Tijmes, Pieter and Reginald Luiff. 1995. "The Sustainability of our Common Future: An Inquiry into the Foundations of an Ideology." Technology In Society 17 (3): 327-336.

Thesis:

Tijmes and Luiff examine the concept of sustainable development within a modern philosophical context. They contend that the World Commission on Environment and Development's (WCED) document, Our Common Future (1987), is "not nearly as radical as is sometimes supposed, but in fact only extends the principles of the economics of scarcity into the realm of environmental ecology" (Abstract, p. 327). Further, they argue that the Report "claims to advocate a change in modern 'attitudes' and 'values' with regard to economic growth and the environment. But in fact the Report fails to question typically modern assumptions and represents no more than a slight adjustment in what must be identified as a distinctively modern interpretation of the human condition" (p. 328).

Summary:

The authors begin by reviewing the historical context in which the concept of "scarcity" became known. With its basis in modern economic theory, scarcity remains a modern phenomena. Traditional societies understood resource shortages, but they purposely limited the opportunity for competition or rivalry within their societies, so a shortage rarely became a scarcity. Today's society, however, has internalized the concepts of competition and rivalry and therefore view resource shortages as scarcities. Put in the words of the authors, "shortages of natural resources do not define scarcity; scarcity is the social construct of a particular web of human relationships" (p. 329).

Another component of this "new economic order" is the disappearance of any obligations of solidarity which historically united communities, resulting in the current climate of greed and competition. The new order is also characterized by the enclosure of its commons: "The commons were an expression of the ties of solidarity, whereas the enclosure was part of a process of the rationalization of agricultural production" (p. 330).

According to the authors, the WCED views economic scarcity as the result of these changes in society, technological activity and environmental deterioration. In line with modern economic theory, it contends that poverty is created by resource scarcity and "an absence of the economic spirit." Further, poverty is believed to contribute to the degradation of the environment while economic development has long been endorsed as the most effective way of alleviating poverty and resource scarcity. The authors argue: "The World Commission in no way bids farewell to economic growth formulated on the basis of the concept of scarcity but simply reformulates the concept of growth as sustainable development" (p. 331).

Education is another mechanism the Commission endorses in its mission to alleviate poverty. At the risk of losing traditional knowledge, modern education should teach "developing" countries about scarce, economic goods. This is necessary, the Commission contends, to teach them how to become "developed" and then to "manage" their resources efficiently.

Tijmes and Luiff discuss the implications of the WCED document in the final section entitled, "The Dream of a Universal Language and an End of Sustainability" (see p. 334). This dream involves "extension of the economic world view to all fields of human culture and the destruction of any structures that resist economic activities and technical innovation" (p. 334).

Keywords: economic scarcity, resource shortage, traditional knowledge