Local Politics of Global Sustainability

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Local Politics of Global Sustainability
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Review Allocation Matrix
Excludable
Non-Excludable
Market Good Ecosystem structure, Waste
absorption capacity (e.g. SO2)
Open Access Regime Unowned ecosystem structure,
waste absorption capacity (e.g. CO2)
Rival
Tragedy of the non-commons patented information
Pure Public Good Street lights, national
defense, most ecosystem services, unpatented
information
Non-rival
Non-rival, congestible
Club or Toll Good
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Private property and ecosystem structure

• Inefficient Owner ignores critical ecosystem
  services
• Unjust Ecosystem services are public goods,
  destroyed for private gain
• Unsustainable Profit maximization may still lead
  to extinction

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Example Brazils Atlantic Rainforest

• Ecosystem services of rainforest valued at
  2006/ha/year
• Worlds highest biodiversity humid forest
  converted to pasture yielding 20/ha/year
• Causes droughts, floods, erosion, biodiversity
  loss, microclimate change, etc.
• Greedy self interest creates invisible foot

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Private property and information

• Inefficient
• Creates artificial scarcity
• Patent monopoly
• Research ignores public goods
• Unjust
• Knowledge is cumulative
• Raises costs for research that promotes the
  public good or serves the poor
• Example Golden rice, AIDS medicine

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Patents and distribution (cont.)

• Samuel Slater, Father of American Industry
• Developed countries own 97 of all patents

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The Tragedy of the Non-Commons

• Occurs when private ownership is ecologically
  unsustainable, socially unjust, and/or
  economically inefficient
• Any privately owned resource that provides
  non-rival benefits
• Sustainability is a non-rival benefit of healthy
  ecosystems

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What is the Solution?
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Its the system, stupid

• How do we create a system that allocates
  non-rival and/or non-excludable resources?
• Must be fair
• Must be sustainable
• Be nice if it was efficient, too (policy lecture)

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Capitalism vs. socialism

• Ownership by the individual or ownership by
  society?
• What is appropriate depends on the nature of the
  resources and desirable ends
• We need a hybrid system
• Market allocation works for rival/excludable
  goods and services that only affect individual
  well-being
• We need another allocative mechanism for
  non-rival and/or non-excludable goods/bads that
  affect public well-being

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Can Science Tell us How to Allocate?

• How much natural capital needs to be left for
  future generations?
• How do we deal with uncertainty?
• How do we deal with needs vs. wants?
• Values matter
• If the market economy cant do it, and science
  cant do it, what is left?

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Can the Political Process do it?

• As many types of political systems as economic
  systems

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What we have

• Representative democracy (?)
• Defends our rights and freedoms (?)
• Is it participatory?
• Feeling of participation
• Participation levels
• Would you opt out of participating in the market?
• Is it democracy?"We can have concentrated wealth
  in the hands of a few or we can have democracy,
  but we cannot have both." -Justice Louis
  Brandeis

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What we Have (cont.)

• Economic sphere (wealth) dominates political
  sphere (power) and public sphere (participation)
• Public sphere psychic and political space and
  process within which people, acting as citizens,
  consider their common dilemmas and seek
  solutions
• We are consumers first, citizens second
• Unregulated capitalism destroys the means of
  production

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What we need

• Participatory, democratic decision making
  processes strong democracy
• E.g. town meetings

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What this requires

• Equal political rights
• One person one vote vs. one dollar one vote
• Cant let economic sphere influence political
  sphere
• Nature abhors a vacuum
• Educated public
• What do we learn and where do we learn it?
• Who owns the airwaves?
• We must educate each other in public dialogue
• Engaged public
• Empowered public

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Strong democracy and the political condition

• Action
• Participatory democracy is not a spectator sport.
  We need to opt in.
• Publicness
• Must continually answer question when do private
  acts become public?
• Necessity
• events have lives of their own. To refuse to act
  is also to act

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(cont.)

• Choice
• Citizens set the agenda.
• Reasonableness
• We must both talk and listen. Dialogue not debate
• Conflict
• We must transform conflict into cooperation
  through citizen participation, public
  deliberation, and civic education.
• Absence of an independent ground
• E.g. divine will, rights, freedoms

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PDMP and sustainability
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PDMP and built capital

• How do we supply public goods such as roads,
  bridges, streetlights, sewage systems?
• What would happen if we applied PDMP to urban
  sprawl?
• How does this relate to Diane Gayres and Melinda
  Moultons lectures?
• What is the impact of unregulated capitalism?
  (e.g. electricity)

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PDMP and natural capital

• What belongs to the public (THE COMMONWEALTH) and
  what belongs to individuals?
• How do we deal with parks, air quality (SO2),
  water quality, etc.?
• The public determines scale, scale determines
  price
• We decide as a society how to allocate natural
  capital between ecosystem services and economic
  production.
• Market can decide how to allocate among different
  sectors of economy.

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PDMP and social capital

• Continual process of education into citizenship
• community is fostered by participation, and
  participation by community
• Working with people to solve common problems
  transforms them into a community
• E.g. US senate (in a good year)
• Builds institutions, networks and trust
• What is the impact of unregulated capitalism on
  social capital?

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PDMP and human capital

• Participatory dialogue educates us on the
  critical issues
• Appropriate technologies and government sponsored
  research
• National health care
• Mandatory education
• Whatever happened to civics?