The end of the developmental paradigm. Evidence of environmental limits

Abstract

Our society and our economy have been sustained during the industrial age on the myth that technology allowed us to dominate nature. Developmentalism, the continuous economic growth, has been the philosophy that has mobilized the left and the right since the industrial revolution. The externalities of our economic, environmental and other kind of activities have not been accounted for until relatively recently. For the functioning of the system, in order not to fall into overproduction, consumption has been stimulated at irrational levels, turning waste into culture and into the dominant habit. There is a direct relationship between the consumer culture in which we have been immersed for decades, with global warming and the depletion of perishable resources. To go towards a “steady state economy” it will be necessary to change the predominance of the culture of infinite compulsive consumption. To enter a non-frustrating steady state economy, it is essential imperative to reduce inequality. Economic growth cannot be defended on the basis of the unlimited nature of needs, because needs are one thing and desires are quite another. It would be necessary to move towards “voluntary simplicity”. A radical rethinking of the role of the productive-destructive forces is necessary.