making. To some extent we see this in the different ways we vote politically and when we vote with our wallet when making a purchase. We tend to take the greater social good into consideration when voting but usually consider only our own interests when purchasing. However, if we have been made aware of the social or environmental impact of a purchase (see consumption reduction) we are more likely to make a more socially oriented choice. Through the various transitions of the Great Transformation, we have been cultivated to think increasingly individually and less socially.

We must limit our personal freedoms where they impinge negatively on the welfare of others. Even the most strident libertarians are starting to realise that ultimately, their welfare depends on the welfare of those around them.

Rebuilding CommunityInitiate a funded national ‘Rebuilding Community’ program to begin healing and rebuilding our sense of community and in particular, to help the less fortunate in meeting their basic needs and cultivating in them a sense of worth, dignity and purpose. Encourage changes of lifestyle including healthy eating, exercise and spirituality and in particular, imbue these activities with a sense of fun and conviviality.

Rebuilding community is both a social and a political process. Institutionalising a National Discussion Day is an initial step in rebuilding community. It is important to empower a more participatory polity and to create a sense of community spirit through community discourse and the realisation that concerns are widely shared.

Create community halls, workshops and spaces in all communities. Encourage people to donate their tools, lawnmowers, etc into community resource libraries so these resources may be shared and surpluses can be sent to other areas or countries in need. Encourage community involvement in local sustainability initiatives. This may include the transforming of suburbia into edible landscapes. Reduce the working week to four days and declare Monday as community day thus giving people more time to devote to their community. This is to be seen as a day of purposeful activity, of celebration, goodwill and conviviality - a day on which we can reach out and assist those more needy than ourselves (and not particularly in the material sense). It can also be a day when we reach out in friendship to those in our community that are different to us, whether in socio-economic background, culture or ethnicity and realise our shared humanity. It may also be desirable to have themes for some or all of the community days to build greater cohesiveness and sense of purpose across the country. For example, converting backyards to permaculture over time to a general plan with TV programs showing us how to do it and the variety of ways in which we can do it may be a theme in spring


In this context of greater community, it will be much easier to car pool and do other things collectively so that ecological impacts are reduced.

Building Global CommunityHold out the hand of friendship to our brothers and sisters in less developed countries and assist them where they choose, to leapfrog into the building of their own highly durable sustainability infrastructures.

Re-Civilising: Cultivating our Humanity The current socio-economic system tends to cultivate the less desirable side of human nature. It is really important to allow the innate goodness in humanity to flourish through the cultivation of an ethos of helping others in the spirit of cooperation and social harmony, to lift up rather than push down, to value the diversity we have to offer and to value it equally because it is the offering of another human being rather than valuing it for its use value.

10. Making it HappenNow we will look at how we can make the necessary transition happen. The real obstacle to making the transition is political. The socio-economic system is a system of power and those with the power have an interest in maintaining the status quo or power will move elsewhere. Propaganda is used both as a tool of disempowerment and to ‘manufacture consent’ to maintain the status quo by removing the threat that democracy poses to this system of power. It is also used to promote the excessive levels of mindless consumption on which this system of power is based.

The only power that is powerful enough to overcome this situation and steer our society in a sustainable direction is people power – and that needs to be informed or enlightened people power. This can be realised through a people’s movement to educate, empower and mobilise the public to reclaim control over their destinies, to reclaim democracy, and ultimately, to build a sustainable society in the quest for human survival.

The conditions for change are ripe. The population is increasingly disillusioned with the way things are and where society is heading. The propaganda that underpins and perpetuates the current system is weak and vulnerable because it is based on assertion and collapses in the face of facts and evidence. The other necessary conditions for change are a vision of a better world and how to achieve it. This vision does this. It, together with the survival imperative, can inspire and motivate people across the planet to work cooperatively to ensure that our beautiful planet with its intricate mantle of life and the wonder of human consciousness can continue on its evolutionary journey into the unknown.

Stage 1This vision sees what needs to be done as a two-stage process. The first stage involves harnessing people power and creating a movement for positive social change. It is about empowering and coordinating large numbers of people to demand positive social change via the democratic process. It is about democratising society through participation.

The ideal unifying theme for coordinated action is the rejection of the economic rationalist assault on democracy, on the social fabric, on the planet’s life-support systems, and indeed, on all the social gains that people have struggled for over the past century. This is a desirable objective in itself. As we have also seen, it is also the first necessary step on the path to a sustainable society. More importantly, it creates an


organised and empowered citizenry who can insist that governments act for the public good. This vision sees this movement starting in Australia and then spreading to eventually become global.

Stage 2 The first stage establishes sound foundations for the longer term, second stage of the strategy - the transformation of our society into a sustainable one over a generation as suggested. This can be implemented through the democratic process via government as the people reject the destructive economic rationalist vision of the major political parties and vote for independents committed to the new vision demanded by the public.

So how do we harness people power and channel it creatively and positively?

Quest 2025- A Facilitatory VehicleQuest 2025 has been established as a facilitatory vehicle to help make all this happen. Its key role is to educate, empower and mobilise the citizenry. Most importantly, it will provide a single avenue through which the fragmented voice of concern can be heard loud and clear. It is my view that this disparate voice can be harnessed by identifying economic rationalism as a common denominator at the root of almost every issue that is of concern. Every issue needs to be understood as a facet of the economic rationalist assault on everything we value. Before people can win on their single issue they need to win on economic rationalism. Few if any issues can be won while we remain in the economic rationalist context. However, by uniting in our diversity to wind back economic rationalism through coordinated, empowered, mass participation in the democratic process, we can make our politicians serve the common good. If they don't, we will vote for leaders in our communities who are not beholden to political parties who will serve the common good.

Quest 2025 will provide the initial vision and leadership and will facilitate the education, empowerment and coordinated mobilisation of concerned citizens and organizations both through the Internet and on-the-ground grassroots networks so that the fragmented voice of concern can be channelled and focused.

Education (Unspinning the Spin)The educative role includes spelling out the vision, and more importantly, the evidence to back the substance of the vision. It will educate people to the facts and help them see through the propaganda that helps to keep us on the unsustainable path that suits the short-term interests of the powerful.

EmpowermentThe empowerment role will include breaking the spell of disempowerment – showing there are alternatives and making it very clear that economic rationalism and globalisation are not inevitable. Additionally, many people undertaking small actions in a coordinated way can be a very powerful force and each success will further empower people to the possibilities of positive social change.

Mobilisation in Common CauseEconomic rationalism has relied on the tactic of ‘divide and conquer’ and fragmented society into a sea of individuals so intent on their individuality that they have lost their sense of social responsibility and cohesion. Coming together in common cause will be the key to sustainability and survival. The first step will be to come together and reclaim democracy so the damage of economic rationalism can be undone. Then, united in diversity, people can come together to rebuild community and embark on a 20 year project to build a sustainable infrastructure across the world.


Web siteThe hub of Quest 2025 is an electronic infrastructure consisting of a comprehensive web site at www.Quest2025.net and an associated number of email lists. The website will contribute to the functions of education, empowerment and mobilisation. There will be educative material relating to all aspects of the quest for a sustainable society; there will be numerous tools of empowerment; and mobilisation will be planned, organised and coordinated via email and the website.

There will be a significant number of pages on the website, each catering to a single issue. Associated with each of these issue pages will be a number of email lists, each with a specific function. Through this infrastructure, people and organisations of common interest or concern can link up and network, plan campaigns, coordinate their actions and so on. The relationship of each issue with economic rationalism will be clearly spelt out. This provides the common ground on which the diversity of interests and issues can unite in common cause. When there is a big issue, all the people involved in all the issues can be mobilised in a coordinated way.

If people have an issue and it is consistent with Quest 2025 objectives, they will be able to get their issue included on the website. In other words, it will be a comprehensive resource to underpin and facilitate all aspects of positive social change.

While the Internet plays a vital role, people also need to meet face-to-face in their communities. The on-the-ground grassroots membership will be built up in a number of ways including the institutionalisation of a National Discussion day, networking existing networks and through the recruitment of high profile champions who can promote the quest, give it credibility and attract media attention or at worst, make it hard for the media to ignore the quest.

National Community Discussion DayQuest 2025 aims to institutionalise an Australia-wide community discussion to be held on a given day every two months. Anybody wanting to organise a meeting in their community (whether its around the kitchen table or in the city hall) will be able to download a script to guide the meeting from the website. In that way, meetings held in the same way with the same focus can be held across the country. Generally, they will be about the future of our society. As a society, we need to ask: Where are we heading? Do we want to go there? Are we heading in a viable direction? What are the viable options? Where do we want to go? As a society we need to decide where we want to go and then plan how to get there.

Elect Servant-Leaders, Not PoliticiansEach meeting will also include an empowerment exercise and as results are achieved, and the idea of the quest takes hold, the number of meetings and the people attending them will grow. Once we have a movement, these meetings can also be the basis for choosing people from within the community who we trust to represent our interests in the political sphere. In choosing these people, we must be aware not to choose people who seek power. Rather, we must choose those who are reluctant but are willing to make the sacrifice to serve their community.

This process will move us eventually towards a position where the community is envisioning a sustainable society, the course we need to steer towards this goal and the generally agreed step by step process of transforming our society from where it is now into a sustainable society. Once we have mobilised a significant level of people power, the citizenry will require their representatives to implement the commonly agreed vision.


11. Conclusion - The AdventureSee the Quest as Adventure

Transform Economy to Society

Transform Consumer to Citizen

Rebuild Democracy & Community

Heal Self, Society & Planet

We have no Choice!!

This draft is evolving. Comments or feedback to Richard Sanders at [email protected]

Website: http://members.dodo.net.au/rlsanders/


http://members.dodo.net.au/rlsanders/

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Vision of Hope