10 Propositions on Sustainable Development (2)

Sustainable Development
by Richard D North*
for a conference, Hanover, 23 August, 2004

SD (as a principle) combines incompatibles (growth and environment/community) as though they can co-exist without tension.
SD (as an oxymoron) opposes two goods as though they were incompatible: growth and environment/community.
SD combines two "goods" as though they did not compete: environment and community.

SD opposes community to society (it prefers local good to national good).
SD is "owned" by NGOs, especially anti-growth greens who hate growth.

SD supposes we know what the future holds and can cater to it.

The Precautionary Principle is as good as its use: "Don't be excessively incautious" would be OK; "don't do anything unless you prove it's safe" is impossible.
The Polluter Pays Principle is as good as its use. Who's the polluter? the consumer or the producer?
"Civil Society" (CS) now means the non-democratic (the media and the campaigners in particular).
NGOs are against development, the environment and society: they want a no-growth, left-wing world, are pro-recycling and anti-nuclear, and undermine representative democracy.

CSR delivers firms to the NGOs who talk nonsense about environment/community.
CSR wrongly supposes that business knows what is good for the community, or that NGOs do.
CSR deflects people from the understanding that profit is socially-benign.

The Triple Bottom Line supposes that profit and CSR go together. They may well not.
Enron and Shell demonstrate that we don't need firms to pretend to be virtuous, we need them to be honest.

A firm's "stakeholders" suffer when it does: NGOs are not their stakeholders.

"Sustainable" development ought to mean that it can be continued (as in "durable"). There is little sign that economic development in unsustainable, and the more or of it there is the better it is at ensuring its future and a vibrant environment.

There is every sign that we can deal with various important sustainability issues: natural and semi-natural habitat; fish stocks; air, water and soil pollution; waste; energy production; third world labour standards. These all need capitalism and democracy to flourish.

NGOs can be useful only insofar as they accept that they and their mantras (SD, CSR, PP, PPP, CS) are of marginal value.

NGOs mostly serve to point out problems, and for that role they are ideal, provided we remember they have agendas and vested interests and are very seldom any use at solutions.

Useful reading:
The Role of Business in the Modern World: Progress, pressures, and prospects for the market economy, David Henderson, IEA, 2004
Misguided Virtue: False notions of Corporate Social Responsibility, David Henderson, IEA, 2002
Sustainable Development: Promoting progress or perpetuating poverty? ed Julian Morris, Profile Books, 2002

RDN is
Media Fellow, Institute of Economic Affairs, London
Editor of www.livingissues.com
Editor and writer, www,direct-action.info
Writer and publisher: www.richarddnorth.com
Author: Life on a Modern Planet: A manifesto for progress (Manchester University Press, 1995)