Journal of Sustainability

A New Vision for Sustainability: Book Review

editors | 03 October, 2008 08:41

By Mark Brooks, markdb1@gmail.com

Book Review:

The Commonwealth of Life: Economics for a Flourishing Earth

By Peter G. Brown

Black Rose Books (Montreal)

When I was working in the environment division of the Canada’s federal department of Finance, I used to hear a good deal of discussion about sustainable development. Governmental regulations even compelled the department to issue a strategy statement every few years to ensure that its policies and programs were helping to advance sustainability in Canada.

And how does the department claim to be accomplishing this? To take just two examples from its most recent strategy, the department’s steadfast commitment to “sustainable development” is evidenced by the fact that the retirement income system in Canada is meeting the needs of seniors and that provincial fiscal disparities are being addressed.

When a term such as “sustainable development”, which was originally coined out of growing concern for the consequences of a rapidly deteriorating natural environment, now refers as well to the long-term viability of seniors pensions, it is quite clear that it has ceased to be a meaningful concept. Yet policies and programs designed to advance this interpretation of “sustainability” continue to be a preoccupation for most governments, despite accomplishing little more than maintaining the (rather ominous) environmental status quo. Perhaps we have lost our way and it is time for a new approach.

Enter Peter G. Brown, a professor at McGill University, and his timely book The Commonwealth of Life: Economics for a Flourishing Planet. The very concept of sustainable development is, according to Brown, now nothing more than “a slight shift from the idea of unbridled (economic) growth to that of a slightly restrained version of the same thing.” By continuing to equate “development” and progress mainly with economic growth (increases in national income measured by GDP), we have thus far failed utterly to address the most critical environmental challenges humanity has ever known, such as climate change and massive biodiversity loss. What he proposes instead is nothing less than a radical transformation in how we view the purpose of our economy and how it should be structured.

To begin, Brown argues that there are three fundamental rights to which all humans are entitled: bodily integrity (security of the person); rights of moral, political and religious choice; and subsistence rights (i.e. adequate food, nutrition, water, clothing, medical care and shelter). But Brown does not stop here. Through a series of well-reasoned arguments, the author builds a compelling case for why our obligations extend beyond living persons to future generations and the rest of the natural world. Overwhelming empirical evidence indicates that attributes once thought to be uniquely human are abundant throughout nature (pain, fear, social bonding, and the ability to reason are a few examples). He advocates a role for humans, not as masters, but as simple members of a commonwealth of life and stewardship as the principle that should guide our interactions with other species. Such an ethic does not require that we treat all living things in the same way but that we are able to justify differential treatment with sufficient and relevant reasoning. "The steward, the keeper of the earth in perpetuity, must take the long view, be able to step back from markets both to keep them functioning well and to keep them in their place."

Brown dissects the many shortcomings of our current, neo-classical economic system. He points out that much of current economics grew out of the work of John Keynes in the mid-1930s who advocated policies to reduce unemployment and control inflation as a means of preventing instability and war between states. Since that time however, neoclassical economics has been concerned mainly with maximizing the efficiency of economic transactions and increasing individual utility (happiness) through increased consumption. While this approach has undoubtedly been successful in raising average incomes (for most), it has been unable to halt environmental destruction (and may even be exacerbating it); it has failed to improve the vast social inequities that exist today; and it regards the needs of future generations and other species as considerably less important than those of our own.

According to Brown, these flaws result from the inability of neoclassical economics to provide an adequate account what truly motivates us (beyond the desire for consumption), to reliably measure genuine changes in well-being and to explain what the economy is actually for. He argues that the goal of economics should not be ever-increasing economic growth, but genuine improvements in well-being through the realization of the three basic rights for all citizens and through the restoration, protection and enhancement of all life on earth. Rather than construct a world view solely around the satisfaction of human desires, Brown believes true sustainability will only come when our economic institutions can account for the inherent value of the whole system of which human life is a part.

The author then proceeds to lay out what an economics based on the principles of stewardship would look like. He sketches out the kinds of economic, government and civil society institutions that would be needed to realize stewardship economics and considers the international fiduciary standards needed to construct a world dedicated to human rights and the commonwealth of life.

The book is not without its limitations. When arguing for the creation of new national policies that would be consistent with the author’s vision of stewardship, the discussion becomes, at times, bogged down with prescriptions for everything from the need for a council of stewardship advisors to formulas for immigration policy based on per capita carbon emissions. Readers may also have trouble entirely accepting the premise that the complexity, cultural richness and diversity of human societies confer no special status to our species.

Still, there can be no doubt that Brown has done a remarkable job in distilling the fundamental problems of our current economic system and offering a dramatically new approach. In so doing, he provides us with some insight into how thoughtful, well-intentioned policies (read Kyoto) that are designed to advance environmental protection end up doing no such thing. This excellent book takes us a good deal closer (or should I say back) to the original intent of the term sustainable development and provides us with a much clearer vision of what a truly sustainable world might look like.

Mark Brooks is an environmental consultant and freelance journalist working in Montreal.