Oldal 104 [104]
102 | Tue PrıLosorry oF Eco-PoLirics
If, in regard to man and nature, the Greens only demanded the
minimum of what humanity must definitely and urgently do to prevent
a civilisational catastrophe, according to the majority they are already
demanding too much. They must therefore accept that they have but
two choices: radicalism and insignificance.
2. (not more, but better — an economical economy!) When we wish to
translate the goals regarding the protection of nature to the language
of human acts and agendas, according to the current dominant way of
thinking, we find ourselves in the field of economy, in the broad sense
of the word. However, economic considerations demand exactly that
the relationship between man and nature not be seen as a purely
economic issue, because at its core it never was and never can be one.
Our much-mentioned separation from nature effectively means that we
no longer notice the irreparable loss we have caused ourselves in the
most basic dimension of our being. According to Ernst F. Schumacher,
we are practicing a false double standard of accounting; we record as
gains the income derived from consuming our natural capital.”
The main factors of the separation or alienation are, according to
‘Thomas Princen: automatic work, marketified conditions, mass distance
transportation (which makes man rootless), overdriven urbanisation,
electronic communication (the loss of physical connection with everything
natural), formal education and finally — the existence of zoos. He claims
that these are all consequences of a “mining economy”; the competition
is for the exhaustion of resources instead of their increase. The problem
with this is that the purpose of husbandry has been reversed: consumption
is viewed as production, namely as what we remove and use up of nature
and not what we add to it. For mining (removing) economy views labour
as a technical necessity to be progressively phased out, as an unfortunate
deviation from the ideal state, in which the ripe fruit falls into our mouth
of its own accord. According to Princen, the first condition of the
realisation of an economical economy in the original sense of the word
-i.e.,an economy that saves on resources — would be to place the emphasis
from the end product of labour to the process of its production, from the
breadwinning “occupation” to the creative activity. The main goal would
no longer be the satisfaction (and generation) of so-called material needs,
but rather the realisation of a truly human striving towards a meaningful
% Ernst F Schumacher: Small is Beautiful: a Study of Economics as if People Mattered.
Blond & Briggs, London, 1973.