Oldal 106 [106]
104 | THe Puttosopuy or Eco-Potitics
Incidentally, the actors of the real economy have many interests
which in certain cases run counter to those of the “hot money” that
enforces revenue growth at any cost. Thus, as workers, their interest is
primarily in job security and good work conditions and, as consumers,
in the durability and good quality of the product. As for the traditional
businessperson using his/her own capital and abilities for his/her
enterprise, they is very much aware that there is an optimal business
size and volume of production that it is inadvisable to overstep. The
explanation for the pursuit of growth cannot lie, therefore, in some kind
of economic rationality, but in an anomaly, namely that the creditor —
who stands outside the process of reproduction, strictly speaking — forces
his/her interests on the others. This is now much more of an obstacle
than an aid for the prevailing of rational developmental goals and
interests from the perspective of the system as a whole. It has been
possible since the local authorities lost control over their markets and
started competing with each other for the good graces of the investors
and creditors. The growth indicators used are in essence the indicators
of the operation of a closed, selfish system. They do not show the real
benefit or harm of the economy, the effect on society and the natural
environment.
3. (free choice of technology!) The restoration of the integrity of nature
and our desire to live a meaningful life point, it seems, in the same
direction: they demand the re-examination of the motives of husbandry.
The classical principle of “man is the measure of all things” is
irreconcilable with the principle of “profit is the measure of all things”.
Wastefulness of resources does not lead to the improvement of the
quality of human life, because the good life is not one filled with the
mass production and consumption of goods, but with something else
that differs for each person. But we can only make a free decision about
what would serve our happiness if we are not hindered in doing so by
social constraints which we cannot avoid, independently of whether the
power constraining us lies in an economic, legal or religious institution.
(We can speak of freedom only in the case of human social contact. As
natural beings we are not free, i.e., we can gain independence from
natural necessity only in such measure as is made possible by our social¬
cultural conditions.)
For this process to occur, we need above all to reclaim the freedom
of choosing technology, as Ivan Illich, Hans Jonas and others warned
their contemporaries in the middle of the last century. The compulsion
to choose the most effective technology has prevented the participants