ABSTRACT
The following chapters attempt to show that a bioregional paradigm for a global ethic would be better able to meet the three objectives of ecological sustainability, social justice, and human well-being than the dominant development paradigm. Within the dominant development paradigm there is basic convergence on a core set of values which serve to structure global society and orient human action in particular ways. Chief among these are the notions that continuous economic expansion and technological progress are both possible and desirable, and that increased levels of consumption lead to greater human well-being. The success of the economy is accordingly measured by how rapidly the production of goods and services can be expanded. Daly writes,
Economic growth is currently the major goal of both capitalist and socialist countries and, of course, of Third World countries. . . . Economic growth is held to be the cure for poverty, unemployment, debt repayment, infl ation, balance of payment defi cits, pollution, depletion, the population explosion, crime, divorce, and drug addiction. In short, economic growth is both the panacea and the summum bonum. [Fa7: 183]
Governments throughout the world continue to pursue the goal of increasing economic growth despite the fact, as will be demonstrated in this chapter, that such growth is unsustainable. The assumption made by defenders of the dominant development paradigm is that developing countries will eventually be able to “catch up” with developed countries in terms of material affl uence. Rostow [Ed6], for example, contends that all economies can be plotted on a fi ve-stage continuum which leads from (1) traditional society, to (2) preconditions for “take off,” to (3) “take off,” to (4) a drive to maturity, to (5) high mass consumption. In the dominant development paradigm quality of life is defi ned in terms of moving away from traditional ways of life towards the high consumer lifestyles currently prevalent in developed countries; social justice is to be achieved by giving everyone in the world the
opportunity to attain such lifestyles; and environmental sustainability is to be assured through technological innovations which allow new resources to be developed once current resources have been used up.
