Abandon affluence

This review of recent evidence on major global problems examines resource and energy scarcity, environmental destruction, Third World underdevelopment, international conflict, and the deteriorating quality of life. The author argues that our commitment to affluence and growth is magnifying all these problems.
Estimates of potentially recoverable resources indicate that, technical advances notwithstanding, there is no possibility of the whole world's population ever approaching the per capita use levels characteristic of the rich countries. This means that the determination of these countries continuously to raise their already high living standards must inevitably intensify resource scarcity and global conflict. A growth-maximising approach to development is also not solving the Third World's problems; it is merely further enriching its affluent elites, as well as the transnational corporations and consumers in the developed countries.
The global problems confronting us are mainly due to the nature of our economic system. It is an economy that cannot tolerate reduction in unnecessary production and consumption. Because it is an economy that allows profit maximisation to determine production and distribution, huge quantities of luxuries are produced while the needs of the poor are ignored. Although extensive change in values and lifestyles are also required, change to a quite different economic system is crucial.
These urgent global problems cannot be overcome without fundamental social change to more simple, self-sufficient and Co-operative lifestyles. The author concludes by sketching an alternative and sustainable society that could provide a high quality of life despite low per capita resource use rates and therefore would permit the emergence of a peaceful and just world order