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What can I know (if trust in knowledge has been lost)? | 63
This is a political issue, by which I would like to emphasise that
- it is not a technological issue, for we are already in possession of
the necessary environmentally friendly, material- and power-saving
technologies;
- nor is it an issue of economics, because the literature of the
economics of non-growth has proved from many angles that the
decreased use of natural resources is not an obstacle to social
development, the improvement of the quality of life or sufficient
employment. According to many, it is actually their unavoidable
precondition. At the same time, it does not make impossible the (fair
and proportional) increase in prosperity of those concerned. At most
the indicators of economic performance would have to be swapped for
new ones;
- finally, it is not an ethical issue, because it is not true that it would
entail the limitation of human freedom. On the contrary, the strategies
of non-growth promise the opportunity of liberation from the slavery
of the way of life and work dependent on technological systems and on
consumption.
If the issue is political, it could also be phrased thus: what is needed
for good decisions to be made? (I term good the management capable of
preserving and increasing humanity’s physical and mental resources in
the long term, i.e., something which goes against the currently still
dominant economic point of view in several ways. That is why I do not
speak of sustainability, because the current system should not be sustained,
but renewed — or destroyed, so that something completely different could
be built in its place, but for this there is quite simply no time. If
acknowledge this, we save ourselves much futile philosophical debate.)
We know of no regime realising global justice —i.e., the fair sharing
among nations or continents — in a peaceful fashion. The world order of
free trade, together with the international treaties created to uphold and
limit it, are not suitable for this; those who invented it did not even do
so for this purpose. And violent solutions only increase destitution and
people’s vulnerability. Therefore, instead of the global application of the
principle of equality we should choose the principle of solidarity, which
can only be applied locally — in political communities whose members
are induced by common interests (interdependence), common knowledge
(of togetherness) and the commonness of the physical environment to
cooperate for the preservation of the fundamental resources needed for
life, in the interest of the improvement of their quality of life. The third
chapter of this book will explore this possibility.