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Lesław Michnowski Chairman of the Sustainable Development Creators Club |
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To
create eco-humanistic economics with the aid of the U.N. Security
Council |
The Polish Initiative
For a
Sustainable Development of the World Society
1. During
the second half of the twentieth century, the development of science and
technology led to a qualitatively new situation of changes within the conditions
of human and natural life. These changes are difficult to foresee
and occurring extremely rapidly and in a non-linear mode (even chaotically or
catastrophically). 1/
2. In
this situation of changes, the dominating factor of destability is deactualization
i.e. the moral aging of existing forms of eco-social system structures,
suitable for previous conditions of life, which seemingly continued to assist
life effectively but actually imposed pathological behaviour.
3. In
this new situation, the world system crossed the limits to growth within the
framework of nearsighted economics, which is excessively inert and does
not take into consideration the complex and extensive, both in time
and space, costs, especially social and natural, of
socioeconomic activity. 2/
4. The
restoration to the world system of the ability to develop, to accomplish sustainable
development (indispensable in a situation of changes) and, subsequently, a
state of eco-development, lies in the vital interest of both the highly
developed parts of the global community as well as their backward counterparts.
An alternative to sustainable development is, contemporary, a ecological
HOLOCAUST, initially of the weaker fragments of the world community, which
ultimately will lead also to the downfall of the forces initiating it. 3/
5. The
shaping of the ability for sustainable development requires a causal (and
not exclusively an event) overcoming of the global crisis, including the
creation of scientific-technical and social opportunities for:
5.1. -
far-sighted prognoses and a measurable complex evaluation of the effects of
socioeconomic activity as well as other changes in the conditions of life,
together with mastering the highly flexible methods of management,
5.2. - a
transformation of existing forms of social relations, prior to their
deactualization, in accordance with new and encroaching conditions of life i.e.
into relations once again (in a situation of changes) capable of stimulating
the development of the global system,
5.3. -
preference - in access to deficit resources of life - for those subjects of
socioeconomic life which to a degree greater than others contribute to
restoring to the world community the ability for development, and endow the
latter with a permanent character,
5.4. -
the intellectualisation of effectively informated and eco-humanistically
motivated popular creative activity. 4/
6. In
order to fulfil the aforementioned basic requirements of sustainable
development it is necessary to embark urgently upon a great international scientific-technical
and social operation in order to create:
6.1. - a
worldwide commonly accessible information system (which would make it feasible
to:
- dynamic
model /i.e. by means of the Forrester-Meadows method/ of large-scale eco-social
systems, 5/
-
optimalize development-oriented undertakings, and
- exploit
divergent cultural and intellectual accomplishments of the global community),
6.2. - a
commonly available integrated and territorially scattered world knowledge base,
indispensable in particular for predicting threats and their elimination,
6.3. - a
global, integrated and flexible manufacturing system, 6/
6.4. -
eco-socially just relations of division, which should stimulate development,
6.5. -
universal eco-humanistic consciousness.
7. In
order to mould the ability for a sustainable development of the world
community, the U.N.O. should:
7.1.
include the problem of sustainable development - together with the
danger of the absence of its foundations - into the range of the priority responsibilities
and tasks of the U.N. Security Council,
7.2. -
entrust the Security Council with the duty of surveillance over the
implementation of the strategy of a sustainable development of the world
system,
7.3. -
create a World Sustainable Development Strategy Centre.
8. The
tasks of the World Sustainable Development Strategy Centre are:
8.1. - to
create scientific-technical and primarily informational bases for sustainable
development,
8.2. - to
prepare and implement as well as to disseminate simulative supervision over the
process of the life (including development or pathology) of the world community
(as well as its particular basic parts),
8.3. - to
successively prepare, implement, test and correct the strategy of the
sustainable development of the world system.
9. A
U.N.O. General Assembly session dealing with the acceptance and initiation of
the implementation of the sustainable development strategy should be convened
by the year 2002 (Rio+10).
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BASIC
CONCEPTS:
1. Social
relations: “orgware”, in other words, widely comprehended social relations
including economic, political and values systems, relations of division, the
organizational-manufacture structure and other periodically constant relations
which combine into a system both people - that create the socioeconomic system
- their knowledge and possessed technology (“hardware” and “software”) , and
which impose, in accordance with their current form human and economic
behaviour (even pathological).
2. Eco-humanism:
partner-like cooperation for the common good of all people (prosperous and
poor), future generations and the natural environment.
3. Development
of the socioeconomic system: that part of its life process which encompasses:
- the
growth (“here and now”) of the quality of the life of people creating the
community of that system (including the average life span),
- the
growth of the duration of that community (including the availability of deficit
life resources, and the future generations’ chance to live),
- the
reduction of the internal and external costs of methods of employing the
technology possessed by the system.
4. Sustainable
development: an alternative to cyclical development, whose consequence is a
crisis which contains the threat of a downfall of the system; this alternative
imposes a revolutionary reconstruction of the existing form of social relations,
deactualized (and no longer concurrent with the new outer and inner conditions
of life).
5. Eco-development:
socio-economic-natural development (i.e. together with the social and natural
environment) and thus such a form of the life of the socioeconomic system which
is accompanied by a growing quality of human life, a rising effectiveness of
management and an improvement in the condition of the natural environment.
6. Limits
to growth: such a high level of the intensity of socioeconomic activity
(within a given form of economics) above which there takes place:
- an
expenditure of reproducible natural resources quicker than they reproduce
themselves,
- an
exhaustion of non-reproducible resources quicker than the economy is capable of
creating access to their alternative forms,
- a
degradation of the natural environment quicker than nature is capable of
recreating it in a manner concurrent with the needs of human life.
(Hence
the consequence of transgressing the limits to growth should be their urgent
“shifting” i.e. a rationalisation of the utilisation of accessible resources
and the reduction of the degradation of the natural environment, as well as
guaranteed access to alternative resources by increasing innovative creative
activity).
7. Simulative
supervision: the monitoring and measurable evaluation of the process of the
life of the socialeconomic system, predictions concerning the consequences of
leaving the existing form of social relations unchanged, as well as the
establishment of the moment of its deactualization.
8. Eco-social
usefulness: such an outcome of activity which designates developmental
profits not only for the subject of activity but also for its social and
natural environment.
9. Eco-social
justice: such a form of relations of the division of the effects of the
social work process and deficit life resources, based on a measurable and
complex delineation of the profits and costs of socioeconomic activity, as a
result of which:
- the
subsistence minimum and relative equality of life chances are universally
guaranteed, while
- access
to the effects of the social work process and deficit life resources (higher
than the level indispensable for the sustenance of life) is proportionate to
the eco-social usefulness of particular subjects of life (individuals or
organisations).
NOTES
1. The qualitative change in the conditions of life can be testified i.a.
by the following data: “In the course of the last century, industrial
production (of world economy - L. M.) increased 50 times, of which four-fifths
took place after 1950”, see: Report of the World Commission for the
Environment and Development, 1987, headed by G. H. Brundtland: Nasza wspólna
przyszłość (Our Common Future), PWE, Warszawa 1991, p. 21.
2. The book by D. L. Meadows et al. entitled: Beyond the Limits. Global
Collapse or a Sustainable Future discusses the outcome of subsequent (after the
“Limits to Growth”) research on perspectives for the world community. Its
authors claim that by 1992 the world system already crossed the limits to
growth, and that there are three scenarios of reacting to this warning
prognosis.
The first
rejects the existence of limits to growth, and is tantamount to a conservative
continuation of outdated, short-sighted and wasteful forms of life and economy.
The second
scenario denotes the recognition of the necessity of radical changes,
although it does so convinced that the situation is already so critical that
there is no time for conducting them. In other words, overcoming the global
crisis would be delineated by negative human traits. This would signify a
return to the “earlier extreme” of the limits to growth, by an initial
restriction of the activity of the weaker by the stronger, and then the
outright physical elimination of the former.
The third
scenario (the only effective one) calls for an urgent undertaking of a
radical eco-humanistic civilizational transformation which shifts the limits to
growth.
See:
Meadows D. H., Meadows D. L., Randers J., Beyond the Limits, Global Collapse or
a Sustainable Future? , Centre for Universalism at Warsaw University, Polish
Association for the Club of Rome, Warszawa 1995, p.209 (p. 236 in the original
edition published by Earthscan, London 1993).
3. Pope John Paul II drew attention to the reality of the danger posed by
the second, essentially anti-humanistic scenario, and to the necessity for a
radical civilizational change, indispensable for avoiding this peril. The Pope
called for replacing the dominating “civilisation and culture of death” by a
civilisation and culture of life. In his May 1993 speech given to scientists in
Sicily, he declared: “During the recent years we have witnessed sudden and
astounding social changes. How can one overlook the overcoming of rigid
divisions of the world into opposing ideological, political and military blocs?
It is precisely thanks to this process that it has been possible to prevent, at
least to a considerable measure, the danger of ‘nuclear extermination’. During
the same period, however, other planetary threats have reached an extremely
dangerous level, making us fear ‘ecological extermination’, the result of a
negligent destruction of the most important resources of the natural
environment as well as increasingly numerous attacks against human life. An
unrestrained drive of a small group of the privileged towards seizing
the riches of the Earth and their exploitation has become the reason for a
new type of cold war, this time between the North and the South of the
planet, between the highly industrialised and poor countries, an
inevitable source of anxiety for those who are deeply concerned with the fate
of the world. Once again dark clouds are gathering across the sky of
humankind”.
See: John Paul II, Dialogue between
science and faith. A visit to the Ettore Majorano international science centre,
8 May 1993, “L’Osservatore Romano”(Polish edition) 1993, no. 7.
In his
Good Friday homily: In reference to the ‘Evangelium vitae’ encyclical, given in
the Colosseum on 5 April 1996, the Pope asked: “How are we to remain unmowed
while seeing, for example, the astonishing conspiracy against life which
is multiplying and expressed in increasingly harsh threats against people and nations,
especially when life is so weak and helpless?”. “To the ancient and distressing
plagues (...) of famine, epidemics, violence, and wars, new forms,
heretofore unknown and of disturbing dimensions, are being added". See:
the dispatch of the Catholic Information Agency:The Pope in the Colosseum:
“Good Friday is a day which alters the fate and destiny of humankind”, Rome,
05.04 (KAI),ml.
Earlier,
attention was drawn to the menace entailed by this type of anti-humanitarian
defensive policy i.a. in: O nowy styl rozwoju. Raport fundacji Hammarskjolda dla ONZ w sprawie rozwoju i współpracy
międzynarodowej (For a new style of development. Report by the Hammarskjold
Foundation for the U.N.O. concerning development and international cooperation),
in: Nowy Międzynarodowy Ład Ekonomiczny (New International Economic Order),
PWE, Warszawa 1979, p. 147.
The
possibility of negative megatrends in world politics is accentuated in: W
perspektywie roku 2010. Komitet prognoz
“Polska w XXI wieku” przy Prezydium PAN. Droga do roku 2010. Raport w sprawie
długofalowej strategii rozwoju Polski na okres 15 lat (From the Perspective of
the Year 2010. Prognoses of the “Poland in the 21st Century” Committee at the Presidium
of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Route to the Year 2010. Report
concerning the Long-term Strategy of the Development of Poland in the Course of
15 Years), Kuźnicki L. , Polska w roku 2010. Projekcja optymistczna (Poland in
the Year 2010. Optimistic Projection), Warszawa 1995, p. 50, 167.
4. I discuss the threats resulting from the contemporary situation of
changes and their elimination by creating the possibility of sustainable
development more extensively i.a. in:
- Jak żyć? Ekorozwój albo ... (How to Live? Eco-development
[Sustainable Development] or ...), Wyd. Ekonomia
i Środowisko, Białystok 1995,
- Czy regres człowieczeństwa? (Is it a
regression of humanity?) LTN-K, Warszawa
1999.
- Kryzys globalny a przywracanie zdolności
rozwoju (The global crisis and the restoration of the ability to develop), in:
Pajestka J., O orientację na przyszłość w reformach polskich. Megatrendy
cywilizacyjne a proces transformacji systemowej (For a Future Orientation in
Polish Reforms. Civilizational Megatrends and the Process of System
Transformation), Prognoses Committee “Poland in the 21st century” at the
Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. D. W. Elipsa, Warszawa 1994, Appendix 1.
- Modelowanie konceptualne w przewidywaniu
przyszłości (Conceptual modelling in predicting the future), in: Czy warto
myśleć o przyszłości? (Is It Worthwhile to Think about the Future),
Prognoses Committee “Poland in the 21 century” at the Presidium of the Polish
Academy of Sciences, D. W. Elipsa, Warszawa 1996.
5. This was the method used for the above discussed warning prognosis,
see: Beyond the Limits , op. cit.
6. See: Michnowski L, Elastyczny system wytwarzania jako warunek rozwoju przy szybko zachodzących zmianach (The flexible manufacturing system as a condition for development in conditions of rapid changes), “Prakseologia” 1985, no. 1-2.