Eco-social challenges and community-based economy
Since the 1970s community-based economy has emerged as a local strategy for confronting the growing ecological and social uncertainties and the multiple crises of a global market economy. It is an effective approach to combat poverty, foster eco-social transformation, and create more equitable, independent, self-reliant, and resilient communities. The resilience of a community means that it has the capacity to deal with changes and cope with pressure from outside. The current eco-social challenges in society are intertwined and call for synergetic and comprehensive solutions. Diversity, whether biodiversity or cultural diversity; the plurality of organizational structures or economic transactions; and strong networks in human systems all support the building of resilience in this sense. While further development programs focus on moving people out of poverty, along the logic of the eco-social turn, community-based development approaches aim to change institutions and have a broader view of humans as stewards of their own future on earth (Folke 2016).
More than 20 years ago, Herman Daly reflected on the externalization of eco-social costs in industrial modernity, stating,
The scope of internalized costs within nations is enormous: workplace safety, minimum wage, welfare programs, social security, length of the working day, abolition of child labour, medical insurance, pollution control [âŚ] All these social and environmental measures raise costs and cannot withstand the standards-lowering competition induced by free trade with countries that have lower standards.
(Daly 1996: 147)
To have a community-based economic sector in place is a strong base for a resilient community. It is relatively independent from global competition and external market pressures. It can avoid transport costs, save energy, create labor and income for local people, and react to local needs and opportunities, and it is able to generate local-regional networks of cooperation and synergy. Social and ecological externalities can be eliminated, and direct eco-social monitoring, as well as social learning, can be part of the economic processes.
We have to be aware, however, that this approach for sustaining a livelihood can only flourish on the ground of a societal model of progress, which takes into account the limits of growth and the necessity of distributing opportunities for a good life to all at the local and global levels. An important role in creating such opportunities is played by creative organizations in urban and rural communities, which dare to try new social forms and alternative lifestyles as well as different ways of organizing the economy.
The new limits of growth
With our style of living today, we are systematically destroying the base for a shared and lasting prosperity (Jackson 2009: 2). The ecological limits of growth described by Denis and Donella Meadows, in their 1972 report for the Club of Rome, can no longer be denied (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens 1972; Meadows, Randers, & Meadows 2004). We live in an era of growing socioecological disasters. Worldwide societal problems such as mass unemployment, growing public and private poverty, social exclusion, destruction of nature and of livelihoods, and the evidence of climate change with its irreversible consequences are all becoming increasingly visible.
Six decades of continual economic growth and a global economy that is now more than five times the size it was in 1948 have not, however, as noted by Robinson, âbrought about equivalent progress on fulfilling basic human rights to adequate food, access to health care and education or to decent employment. [âŚ] In a world of nearly 6.7 billion people, 4 billion still live without basic entitlementsâ (Robinson 2009: XV). Growth has delivered benefits unequally, and even in advanced world regions, inequality is greater now than 20 years ago (Jackson 2009: 5). Between 1950 and 1975, the boom years following the Second World War, an extraordinary economic growth created wealth development in Western societies. However, this prosperity was short-lived, and 40 years later, the picture is quite different. In the 1990s, deep cuts were introduced, and the consequences â financial crisis, climate change, and growing social inequality â now dominate the present global situation. A fifth of the worldâs population today earns just 2% of the global income as wealth concentration and inequality have increased over the last 50 years (Piketty 2014). The claim that the benefits of economic growth trickle down to the poor in society in the form of employment and social policy programs can be rebutted by facts. The scarcity of water, soil, fuel, and food are urgent threats and heighten the risk of social tensions, distribution conflicts, or even wars (Dobkowski & Wallimann 1998).
As Daly mentions, âstandard growth economics ignore finitude, entropy, and ecological interdependence because the concept of throughput is absent from its pre-analytic vision, which is that of an isolated circular flow of exchange valueâ (Daly 1996: 33). Human activities relate to the natural world and economy is a physical subsystem of the ecosystem, which is finite and nongrowing. A subsystem cannot grow beyond the scale of the total system of which it is a part. These are the biophysical limits of growth Daly mentions (Daly 1996: 166), and he adds that the demand
on the containing ecosystem for regeneration of raw material âinputsâ and absorption of waste âoutputsâ must,⌠be kept at ecologically sustainable levels as a condition of sustainable development. This change in vision involves replacing the economic norm of quantitative expansion (growth) with that of qualitative improvement (development) as [a] path of future progress.
(Daly 1996: 1)
In their remarkable publication For the Common Good, Herman Daly and John Cobb drafted a model for a sustainable economy based on communities (Daly & Cobb 1990). Their argument refers to two kinds of fundamental limits of growth economy: the biophysical and the ethicosocial. The first is explained by the limits of the host ecosystem, by entropy and ecological interdependencies. Regarding the ethicosocial limits, they take into account the costs incurred by future generations, the reduction of species and biodiversity, the effects on welfare systems and health, the corrosive effects on moral standards, and the glorification of self-interest (Daly 1996: 33â37).
The observation that âsocial recessionâ has accompanied economic success in affluent regions confirms Dalyâs assumptions: economic growth at a certain level of saturation adds little to human happiness and at times seems to impede well-being. (In Western societies, anxiety, clinical depression, alcoholism, and drug abuse show rising rates. In richer societies, a loss of trust, social separation, and a breakdown of community are in greater evidence (Jackson 2009: 144).
Earth in the second decade of the 21st century has reached a new state of imbalance, and the three pillars of sustainability â environment, society, and economy â are simultaneously threatened by an interconnected crisis (Asara, Otero, Demaria, & Corbera 2015). Even though the conviction is spreading from the margins that the unlimited growth of an economic system embedded in a finite ecosystem is simply impossible, more than 40 years after the Meadows report for the Club of Rome, economic growth remains a mantra for politicians and mainstream economists. Growth limits, or the necessity for de-growth, remain a taboo. The modern economy is structurally reliant on economic growth, and according to modern thinking, the idea of finiteness seems to be frightening and egregious. Not only are raw materials running out of supply; environmental waste-disposal sites are also overflowing and causing long-term damage, and other great achievements of Western modernity, such as democracy, free markets, the welfare state, and civil society, are threatened with collapse.
By 2050, nearly 10 billion people seeking a European lifestyle would require, under present production and consumption patterns, the natural resources of at least two Earths (European Political Strategy Centre July 2016). The risks of the Western development model are increasingly becoming real hazards (Beck 2008: 20). Ulrich Beck, in his 1986 publication The Risk Society, criticized the pure abstract scientific calculation of the risks of uncontrollable technical mega systems like nuclear reactors, as well as the disregard for new social threats and the inequality of their distribution in a global context, such as rising water levels in the southern coastal regions. Beck underlines the dependency on knowledge about the comprehensive risks of modernization. To be at the mercy of these risks, according to Beck, is a consequence of power relations and social vulnerability; he signals the uneven capabilities people or regions have at their disposal to cope with these uncertainties and dangers.
We have to be aware that the limits of growth set all societal spheres into a radically different frame of reference. Climate change and the multiple crises offer a prospect on upcoming realities and underline the need for deep societal change (Leggewie & Welzer 2009: 10). This change is not about less consumption only, but about a new eco-social vision for future prospects. An awareness of the ecological limits of the Western developmental model has resulted in the tendency to associate de-growth with a shrinking of material throughput or, in other words, a negative growth in gross domestic product (GDP). But in a society grounded in growth, negative growth will cause horrible consequences. This, however, is what will happen if the course of societal development is not changed (Latouche 2007). Latouche underlines the need to dismantle the automatic association of âgrowthâ with improvement, which dominates public discourse, and to abolish infinite economic growth as a viable social objective.
There is no alternative to a sociocultural paradigm shift toward conscious de-growth and the active formation of post-growth strategies that take root in democratic and redistributive downscaling (DâAlisa, Demaria, & Kallis 2014). However, de-growth will depend on positive narrations and real utopias of possible futures beyond the growth paradigm. It is imaginable as a âdemocratic movement of establishing limits within which human well-being and creativity can flourishâ (Asara, Otero, Demaria, & Corbera 2015).
As mentioned earlier, in a de-growth society, nearly everything will be different: different roles, different organizational arrangements, a different understanding of work, different kinds of living and relationship within the human world and in relationship to nature. This is the sociocultural project of the first part of the 21st century and presents a chance to replace the primacy of growth with other values more conducive to life, such as meaningful activities, distribution of wealth, access to the commons, a just labor division, and time for social engagement. The discourses and countervailing approaches that take into account this assignment of humankind imply a critique of commodification and economization, anti-utilitarianism, environmentalism, anti-consumerism, conviviality, voluntary simplicity, cooperation, and new concepts of wealth, happiness, and a good life. A major concern is the equitable distribution of resources between present and future generations. Thus, social justice is a basic prerequisite and the organization of labor is key. Social protection becomes a central topic for a post-growth society both locally and on a global level (Seidl & Zahrnt 2010).
The necessity of a new great transformation
The key question is, how to initiate processes of change that result in large-scale transformation. We choose the term transformation to refer to âa process of reworking in which the legacies of the past are the resources for the struggle over the construction of whatever is newâ (Rotmans et al. 2002: 3). Key to the term transformation, economic historian Karl Polanyi signals, are âthose critical phases of history, when a civilization has broken down or is passing through a transformationâ (Polanyi 1957: 155). The term transformation has been adopted by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU 2011) in its flagship report defining the necessity of remodeling economy and society toward sustainability.
The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in its flagship report 2016 also refers to transformative change for designating the qualitative changes in different policy domains that are necessary to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved by the United Nations in September 2015. This transformative change has to involve ânorms and institutions that shape the behaviour of people and organisations in the social, economic, environmental and political spheresâ (UNRISD 2016: 6). Profound changes will be required in production and consumption patterns and in energy use. These goals need strong political regulations.
But most importantly, it requires changes in social structures and relations, including addressing the growing economic and political power of elites and patterns of stratification related to class, gender, ethnicity, religion or location that can lock people (including future generations) into disadvantage and constrain their choices and agency.
(UNIRISD 2016: 5)
UNRISD notes that this transformative change is a long-term process that requires the involvement of multiple actors, a new political culture and a reversal of the hierarchies, values, and norms that subordinate social and ecological goals to market interests. As one of the most effective instruments to help humanize the economy, combat poverty and contribute to innovative solutions that are grounded in the agency of people, the UNRISD report promotes social and solidarity economy, which prioritize social and environmental considerations over private economic interests and a pure profit orientation (UNRISD 2016: 17).
The concept of transformation is a radical one. The third âGreat Transformationâ, the eco-social one, in contrast to the first Great Transformation (the Neolithic transformation) and the second (the Industrial Revolution), will not be the result of an evolutionary societal process. It has to be a reflexive and planned change of nearly all pillars of modern industrial societies: of production, consumption, sociocultural and individual lifestyles. Eco-social transformation means a âworldwide remodelling of economy and society towards sustainability. [âŚ] Production, consumption patterns and lifestyles [âŚ] must be changed in such a way that global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to an absolute minimum over the next decadesâ (WGBU 2011: 5).
Thus, transformation is a forming over again, a restructuring that requires a shift in the collective consciousness of a society so that reality can be redefined. Transformation in this sense refers to a societal change both as a process in itself and as the product or result of new meanings and intentional actions. It goes beyond previous approaches to sustainability based on a transitory or reformist pathway (Asara, Otero, Demaria, & Corbera 2015: 5). In industrial countries, against the backdrop of inevitable de-growth, transformation has to be a conscious effort for building regional resilience and for organizing systems that rely on local food, local work, and local resources and programs that strengthen regional and local economies (Randers 2012: 191).
The main goal of eco-social transformation is sustainability, and this will only be successful if there is a shared vision for a new concept of prosperity that can be transformed into habits and actions (Elsen 2011). It has to meet the needs of individuals and societies while protecting the livelihoods of future generations. This overlaps with the most widespread definition of sustainable development as âdevelopment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needsâ, which has been embraced by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). The Earth Council suggests that sustainable development should be economically viable, socially just, and environmentally appropriate (Payne & Raiborn 2001: 157â168).
Our understanding of sustainable development provides for a community-based approach within a multilayer frame from local to global. It is a participatory process in which a community uses its resources in a preservative way so that present generations can attain social and economic security and realize democracy while maintaining the integrity of the ecological systems on which life and production depend (Biesecker & Kesting 2003). This, however, is only possible, if communities are entitled, to develop self-contained solutions to meet the basic needs of their population.
Defining sustainability as a process implies the notion that it should not only be understood as an objective but should also be integrated into everyday activities. This consideration leads to the insight that sustainability as a participatory process has to be an interactive learning arrangement of both action and reflection. The focus on a concrete space, like the local level, enables these integrative and reflexive processes to come together and facilitates the involvement of different objectives, levels, actors, and perspectives. In addition, the consequences of actions on the local level can be better controlled.
Thus, sustainable development is a transformative process of society and economy. A community-based economy can be a pathway out of the rationale of âorganized irresponsibilityâ prevalent in the mainstream economy. Its aim is to re-embed and reframe economic action through their sociocultural and natural contexts and to make it part of community life, controlled by local people. Its (re)implementation is one of the most important strategies of eco-social transformation for sustainability.
