tion of pollution and the entropy of resources, for adjusting to the hedonism of
communities which maintain a consume now and discard forever folly.
The ten ‘soft pathways’ outlined in box 3.4 along with the
guideline concepts listed in the Matrixestablish sustainable eco-
nomic parameters, sustainable ecological thresholds, and some
sustainable social criteria. Can these avert the spread of the worst
aspects of entropic disorder in a closed-off global system, an
extension which produces the less desirable aspects of Californi-
anization and Japanization? Avoidance can be achieved by cleav-
ing to enlightened attitudes of national, regional and community
self-interest. This involves the application of both regulatory
(stick) and incentive (carrot) instruments for enforcing and
coercing sustainability. A worst-case scenario can be avoided
through a living education system which infuses a steady-state
co-dependency (box 3.5). Success in all this, in the phrasing of
John Friedmann (1987: 302) involves fashioning linkages:
1 functionallybetween place of residence and place of work, and from work-place
to work-place;
2 horizontallyfrom community to community, and from region to region; and
3 verticallyfrom community to region, region to nation, and from nation to groups
of nations.And from these fashionings, search out the ecological (conservancy) specifics, and
the growth (development) opportunities identified within the Matrixand the ‘soft
pathway’ constructs.
The reasoning set out in this chapter has been expressed from a within-nation
perspective. The important national dynamic is to work againstthe Easter Island
Syndrome, on which there is more commentary in chapter 6, pulling into focus
the big issue problems which affect us all. Four prophetic writings shine out.
First is Herman Daly and John Cobb’s For the Common Good
(1989); second, is David Korten’s When Corporations Rule the World
(1995). These are both ‘blooded within the system’ (IMF, World
Bank, Asian Development Bank) publications by practitioners
who express some of their former agency’s more enlightened
policy standpoints, along with their own understanding of the
need for wider reforms. Of the two, Korten’s polemic cuts to the
challenge with greater immediacy. From a partial selection within
his passage on ‘Doing the Possible’ Korten polemic a clear case
for the ‘banning of arms sales’, a ‘tax on advertising to finance
consumer education’, ‘international antitrust agreements’, ‘taxes
on resource extraction and international capital movements’. Yet
this is not all, for in another passage entitled ‘Agenda For Change’, he spells out
the fiscal ‘regulatory’, ‘buyout’, ‘payout’ and ‘preferential treatment adjustments’
needed. Withal Korten is pro-business and pro-market ‘favour[ing] local over
global businesses and markets...provid[ing] employment to local people,
Charter for Conservation with Development 115One aspect of
Californianization is a
decay of the traditional
family household, with
more single-person
households being
formed than any other
category. One aspect of
Japanization is the
pressure population puts
on space, which leads to
an engagement of
surrogates for sound,
vision, smell and taste
reality.Herman Daly and John
B. Cobb,For The
Common Good, 1989. D.
C. Korten,When
Corporations Rule the
World, 1995. John
Ralston Saul,The
Unconscious Civilisation,
1997; and also On
Equilibrium, 2002. Paul
Hawken, with A. and
H. Lovins,Natural
Capitalism, 1999.