tage which arises from socially appropriate levels of trade liberalization, and
accord approval to capitalism over communism. Yet clearly global science, global
trade and global growth all have limits because they fall outside the scope, values,
consciousness and beliefs – the ethical compass – of individual human beings and
their local communities.A gulf yawns between ‘open society’ trade and ‘closed mind’ pro-
tectionism. These are the extremes. For the proponents of both
there is a need to fashion, locally, a ‘ tolerable path; conservation
withdevelopment, served, conjointly, by sound science. A fresh
perspective on this reconciliation comes to us from a capitalist-
poacher turned societal-gamekeeper, George Soros. In his plain
piece ‘The Capitalist Threat’ (1997: passim) he states bluntly that
‘The main enemy of the open society is no longer the communist
but the capitalist threat...[because]...too much competition
and too little cooperation can cause intolerable inequities and
instability...[and because]...Unsure of what they stand for,
people increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value.’ Soros
is vexed about professions turned into businesses, the crude ‘survival of the fittest’
mantra, and the intense focus of individuals (like himself!) upon the capture of
specific-to-themselves material gain. What also comes through from Soros (via
Popper 1974) is that there can be no absolute truth – capitalist, neomodernist or
socialist. Freely translated, this suggests support for an open society, open
institutions and open minds as progressive accessories to sustainable conservancy
withdevelopment.
The day-by-day outcome resulting from the opening up of
nations to the forces of industrialization and commerce now reg-
isters largely as socio-environmental failure, for example, as
ever-increasing water-body and atmospheric pollution and the
ever-reducing diversity of living species. This is partly offset by
occasional success: for example, impressive worldwide wilder-
ness preservation as in Antarctica and National Parks, heritage
conservation of historical antiquities, and an array of solar-
biological projects. This, in the phrasing of Norgaard (1994)
‘emphasises the complex maze of reciprocal causation between
environment and culture’, including, of course, capitalism.
Resource exploitation and pollution disposal is fired by a frustration, particularly
within the lower-incomed Third World, at being separated from other nations in
accordance with such vapid criteria as lower GNP per capita, less resource con-
sumption per capita, and limited social services. Korten contends (When Corpora-
tions Rule the World1995: 181) that ‘World War II did not end the global domination
of the weak by strong states. It simply cloaked colonialism in a less obvious, more
beguiling form.’ His advocacy is for a reversal of poorly secured bank lendings,
creative tax manipulations, and a curtailment of GATT–WTO and the prospective
MAI.82 Practice
‘We [late twentieth
century] take only ten
percent of our energy
from directly renewable
and non-polluting
resources (sun wind and
water)...yet in a single
year we burn some one
million years’ worth of
non-renewable fossil
fuels.’
Richard Rogers, 1995
Reith LecturesContrasting with the
Third World survivalist
imperative, by any
means, Anglo settler
society nations have the
capacity to command
resourcing which can
underscore cyclical and
continuing patterns of
sustainable development
withconservation.