Understanding Progress: A Heterodox Approach

Sustainability (Switzerland)

Volumn 5, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 417-431

  Barkin, David ^a   Lemus, Blanca ^a  

^a DEPARTAMENTO DE SISTEMAS BIOLÓGICOS   (Mexico)

Author keywords

Alternatives; Autonomy.; Epistemology; Progress; Sustainability

Indexed keywords

AUTOTOMY; BASIC NEEDS; ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS; ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; INDIGENOUS POPULATION; NATURAL RESOURCE; PHILOSOPHY; POLITICAL POWER; QUALITY OF LIFE; SUSTAINABILITY; THEORETICAL STUDY;

LATIN AMERICA;

EID: 84883752493     PISSN: 20711050     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3390/su5020417     Document Type: Article

References (59)

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4. The most inclusive indicator of quality of life within this paradigm is the "human development index" reported in the Human Development Report published regularly since 1990 by the United Nations Development Program; it measures "three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living" (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/understanding/indices/). Recently, other composite indices have been constructed to make it more sensitive to problems of income and gender inequality without questioning the paradigm itself.
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14. Although the results were published in the press in late November, the detailed results were not available as we were finishing this paper. It is interesting that the weighting system used to arrive at the overall index clearly deemphasized the material aspects that Mexico has been unable to assure to its population.
15. This was the central thesis of some influential social scientists in the early and mid XX century, including notably Thorstein Veblen and K. William Kapp. For an exploration of these ideas and their current significance see: Gerber, J.F.; Steppacher, R. Towards an Integrated Paradigm in Heterodox Economics; Palgrave: London, UK, 2011.
16. One of the most notable of the scholars who tried to define poverty so effective policies might be formulated was Peter Townsend whose work set the international agenda on the subject. His work provoked acrid debates, vividly confirming his verdict that "ultimately, any definition of poverty has to be based on value judgments." see: World Poverty: New Policies to Defeat an Old Enemy; Townsend, P.; Gordon, D., Eds.; Policy Press: Bristol, UK, 2002.
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23. cf. "Declaration of Barcelona, 2010" (produced during the Second Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity convened in Barcelona in March, 2010). Available online: http://www.degrowth.eu among other sources (accessed on 10 November 2012).
24. In fact, some consider that "degrowth" is a response to the disenchantment with the colonization of "ecological economics" by many analysts of a neo-classical (orthodox) tendency who "escaped" from "environmental economics" due to its inability to incorporate matters of biological diversity and social justice into its analysis; frequently, these analysts make this transition or academic migration without transforming their methodologies or even their paradigms. Similarly, "social and solidarity economics" is suffering from a confusion generated by competing or incompatible social and political objectives; the notions of solidarity and equality that motivated cooperative and union movements of the past are being compromised by present-day social policies of the State, by community organizations at the service of corporations, and by religious charities. Recently, other academic and political groups have intensified their attempts to influence the evolution of these alternative approaches by accepting the participation of transnational companies that claim their own right to participate with their "social and environmental responsibility" investments that make them worthy of strictly controlled (by them) rewards as "socially responsible companies".
25. The Bolivian counterpart, "good living" (from aymara language suma qamaña), is the foundation for its new Magna Carta. In Mexico, there are similar proposals by indigenous groups, such as "Comunalidad" among the Zapotec Indians of Oaxaca, and "Mandar Obedeciendo" (Govern by Obeying) of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, see: Barkin, D.; Fuente, M. Colaborando con Comunidades para la Justicia Ambiental, Paper presented at the meetings of the International Society for Ecological Economics, Rio de Janeiro, 19 June 2012).
26. Just as this article was being revised in early 2013, a series of declarations from the Zapatistas confirmed the analysis presented in the text that they are seeking to construct their own model of an alternative society, a development well worth following in the spirit of this special issue of the journal Sustainability. Up to date information is available at: http://enlace Zapatista.ezln.org.mx/(accessed on 5 January 201).
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30. This point is central in K. Polanyi's work where the need to "embed" the market in society once again is emphasized, instead of the current organization of economy, which allows it to dominate social relations, see: Polanyi, K. The Great Transformation: The political and Economic Origins of Our Time; Beacon Press: Boston, MA., USA, 2001. An extensive discussion of the "good living" topic is presented in the magazine, América Latina en Movimiento, published in Ecuador; available on line at http://alainet.org. Numbers 452-454 of 2010 are highly recommended (accessed on 10 November 2012).
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36. The significance of the rejection of the monetary valuation of social and natural phenomena is enormous; for example, the wide-spread acceptance of apparently value-free concepts like "social capital" and "natural capital" that offer a justification for placing prices and values on elements outside the market by asserting the need to assign them "relevance" also facilitates their transformation into a new category of quasi-"commodities" that contributes to other mechanisms for personal and collective alienation, see: Fine, B. Theories of Social Capital: Researchers Behaving Badly; Pluto: London, UK, 2010, for an excellent analysis of this problem and its implications.
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43. It is of interest to note that there has been a keen recognition of the significance of this phenomenon among scholars working in mountain areas and in their analyses of the strategies of mountain peoples, see especially the recent issues of Mountain Research and Development (Vol. 20 (1,3,4) and Vol. 23 (3)).
44. Barkin, D. Communities constructing their own alternatives in the face of crisis. Mt. Res. Dev. 2012, 32, S12-S22. Available on line: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1659/MRD-JOURNALD-11-00088.S1 (accessed on 10 November 2012) offers an overview of these developments.
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49. The significance of the social and political barriers to the effective implementation of an agroecological development strategy was the theme of a thematic issue on Political Agroecology, González de Molina, M. (Ed.), see: Agroecología 2011, 6, 1-104. Available online: http://revistas.um.es/agroecologia (accessed on 10 January 2013).
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