ABSTRACT
Socially, achieving sustainability will require effectively dealing with a plethora of social issues facing communities and nations worldwide. Included among these issues are population growth, the economic gulf among developed, undeveloped, and developing markets, human rights, human health, gender equity, education, food security, urbanization, and community viability. As discussed at length in Chapter 3, unlimited economic growth is a cornerstone assumption of conventional economics. From a social perspective, the logic of this assumption goes something like this: If the economic pie gets bigger, then more people can get wealthier until eventually everyone has enough therefore solving the issue of distributive equity both within and between nations. Thus, conventional economics teaches that the fair distribution of wealth will happen when the whole world gets aboard the economic-growth train.
