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Sustainable development is the central challenge of the 21st century. How can
human civilization continue to develop without destroying the natural systems
on which it depends? Environmentalists tell us that capitalism is the problem
because it feeds our self-interest. They tell us that either we have to be altruistic
and restrain ourselves to save the Earth or that governments must regulate our
lives and tell us what we can and cannot consume. This book uses the science
of complex systems to explain why governments cannot deliver sustainability or
happiness and how self-interest can be used to make society sustainable.
Based on research from political economy, philosophy, and psychology, this
book shows that the problem is not self-interest. We are unhappy because we
have been taught that our interests are material and that buying ‘stuff’ will make
us happy. Yet social pressure to consume only prevents us from satisfying our
basic psychological needs and fully enjoying life. For that we need to pursue
our personal well-being. Because this also reduces our material consumption,
environmental sustainability comes from each of us knowing what’s truly good
for ourselves. Even without the constant economic growth that harms the planet
and damages our lives, capitalism also is sustainable. This book will be of inter-
est to scholars and students of sustainability; civil society activists and social
entrepreneurs; thought leaders and policymakers.
Neil E. Harrison is a senior research fellow and executive director of The
Sustainable Development Institute and a research associate in the Joseph Korbel
Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
Sustainable Capitalism and
the Pursuit of Well-Being

Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development
This series uniquely brings together original and cutting-edge research on sustainable
development. The books in this series tackle difficult and important issues in sustainable
development including: values and ethics; sustainability in higher education; climate
compatible development; resilience; capitalism and de-growth; sustainable urban develop-
ment; gender and participation; and well-being.
Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, the series promotes interdisciplinary research for
an international readership. The series was recommended in the Guardian ’s suggested reads
on development and the environment.
Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development
Edited by Harald A. Mieg and Klaus Töpfer
The Sustainable University
Progress and prospects
Edited by Stephen Sterling, Larch Maxey and Heather Luna
Sustainable Development in Amazonia
Paradise in the making
Kei Otsuki
Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability
Ethics in sustainability indexes
Sarah E. Fredericks
Values in Sustainable Development
Edited by Jack Appleton
Climate-Resilient Development
Participatory solutions from developing countries
Edited by Astrid Carrapatoso and Edith Kürzinger
Theatre for Women’s Participation in Sustainable Development
Beth Osnes
Urban Waste and Sanitation Services for Sustainable Development
Harnessing social and technical diversity in East Africa
Bas van Vliet, Joost van Buuren and Shaaban Mgana
Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being
Neil E. Harrison

Sustainable Capitalism and
the Pursuit of Well-Being
Neil E. Harrison

First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Neil E. Harrison
The right of Neil Harrison to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrison, Neil E., 1949–
Sustainable capitalism and the pursuit of well-being / Neil Harrison.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in sustainable development)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sustainable development. 2. Capitalism—Environmental aspects.
3. Economic development—Environmental aspects. I. Title.
HC79.E5H3573 2014
330.12′2—dc23
2013025927
ISBN: 978-0-415-66281-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-07187-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents
List of figures and tables vii
Preface and acknowledgments ix
1 The path of sustainability 1
2 The failure of authority and altruism 14
3 The complexity of sustainable development 35
4 Consuming unhappiness 53
5 Happiness, well-being, and sustainability 71
6 Needs and wants 90
7 Leveraging wants 109
8 Changing the system paradigm 127
9 Adapting to sustainable capitalism 143
10 A sustainable system 162
Appendix 173
Bibliography 175
Index 193

This page intentionally left blank

Figures
7.1 Sources of consumer credit in the US 111
7.2 Household liabilities as percentage of disposable income 112
7.3 Positive feedback supporting materialism 122
Tables
4.1 Rankings of happiest countries 55
6.1 Factors important in life 101
List of figures and tables

This page intentionally left blank

Preface and acknowledgments
In July 1994, after he had hooded me to confer the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
Barry Hughes leaned in and quietly said, “Sustainable development will be the
problem of the next century.” He was my dissertation advisor and had read my
long, detailed study of the perceptions and policies of the nations that contributed
half of the emissions causing climate change. I had analyzed media information
on their negotiating positions (using methods I learned in Karen Feste’s
Superpower Intervention Project); reviewed economic data that shed some light
on why they had chosen their positions; observed international negotiations; and
interviewed more than 50 decision makers from a dozen countries.
At the time, I had already worked a year on the faculty at the University of
Wyoming. In that first year, I was asked to teach a course on quantitative research
methods, mainly comprising statistical analyses. As the newest member of the
faculty, the request had the effect of an order and I agreed to teach a course with
which I had no affinity. In compensation, Steve Ropp told me that I then could
teach a “boutique course” on any subject I liked. I chose sustainable development
because I knew nothing about it. By the time I was officially a Doctor, I knew
something about it. In the next few years, I learned much more and eventually
published a book on what I thought I knew.
1

Sustainable development may be the critical issue of this century, but what
do we really know about it? Physicists are searching for a “theory of everything”
that would combine astrophysics and relativity with quantum mechanics. The
search for sustainable development is of comparable magnitude and potentially
of much more value. Yet, as my first book on the subject showed, we still tend
to study this massive problem within disciplinary silos. Economists generate one
narrative, other social scientists a second, and philosophers and activists a third.
Each narrative is firmly anchored in the discipline, which informs both problem
definition and possible solutions. I concluded that book by outlining how a
complex systems approach may help to integrate policy across disciplinary
boundaries. I had been introduced to the world of complex systems by a student
and felt intuitively that its ideas were important.
My research into complex systems culminated in a book that applied the ideas
to world politics and international relations.
2
In editing that book, I learned much
more about complex systems from many discussions with David Earnest, Matt

x Preface and acknowledgments
Hoffmann, Jim Rosenau, Walt Clemens, Ravi Bhavnani, and Des Saunders-
Newton. From their very different scholarly backgrounds, they helped me compile
an essential primer on the application of complex systems thinking to global
political economy. The insights of the complexity worldview that forces us to
think in systems and accept uncertainty are essential to a full comprehension of
sustainable development. There is no human problem that is more complex and
more riddled with uncertainty than sustainable development.
Meanwhile I continued to read books and journal articles about sustainable
development but kept hitting the same wall. The common, usually implicit, belief
seemed to be that conservation of ecosystems meant some loss of human free-
doms or some economic privation. This was understood as a zero-sum game: if
the environment gains, humans lose and that seemed intuitively too confining.
In 2000 I had resigned from the University of Wyoming to found The
Sustainable Development Institute to explore this problem more broadly and
from different angles. First, I worked with Gary Bryner on a teaching text on
the interaction of science and politics, an essential issue for any discussion of
sustainable development.
3
Gary was a delight to work with, broadly read across
several disciplines and a generous but serious scholar. He encouraged me to
research deeper into sustainability. In the following years, I led sustainability
demonstration projects in rural Costa Rica, experienced the enthusiasm of
Brazilians and studied their political system, and researched and lectured as a
Visiting Scholar at the University of Sydney. There I was warmly welcomed by
the faculty but especially by John Mikler; he and I have collaborated on a research
project on the possibilities of mitigating climate change with radical technologi-
cal innovations.
Discussions with John are always entertaining because we have similar back-
grounds from half a world apart, and we are familiar with quite different theo-
retical perspectives. What I have learned most from him is to be open to new
ideas and to be enthusiastic about my chosen profession. Although he is a
professional skeptic, he is an optimist by nature and seemed to be one of those
lucky people with a high happiness set point. Yet, I soon realized that he was
more than happy. His boundless energy came from his total engagement in both
teaching and research. Perhaps there was something else going on.
When I proposed this book to Earthscan/Routledge, my editor, Khanam Virjee
(whose able assistant Charlotte Russell also has been enormously helpful), sug-
gested I change the title. The proposal argued that there could be a win-win
relationship between the individual pursuit of self-interest and sustainable devel-
opment as long as self-interest is disengaged from material consumption. Now
I saw that the key was the phrase “pursuit of well-being” that Khanam added.
When we pursue our personal well-being, as Aristotle understood the term and
as it is used by many scholars of positive psychology, we are intrinsically moti-
vated to be deeply engaged in every aspect of life, in both leisure and work.
Because most consumption – beyond basic material needs for food, clothing,
and shelter – is extrinsically motivated through social pressure and producer
marketing, it is disconnected from the pursuit of well-being. Therefore, if I pursue

Preface and acknowledgments xi
my personal well-being, I shall be guided by my intrinsic motivations to develop
all my abilities, and I shall consume less because I shall not be tempted by
extrinsic influences. I realized that I had felt this at times throughout my life.
When I was bored or unhappy with my work (read ‘disengaged’) I would feel
the need to spend money, to seek “retail therapy.” But when I was doing some-
thing useful and meaningful or buried in some project and fully engaged in study
and research, I felt no tug from the mall. From my personal intuitions and
experiences and the help of these people and others too many to name, I devel-
oped the unique approach to sustainability proposed in this book.
At the end of each of my wanderings I have returned home, but I have always
known the place. Home is where Ursula is and has been for more than 40 years.
Wherever she is, that is where I want to be because her unfailing support has
been a major reason this book was ever written. She has always supported me
and encouraged me to pursue excellence in all things. I wrote this book because
of her generosity. However, I wrote it for Alex, Kirstie, Lucas, Jennifer, and their
generation. They are the future, and they will need all the help they can get from
the ideas in this book. If they and their children are to look to the future with
hope, society must move onto a path of sustainability.
Laramie, Wyoming, June 2013
Notes
1. Neil E. Harrison, Constructing Sustainable Development (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
2000).
2. Neil E. Harrison, Complexity in World Politics: Concepts and Methods of a New
Paradigm (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006).
3. Neil E. Harrison and Gary C. Bryner, Science and Politics in the International
Environment (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). Simultaneously published
in the USA and Canada .

This page intentionally left blank

As Mark Twain is alleged to have said about the weather, everyone talks about
sustainability but nobody does anything about it. Companies trumpet their ‘green’
technology and their corporate responsibility. Governments fund research, choose
policies, start programs, and enforce regulations. Environmentalists plea for
producers and consumers to ‘do the right thing’ and cut back. Nothing works.
We are still consuming the planet at an accelerating rate.
The immediate cause of this “sound and fury, signifying nothing” is, as envi-
ronmentalists and many scientists warn, that the Earth is running out of resources.
1

Their argument is based in the recognition that no system can expand forever.
For example, consumption of most basic resources and foodstuffs increased by
several hundred percent between 1950 and 1975, several times faster than the
rate of growth in population, and more than doubled again between 1975 and
2000.
2
As India and China rapidly industrialize and their more than two billion
people learn western lifestyles, we can expect an acceleration of resource con-
sumption. More people consuming ever more cannot continue indefinitely. However,
so far, ecological systems have continued to provide the resources we need and
absorb the wastes we produce, though most scientists believe that the planet is
warming as a result of human emissions of “greenhouse gases” that will cause
significant changes in socio-economic systems.
3

The problem is not the problem; it is the solution that defeats us. Many books
and scholarly articles detail the causes of our unsustainable development. They
point the finger at human nature, at the structure of socio-economic systems –
especially at so-called free-market capitalism – and at the political failures of
democratic governments that pander to the people. Yet, these authors fall at the
last hurdle: they cannot explain what would make humans behave in ways that
will conserve the planet for generations to come. How do we change human
nature or the political systems from which governments emerge? How can we
make capitalism, the goose that has laid so many golden eggs, sustainable without
killing it? Proposed solutions generally require governments to intervene in
markets and directly limit our product choices and lifestyles to conserve nonre-
newable natural resources. But can development be sustainable with a loss of
human freedom or a decline in social welfare?
The path of sustainability 1

2 The path of sustainability
In this book, I propose an alternative solution. If the problem is the choices that
humans make, under what conditions would people voluntarily reduce their con-
sumption? Within a capitalist society people would behave sustainably if it were
in their self-interest to do so. And it would be in their self-interest if they would
enjoy their life more in the process. I argue that if we all pursued our personal
well-being and enjoyed life more, we could make capitalism sustainable.
The sustainability challenge
In 1989, Fukuyama proclaimed the victory of liberal democracy and modern
capitalism over centralized economic governance.
4
Two decades later, the deep,
debt-induced recession of 2007–2009 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2012
have shaken faith in capitalism both in Europe and in the United States, the
self-imposed guardian of free-market, liberal capitalism. Capitalism’s negative
social and environmental impacts are ever more evident, and books with titles
like A Failure of Capitalism and Capitalism at the Crossroads have multiplied.
5

Since the late 1970s, income inequality in the rich countries – between rich
and poor or between old and young – has substantially increased even as the
pace of economic growth has slowed.
6
Yet, consumption of natural goods and
emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other pollutants have continued to
grow, driven by soaring resource and energy demand from newly capitalist
countries in Asia and Latin America. Capitalism’s very success – evidenced by
its global spread – now threatens the Earth’s natural services on which society
depends.
The sustainability challenge of capitalism is evident. The global population
reached seven billion in 2011 and is expected to be 10 billion before the end of
the century.
7
However, in the 15 years before 2007, global Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) increased 75 percent, nearly three times as fast as population,
reflecting the rise in incomes in developing countries. Absent economic collapse
or radical changes in consumption patterns, as the population continues to increase
– even as the growth rate declines – average wealth and consumption per capita
will continue to rise. As people become wealthier, they consume fewer basic
foods and more meat products and fruits and vegetables that require more arable
land and more intensive farming. Food production increased 45 percent as a
result of forest clearing and more intensive cultivation while population increased
by only 26 percent. Continued increases in food production are threatened by
the increased reliance on fossil water and fertilizers.
As they become richer, people also demand more goods and services that
consume industrial raw materials. Consumption of biomass, fossil fuels, ores
and industrial minerals, and construction minerals increased 42 percent from
1992 to 2005 even as industrial efficiency increased. Electricity production
increased more than 50 percent in the same period. Urban areas, which consume
more energy per capita than rural areas, are home to half of the global popula-
tion and are expected to continue to grow as rural people move to the cities and
food production is increasingly mechanized.

The path of sustainability 3
With the industrialization of many poorer countries, emissions of carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases have continued to increase and are projected to con-
tinue apace.
8
The possibility of avoiding a “dangerous” change in global climate
is diminishing.
9
Consumption of ozone-depleting substances has decreased
93 percent as alternate materials that have a smaller effect on atmospheric ozone
became available. However, many newer chemicals designed to not harm the
ozone layer are potent greenhouse gases. At the same time, emissions of carbon
dioxide increased by 36 percent between 1992 and 2008 because there are no
ready alternatives to fossil fuels and because the continuing loss of forests has
reduced the terrestrial absorption of carbon dioxide produced from burning fossil
fuels. Between 1990 and 2010, 300 million hectares (an area larger than Argentina)
were cleared for agricultural use or otherwise destroyed.
In 2011, potable water was available to 87 percent of the global populations
but improved sanitation to only 61 percent. Tropical biodiversity declined by
30 percent from 1992 to 2007. Meanwhile the production of plastics that decay
only very slowly increased 130 percent. Exploitation of fish stocks has continued
to increase with 85 percent either fully exploited or overexploited and declining.
The total marine fish catch continued to fall between 1992 and 2009 while the
tuna catch increased 35 percent, leaving some tuna species close to extinction.
This short section only summarizes a complex reality. But the picture is clear
and not attractive: we are rapidly consuming the planet and the rate of our con-
sumption is increasing. Capitalism as it is currently practiced is not sustainable.
We would need more than one Earth to continue to consume its resources at the
current rate and leave as good and as much for future generations.
10

Within the context of the modern liberal ideology that economic growth is
the route to increased social welfare, it increasingly seems that what is good for
us is bad for the environment. We need economic growth to make people wealthier
and happier and that can only come from increasing the stress on ecological
systems. Equally, many people and most governments believe that what is good
for the environment is bad for us, that environmental protection imposes costs
on production and reduces economic growth. The US makes this explicit by
using a cost-benefit calculation that requires a comparison of discounted costs
and benefits before implementing a regulation or policy.
11
If there is always an
economic cost to environmental conservation, it may be that the lives we want
to lead can never be sustainable; they must eventually lead to ecological collapse
as they have in the past in other societies.
12

Sustainability is normally described in terms of the opposite of current prac-
tices, as being essentially the opposite of what we do now. We plan for the short
term when the long term is more critical. We consume a fixed stock of fossil
fuels and are only concerned for current supplies and prices. Debates about “peak
oil” have become more heated with the ability of hydraulic fracturing (or “frack-
ing”) to extract oil and gas from previously impenetrable shale structures.
However, the burning of fossil fuels is warming the Earth. Scientists forecast
that within 50 years, sea level will rise appreciably, storms will become more
frequent and severe, and local climates will change across the planet. Our modern

4 The path of sustainability
capitalist economies run on consumption: consumption creates jobs, which pay
for consumption. Capitalism allows savings from this cycle in the form of profits
that can be reinvested in more efficient production equipment to increase the
supply of goods, reduce their cost, and increase consumption. The capitalist
engine of economic growth is well tuned to the very production and consumption
that is consuming the Earth, and we fail to develop the technologies that may
mitigate these changes because there is no profit in them.
13

In the rich countries, it might be possible to minimize economic growth and
still provide for a good living for all by reducing economic inequality. But the
majority of the world’s population that lives in poorer countries will not accept
their current living standards; they want better. Indeed, they need the improve-
ments in social welfare that are thought to come from the economic growth that
capitalism usually delivers. Yet, sustainability with even this low social target
would require a substantial increase in the environmental efficiency of human
industry without taking into account the 40 percent increase in global population
expected by 2050.
14

This raises the question: why do we talk about sustainable development and
sustainability if it is only a matter of conserving or preserving ecological
systems? The short answer is that sustainability is something more. The classic
definition is “development that meets the needs of the present without compro-
mising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs . ”
15
We currently
consume well beyond our needs, and we have no idea what future generations
will need. If we reduced consumption to what we only need, what we cannot
live without, our lives would be much different. We burn fossil fuels for our
peripatetic lifestyles, but to be ‘sustainable’ we are encouraged to use more
public transport or walk or bicycle to work. If public transportation is impracti-
cal or work is too far away, we are told that we can be sustainable by buying
a new hybrid or electric car. To live sustainably, we need to move into the city
from the suburbs, only buy eco-labeled produce, and recycle. But this approach
of picking holes at the margin of our present lifestyles does not explain what
true sustainability amounts to. It leaves us wondering what “sustainability” or
“sustainable development” really mean. What would a sustainable society
look like?
The meaning of sustainability
The short answer is that there is no answer. It is not possible to define a sustain-
able society for two reasons: a sustainable society is constantly changing and
our conceptions of sustainable development are too malleable. First, the two
terms most commonly used and often used interchangeably – sustainability and
sustainable development – really are different concepts. Sustainability is literally
the ability to sustain.
16
Therefore, it means that we just maintain the status quo
indefinitely and keep society as it is for the foreseeable future. The economy
would be in a ‘steady-state’ at current levels and society would change little.
But societies always change – a point that is central to the discussion of systems

The path of sustainability 5
in Chapter 3. Even North Korea, an inward-looking authoritarian personal fiefdom
of a hereditary monarch, has allowed marginal changes in its economy, has
developed new technology (primarily military), and has adjusted its (very few)
foreign relations.
17
People in the rest of the world feel change daily. The more
open the society, the more rapid is the pace of change as local economies are
challenged by goods, and local societies by expectations and ideas, from across
the world.
Sustainable development is about perpetual change that makes society “more
human” without straying beyond the limits of the ecological systems on which
we depend.
18
In this sense, “development” is quite different from the economic
meaning that equates growth with social improvement by assuming that greater
national wealth inevitably makes more citizens happier. Development is better
understood as an evolution of society that allows every member to develop his
or her human potential and enjoy life more. As we shall see in chapters 4 and
5 , economic growth, higher incomes, and growing wealth are neither necessary
nor sufficient for such development to be sustained.
What sustainable development means in practical terms depends on where one
is in the socio-economic hierarchy. For the nearly one billion souls who live in
absolute poverty as defined by the World Bank, an increase in material resources
certainly is a major part of development. Simple things like clean water and
elementary education will increase enjoyment of life and ability to develop
personal potential. In the rich countries, inequalities of income and wealth mean
that a significant minority are relatively poor in material terms.
19
For them,
development might be a reduction in inequality, a relative improvement in living
standards. Yet, for most citizens of the rich nations who already have met their
material needs and more, development is primarily about the opportunity to meet
nonmaterial needs and increase their enjoyment of life without increasing their
consumption. As we see in Chapters 5 and 6 , in the rich countries, this is pri-
marily a matter of fixing attitudinal and psychological errors learned in a lifetime
of living in modern capitalist societies.
The second reason we cannot define the sustainable society is that both sus-
tainability and sustainable development have as many definitions as there are
people using the terms. Although we all understand each concept in some sense,
they have become so widely used that each has come to mean whatever the
speaker or writer wants it to mean.
20
These concepts have been stretched to
support any political position or any economic project. Almost anything can be
described as being sustainable or a constituent of sustainable development.
21
In
this book, I shall use the terms interchangeably: ‘sustainability’ here means the
same as ‘sustainable development.’ Thus, both terms equally represent an indefinite
process of social evolution that allows each person to increase his or her enjoy-
ment of life without damaging the Earth’s ecosystems that support this evolution.
This definition emphasizes that sustainable development is not an end point nor
a goal that may be projected as the inevitable outcome of specific national or
personal choices. Nor is it a definable state of social relations or economic
structures but a continuous process. As shown in Chapter 3 in more detail, human

6 The path of sustainability
systems and ecological systems are complex, constantly evolving in accordance
with their own internal processes and in response to interactions with the other
system. There is no conceivable end point of this social evolution that can con-
tinue to be ‘sustainable’ – that is, remain unchanged and stay within natural limits
indefinitely.
This definition also means that sustainability is primarily a human problem.
It is less about the limits of ecosystems, though they exist, than about how we
arrange our interactions among ourselves and with the nonhuman world so that
we minimize the risk of exceeding those limits. Ecosystems are unconscious and
without purpose. Only humans and their social systems can consciously and
purposively adapt their behaviours to ecosystem evolution. This duty to regulate
human affairs to prevent excessive variation in essential ecosystems implies an
ability to monitor their health and adjust social and economic behavior accord-
ingly. We like to think that we have the scientific capacity to understand the
world around us and the rationality to design social rules to restrain ourselves
as a society from exceeding natural limits. Yet as Chapter 3 shows, it is not
possible to understand and predict the evolution of our complex social and eco-
nomic systems, let alone regulate them to desired ends. Sustainable development,
therefore, is more likely to be a consequence of a mass change in personal
choices than the result of government regulation.
Making capitalism sustainable
Capitalism is not monolithic, so I limit my discussion to the “modern capitalist
economies” that are essentially the 34 nations that are members of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). From this group, I am
particularly interested in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the larger national
members of the European Union, because they are richer and have a greater ability
to demonstrate the effectiveness of different ways to move toward sustainable
capitalism. These economies save less and consume more than poorer nations;
their economies are more effective at producing goods and services than generat-
ing specific social or environmental outcomes; and finance plays a powerful
central role in their economic activity. All these countries have some form of
liberal democracy – some are more open democracies than others – and all are
members of trade regimes and are active in the growing global trade in goods
and services. Finally, their economies are primarily market-based; they differ on
the degree and style of government intervention, but in each case, markets are
at the core of most economic processes.
For many environmentalists, markets are the essential weakness of capitalism.
Because markets decentralize decision-making, left to themselves they can only
produce an environmentally benign outcome if enough of us choose products and
services that we believe are good for us (which is why we buy) and fortuitously
do not harm ecosystems. Similarly, the result of all our exchanges in the market
may be to produce large income inequalities and vast swathes of relative poverty
in a wealthy country. Markets do not have feelings, cannot sense the ecological

The path of sustainability 7
damage they may cause, and have no ethical concerns for their social impacts.
Capitalism is constructed around markets for growing collective wealth – Adam
Smith’s the “wealth of nations” and not necessarily of every citizen – and it is
not designed to constantly adjust its social and economic activity to an evolving
understanding of the natural limits of essential ecosystems.
In conventional analyses, the problem of sustainable capitalism then becomes
how to channel or direct capitalism and its markets to take account of its social
and ecological effects; to forge beneficial social and ecological outcomes
without killing the ‘golden goose’ of economic growth. As Chapter 2 shows,
there are essentially two approaches: government regulation or appeal to indi-
vidual ethics.
For most environmentalists, government needs to use its authority to provide
appropriate incentives to change social and economic behavior or specifically
regulate those activities that are most ecologically damaging. Every time they
see a case of excess resource consumption – toxic emissions, loss of habitat, or
depletion of a species – they demand that government do something about it.
The government should outlaw some profitable economic activity and ban clear-
cutting forests, stop massive trawlers from vacuuming the oceans, end subsidies
for monoculture farming, prevent mercury emissions from coal plants or green-
house gas emissions from cars, or halt almost any other business behavior that
may be construed as a smoking gun for an environmental harm. This results in
a cacophony of demands for specific solutions to myriad single-issue problems that
do not aggregate to a clear call for sustainable development. That would require a
holistic view of each of the systems – social, economic, and ecological – and of
their interactions, a task beyond even the largest and most efficient of govern-
ments. In addition to the difficulty of making decisions about the ‘sustainability’
of a complex socio-economic system, any use of authority to correct excessive
ecological consumption also implies a loss of personal freedom for individuals
and firms.
At the other end of the political spectrum, capitalism is understood as a primary
guarantor of freedom. From Ayn Rand to Milton Friedman and the Austrian
economists, capitalism is seen as a socio-economic system that provides the
maximum of freedom to all citizens.
22
How they choose to live their lives is no
concern of governments. As economic activity is central to our lives, we must
be free of the dead hand of authority in how we earn and spend our income.
For this markets are uniquely valuable. People are free to voluntarily modify
their behavior to alleviate any possible social or ecological harm from their
actions and they are free to choose to act sustainably. There are three problems
with this approach: can we know what’s sustainable, is it practical, and is
altruism enough?
What does sustainability mean in daily life? To assess the sustainability of
any activity requires life cycle analysis – from raw material, through use, to
disposal – of the possible direct and indirect environmental and social effects of
any consumption or investment decision. The social impacts would have to
include forecasting the ultimate effect of possible adaptive changes in human

8 The path of sustainability
behavior. For example, it is now becoming clear that people leave the more
efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs burning longer, reducing their energy
savings. And there are many other examples of how technological changes bring
about changes in behavior that negate or change the intended social or economic
effect of the innovation.
23

Can any individual know how sustainable she is? Are electric cars ‘sustainable’
when they store electricity from coal-fired power stations delivered across inef-
ficient grid lines in short-lived batteries that use ‘rare earth’ materials that are
in short supply? Is it more ‘sustainable’ to eat at a vegetarian restaurant than to
cook at home? How do my choices of technology affect other peoples’ enjoy-
ment of their lives? If I choose to use public transportation and refuse to buy a
car, do I bring economic hardship to some automotive worker and her family
that reduces economic growth and the human capital that can contribute to sus-
tainable development? Is economic loss a necessary social cost of sustainable
development? Can any one person be sure that the social and ecological benefit
of his or her personal choices exceeds the loss of economic wealth or social
welfare? We are being asked to deny ourselves when we have no knowledge of
what benefit will result or to whom.
Environmentalists press us to take the moral high ground and restrain our
individual consumption: reduce, reuse, and recycle. They argue for individual
restraint for the greater good. If we reduce our personal consumption, it will
help to reduce the pressure on planetary resources. This may also be an accept-
able response for followers of the Austrian School of economists – although we
are presumed to be economically rational, we are free to act irrationally – but
Ayn Rand may demur that we should never consider the greater good but only
rationally pursue our personal self-interest. However, modern capitalist economies
that are the sum of our personal choices are not likely to become more sustain-
able unless a majority of us substantially reduces our personal consumption.
24

Because there is no material reward for this sacrifice, an individual choosing to
live sustainably is being altruistic: they are bearing a personal cost for the benefit
of another, perhaps in the distant future. Can this be enough? I address this
question in Chapter 2 .
The power of self-interest
Because of capitalism, the average person alive in 2000 earned more than 33 times
what their ancestors earned in 1800.
25
In today’s rich countries, the gains in
personal income and possessions are much greater. For example, in the US, real
GDP in 2011 was almost seven times greater than in 1950, while the population
had only slightly more than doubled.
26
Yet, there are many varieties of capital-
ism.
27
For example, the institutional components of the United States and France
differ substantially. The rules on corporate governance, contract enforcement,
competition, corporations’ capital structures, and employment regulations, which
are critical to economic decision-making, are very different between the two
countries, yet both countries are recognizably capitalist.

The path of sustainability 9
The unique genius of Adam Smith is that he saw a way to harness self-interest
for the collective good. The one essential commonality among all modern capitalist
economies is that they more or less permit each citizen to pursue what they each
see as their self-interest. Through no design of their own, as they pursue their
self-interest, they grow the wealth of the nation:
every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society
as great as he can. He generally . . . neither intends to promote the public
interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it . . . he intends only his
own gain, and is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand
to promote an end which was not part of his intention.
28

Those of us raised in capitalist economies have learned the sanctity of self-
interest, as if through our mother’s milk. In the United States the freedom to
pursue self-interest, stated in the Declaration of Independence as the “pursuit of
happiness,” is a founding purpose of the nation, and the freedom from govern-
ment intrusion into the lives of its citizens is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
Yet, because capitalism is blind to individual or nonmarket needs, some behavior
modification is needed to make the interactions of producers and consumers
through the capitalist market ‘sustainable.’ Producers must be forced or persuaded
to change what they supply to the market and how it is produced and consumers
equally made to change what they demand from the market. In essence, this is
little different from the problem of society itself: how to allow as much indi-
vidual freedom as possible without licensing those behaviors that would tear
society asunder.

The quote from Adam Smith refers to economic decisions, and
it is clear from his other major publication that he continued to rewrite after
publishing the Wealth of Nations that he thought of this as a special case.
29
He
advocated that, as members of society, not just as economic actors, we need to
hold to a higher standard, one of sympathy for the problems of others and
self-restraint.
In this book, I propose a unique solution to the problem of sustainability
that rejects authority and altruism as unwise or ineffective and lays the burden
on individual self-interest. Quite simply, we need to harness the power of self-
interest, but redirect it. Capitalism may heal the planet and society by using
its unique power to indulge and promote self-interest, if self-interest is redefined.
In Chapter 4 I argue that what we currently think of as good for us –
our self-interest – has become defined almost exclusively in material terms.
This is a consequence of decades of modern capitalism that so proficiently
manufactures goods and services that we may not need but have been persuaded
to want. The reason that researchers finds so many unhappy people in rich
countries is simply that materialism at the levels found in modern capitalist
economies does not satisfy our deepest needs. These psychological needs are
discussed in Chapter 6, but before that, Chapter 5 explains the difference
between happiness, which is widely studied by economists and psychologists,
and well-being. Happiness, as usually understood, is a fleeting emotion that

10 The path of sustainability
needs constant regeneration, but it is the pursuit of well-being that allows us
to truly enjoy our lives.
Well-being is an activity, a style of living, rather than a state of grace.
Therefore, we can pursue well-being by living in certain ways; like sustainable
development itself, it is not some goal that can be achieved and maintained but
a continuous process. We can continually enjoy the pursuit of well-being while
we only experience the emotion of happiness occasionally and for short periods.
Because material consumption plays little part in the pursuit of well-being,
those who pursue their well-being will reduce their consumption, perhaps sub-
stantially. Capitalism may put society on a sustainable path by spreading the
idea that the pursuit of well-being is the ultimate self-interest and the key to
an enjoyable life. Chapter 8 explores how this might be done in such a way
that the idea is taken up by a large number of people, and consumption is
substantially reduced. If many of us take up the pursuit of our personal well-
being, we shall enjoy our lives more and reduce consumption of the planet.
That is sustainable development.
Can capitalism survive the change?
Beyond the question of whether capitalism can sustain the environmental founda-
tion of society so that development in its broadest sense may continue is the
question of whether capitalism is itself sustainable. As capitalism changes to
sustain the natural environment and enhance human existence, will it still remain
recognizably capitalist? Would capitalism grow the seeds of its own destruction
within itself?
A few years ago, most observers would have considered these questions
ridiculous. Capitalism, and especially market capitalism, had spread across the
world and been taken up by ex-communist states. The ideological battle had
been won and the end of history had finally arrived.
30
However, the financial
crisis of 2007–2009 and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone
have led many analysts to wonder if capitalism as it is currently practiced will
implode from the endemic excesses that it creates.
Capitalism has long been considered by some to be an obstacle to sustainable
development.
31
But would it prevent sustainable development if self-interest is
used to forge a sustainable pathway? More importantly, if many of us pursue
our personal well-being, would the system that emerges from our choices still look
like capitalism? We take up these questions in chapters 9 and 10 . Chapter 9 devel-
ops a scenario of how the resultant decline in consumption might play out through
modern capitalist economies in which the capital markets and large-scale industrial
concerns dominate. The system could remain capitalist yet treat work and leisure
differently from how workers experience them today. Capital markets might be
transformed and technological innovation redirected, but neither need disappear.
Chapter 10 paints an impressionistic picture of capitalism re-formed by the
pursuit of well-being. Because socio-economic systems are complex, prediction
is not possible and forecasts are inaccurate, but it does seem possible both that

The path of sustainability 11
capitalism can create a society that follows a sustainable path and that, in doing
so, it will neither lose its essential character nor its ability to provide for our
material needs.
Notes
1. The quote about the futility of human life is taken from a speech in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth .
2. Donella H. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and Dennis L. Meadows, The Limits to
Growth: The 30-Year Update (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub. Co.,
2004).
3. Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, and A. Reisinger, 2007: Climate Change 2007:
Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Geneva, Switzerland:
IPCC, 2008).
4. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest 16 (1989); Francis
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
5. Stuart L. Hart, Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies
for a Post-Crisis World (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing, 2010);
L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of
Climate Change (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011); Peter Newell and Matthew
Paterson, Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global
Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Richard A. Posner, A
Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
6. “ Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007.” Washington
DC, Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, October 2011; Hope
Yen, “US Wealth Gap Between Young and Old is Widest Ever,” Associated Press,
Monday November 7, 2011. Accessed at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-wealth-gap-
between-young-apf-1375093723.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=
&ccode= on November 7, 2011; data from U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
Economic Analysis at www.bea.gov/index.htm.
7. United Nations, “Keeping Track of Our Changing Environment: From Rio to Rio+20
(1992–2012),” Division of Early Warning and Assessment (Nairobi: United Nations
Environment Programme – UNEP, 2011). Unless otherwise noted, all other data
quoted in this section are drawn from this source.
8. Tom Boden and T. J. Blasing, Record High 2010 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions
from Fossil-Fuel Combustion and Cement Manufacture (Washington DC: U.S.
Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 2011).
9. The United Nations estimates that an atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide
of more than 450 parts per million (ppm) is likely to cause significant warming, the
effects of which are not accurately predictable but are expected to stress most natural
and human populations. In 2011, atmospheric concentrations had reached 389 ppm
and had increased by 9 percent from 1992. Also see International Energy Agency,
Prospect of Limiting the Global Increase in Temperature to 2°C Is Getting Bleaker
(Paris: International Energy Agency, 2011). Accessed at http://iea.org/index_info
.asp?id=1959 on November 6, 2011.
10. The Ecological Footprint is one measure of the unsustainable present: www
.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/. Also see earlier
measures, including Peter M. Vitousek et al., “Human Appropriation of the Products
of Photosynthesis.” Bioscience 34, no. 6 (1986): 368–373; Robert Costanza et al.,
“ The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital,” Nature 387
(1997): 253–259.

12 The path of sustainability
11. See the rules for Environmental Protection Agency’s Guidelines for Preparing
Economic Analyses at http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/pages/Guidelines.html.
12. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York:
Penguin, 2005).
13. Neil E. Harrison and John Mikler, eds. Climate Innovation: Liberal Capitalism and
Climate Change (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
14. Tim Jackson, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan
Publications Ltd., 2009). See especially Chapter 5 , “The Myth of Decoupling,” on
pages 67–86 .
15. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
16. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines sustainable “as able to be sustained”
and to sustain as to “keep up, prolong.” See www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
sustainable. A secondary definition relates the term to a use of certain methods that
prevent a resource from being depleted.
17. For example, the US dollar has emerged as a more important means of exchange
than the local currency, and farmers have been offered incentives to grow more. See
“Seeds of Change: North Korean Farmers to Get Perks.” The Hindu (no date). Accessed
at www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/seeds-of-change-north-korean-
farmers-to-get-perks/article4774549.ece, on June 2, 2013.
18. Neil E. Harrison, Constructing Sustainable Development (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
2000); Denis Goulet, The Cruel Choice: A New Concept in the Theory of Development
(New York: Atheneum, 1977).
19. Most rich countries define poverty in relative rather than absolute terms: you feel
poor if you see many others with much more than you. As discussed in Chapter 4 ,
there is a cognitive and cultural contribution to relative poverty.
20. Sharachchandra M. Lélé, “Sustainable Development: A Critical Review,” World
Development 19, no. 6 (1991).
21. A quick Google search of ‘sustainable’ found 231 million entries that attach the
adjective to urban growth, many cities, communities, suburbia, business conferences,
energy, architecture and buildings, a dance club, gardening, apparel, fisheries, land-
scaping, tourism, and so on.
22. On Ayn Rand, see http://capitalism.org/ and Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York:
Random House, 1957). Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1962); F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1994 [1944]).
23. If something costs less, usually it is used more. Because compact fluorescent light
bulbs (CFLs) consume less electricity, users are less concerned with turning off lights
when they are not needed. In addition, for technical reasons, using CFLs for only
short periods shortens their life and makes them less economical. See John Matson,
“Does Turning Fluorescent Lights Off Use More Energy Than Leaving Them On?”
Scientific American, March 27, 2008 and articles at http://energystar.supportportal.com.
Also see David Owen, The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency,
and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse (New York:
Penguin, 2011).
24. Thomas O. Wiedmann, et al., “The Material Footprint of Nations” ( Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, September 2, 2013) reports that contrary to
expectations that countries become more materially efficient as they develop, rich
nations continue to increase their “material footprint,” primarily because their increas-
ing end consumption is supported by growing imports.
25. J. Bradford DeLong, “Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C.–Present.” Accessed
at http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/1998_Draft/World_GDP/Estimating_World_
GDP.html on November 7, 2011. In constant 1990 dollars, average per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) in 2000 are estimated at $6,539; in 1800 they were $195.

The path of sustainability 13
26. Data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, accessed at www.census.gov/population/
estimates/nation/popclockest.txt on November 7, 2011.
27. Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations
of Comparative Advantage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
28. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited
by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, 2 vols.; Glasgow Edition of the Works and
Correspondence of Adam Smith, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), 456.
Smith’s promise has been borne out, most especially in the last century.
29. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D. D. Raphael and
A. L. Macfie. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).
30. Fukuyama, “The End of History?”
31. For example, William Ophuls and A. Stephen Boyan Jr., Ecology and the Politics of
Scarcity Revisited (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1992).

2 The failure of authority and altruism
The crux of the problem of sustainability is the organization of human behavior.
Left to themselves, ecosystems would evolve as they have for millennia. Yet,
they are unlikely to be able to continue to support seven billion people (soon to
be more than nine billion) at the level of needs and wants that people have now
learned, or to which they aspire. Society and its economy are now organized for
a level of exploitation of ecosystems as never before. How should we organize
social and economic systems to make sustainability possible?
Many scholars, pundits, and gurus have considered this puzzle. Often they
have delved deeply into the causes of the unsustainability of the current practices
of nations and organizations and the behaviors of individuals. They have recorded
data on the depletion of natural resources, dissected economic structures, inter-
rogated social mores and cultural shibboleths, and squabbled about the nature
of human nature. Almost none has offered a cogent argument about how to solve
this puzzle. Indeed as Thomas Princen writes about environmental talks that he
attends: “the first fifty-five minutes of the one-hour presentation details an envi-
ronmental trend or describes a state of some piece of the environment . . . In
the last five minutes, sometimes in the very last minute, the speaker” admits this
is a human problem and then launches into an impassioned argument that “People
have to be less greedy.”
1
In a similar manner, weighty tomes list many of the
reasons why our social and economic behaviors are unsustainable and spend just
a few pages suggesting a weak or impractical course of action to make human
systems sustainable. And, if you laid all these scholars, pundits, and gurus end
to end, you would still not come to a conclusion. They disagree on the definition
of the problem (what sustainability is) or how to solve it. Or you would reach
the conclusion that they simply do not know (or even have a reasonable guess)
how human systems may emerge onto a sustainable path.
Inevitably, their solutions seem always to boil down to a variation of one of
two solutions sketched out more than two centuries ago by Edmund Burke, an
Irish member of the British Parliament. He was commenting on the rationale for
regulation and laws generally, but what he wrote in a letter to a French
Assemblyman is equally appropriate for sustainable development:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to
put moral chains upon their own appetites; . . . Society cannot exist unless

The failure of authority and altruism 15
a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the
less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
2

Sustainable development is really not different from public safety and the rule
of law that was Burke’s concern. To avoid an excess of behavior that causes
harm to others, we either train people to restrain themselves, or the authority of
government must be used to compel them to refrain from those actions. As a
parent might say to a naughty child: “Stop it or I’ll stop you!” The choice
between what I call authority or altruism is inevitably a matter of personal
preference.
The state of play
This book is not the first to look at the sustainability of capitalism nor will it
be the last. Other books already have considered how to retain the wealth-
accumulating benefits of capitalism while making it more sustainable, more
accommodative to social and ecological limits. This problem of unsustainable
extraction of financial wealth by the depletion of social capital and the plunder
of ecological resources will only get worse before it can get better, if ever it
will. Therefore, it has attracted the attention of scholars and pundits, writers and
thinkers, and all nature of other scribblers. In this section, I discuss what I have
learned from some of the leading writings about sustainability and brought into
this book and where the argument in this book diverges from proposals of leading
authors. Therefore, this section identifies the connections with current thinking
about sustainability but clearly shows where this book offers a radical alternate
vision of a sustainable future.
Destruction by consumption
Peter Dauvergne takes a global perspective to show that consumption in the rich
countries casts ecological shadows in ever more distant places. Aided by multi-
national corporations and profit-pursuing business, trade and international trade
regimes, and globalization and a global financial system, rich country consumers
are indirectly harming ecological systems across the planet and into the future.
Consumption in the rich countries is “hiding costs in distant lands and assigning
them to future generations.”
3
In the face of the “core assumption . . . that indefinite
economic growth is possible and necessary” it is left to governments to “put in
place much tougher measures and disincentives to prevent the unequal practices
of multinational corporations from displacing ecological costs.”
4
Nothing less
than “sweeping reforms to the world order . . . are necessary.”
5
Would that it
were possible; Dauvergne does not tell us how this might happen. In this book,
I accept his thesis that consumption is the central problem of sustainability but
reject the idea that constraining consumption is solely the responsibility of gov-
ernments (see later in this chapter). I propose a way in which the world order
may be reformed from the bottom-up without governments and probably indeed
in the face of opposition from them (see chapters 7 and 9 ).

16 The failure of authority and altruism
Growth and efficiency
For decades, a simple paradigm has driven the economies of the rich countries:
more is better.
6
This no longer is true. More is better for the poor in developing
countries, but more no longer makes citizens of the rich countries happy as they
consume the Earth. To build a durable future, people like us will have to under-
stand that simple fact and change how we live. Bill McKibben draws a rich
picture of the quantity of production, the great mass of stuff that is being made
that slowly enriches Chinese peasants and rapidly increases the wealth of the
global rich but does little to improve the lives of the poor and middle class in
the rich countries, especially in the United States. We cannot wait for “national
and international action” to make everything easier. “Local economies need to
grow up . . . locally” through “building farmers’ markets and radio stations and
neighborhood windmills.”
7
Given the scale of the ecological challenges and the
power of the economic forces, McKibben’s solution seems too small in scale and
effect. He is correct though that “we also need a new mental model of the pos-
sible”; my purpose in this book is to propose a mental model for sustainability
(in Chapter 5 ) and suggest how it might be widely disseminated (see Chapter 8 ).
For Princen, more never was better; it always led to social distortion, economic
excess, and alienation.
8
Efficiency has been important to the survival of Homo
sapiens: those who best used the resources available to them survived. But as
an organizing principle for industrial production, it is highly destructive. Several
fascinating case studies illustrate his rejection of the present pursuit of efficiency
and his vision for the future. In practice, sufficiency is about “sensitivity to scale,
overstepping natural boundaries or social norms, to exceeding capacity, to jeop-
ardizing good will.”
9
A sustainable socio-economic system, he argues, can be
built around sufficiency as an organizing principle: “a modestly thoughtful twelve
year old . . . will find nothing unusual about restraint and respite, precaution
and polluter pays, selectively permeable boundaries, and self-determined work.”
10

After his comprehensive description of the social, human, and ecological
damage wrought by efficiency and his detailed analysis of sufficiency as a “nec-
essary condition, a set of decision criteria, a set of principles critical for . . .
reorganizing society for sustainable resource use,” he hopes that a sufficiency
principle will emerge without telling us how to make it happen.
11
Relying on its
self-evident logic and its potential to deliver long-term biophysical security, he
anticipates it will emerge when “the larger environment can no longer accommodate
endless expansion and freewheeling experimentation.”
12
Eventually, we will do what
is “logical under global ecological constraint.”
13
Although the modern capitalist
economies have reached material sufficiency, their citizens are not happy. I argue
in chapters 5 through 7 that their pursuit of a more enjoyable life will rationally
draw them to a way of life that will naturally reduce their consumption.
Modes of thought
John Ikerd’s Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense begins with a
detailed critique of neoclassical economics that has led to the disconnection of

The failure of authority and altruism 17
the economic system from its social and ethical roots and a narrow pursuit of
financial wealth in place of happiness or well-being.
14
By emphasizing the indi-
vidual over the group, modern economics has shone a light on how the pursuit
of self-interest may generate financial wealth accumulation but has obscured
how that pursuit damages social relations and ecosystems. Social and ecological
externalities are ignored in pursuit of endless growth. Ecological economics is
an inadequate corrective; assigning monetary values to social and ethical matters
cannot fix the underlying narrowness of economic thought. Ikerd then proposes
a wholesale shift to what he calls “economics as a life science” that takes an
organismic view of the economy and economic organizations. While the sustain-
able economy must be economically viable, it must also be equitable and just;
ethical and moral; and “embody operational principles consistent with those of
living systems.” Because we are chained to a way of thinking that naturally omits
ecological systems from decision-making, we unquestioningly accept as normal
and reasonable underlying assumptions and philosophies that focus attention and
effort on short-term optimization wholly within human systems. As Lovins and
Cohen advise, “markets may be very good servants, but they’re not good masters,
and they’re a lousy religion.”
15
Yet, we worship them.
It is not necessary to worship markets to use them. In Chapter 3 and throughout
the rest of this book, markets are assumed to be an essential component of capi-
talism and, even without government intervention, a tool of sustainable
development.
Gill Seyfang agrees with Ikerd but goes further. Orthodox economics does not
understand consumption. Consumption is not a rational exercise within a utilitar-
ian philosophy.
16
People buy things for many reasons but always within a social
context. They are influenced by social norms and what others are buying. Also,
goods have more than their practical use; they play a symbolic role in our lives
and carry a social meaning in terms of status, identity, social affiliation, and how
we relate to others, as discussed in Chapter 4 .
17
What we have is who we are
and how others know us. In addition, purchase decisions are influenced by emo-
tions and bound up with psychological needs while we are overloaded with
information from an excess of choice. Rationality under these conditions is a
heroic assumption. Thus, a New Economics of Consumption is needed that more
closely models reality and recognizes the social sources of consumption. This
economics redefines wealth and progress, understands work more broadly (to
include bartered or unpaid labor), reconceptualizes money and its uses in terms
of time and utility, and brings ethics back into economic life.
18
Once we begin
to think along these lines about production and consumption, we shall be able
to propose appropriate ways to “reduce absolute consumption levels by ‘consum-
ing less.’ ”
19
To consume less requires “five interlinked processes” of “localisation,
reducing ecological footprints, community-building, collective action, and build-
ing new social infrastructure or systems of provision.”
20
These processes are
primarily bottom-up and depend on local organization and self-help within the
community. They also need government support and forbearance: “top-down
government support is essential in enabling bottom-up innovations to flourish

18 The failure of authority and altruism
and thrive . . . alternative initiatives for sustainable consumption do not require
top-down government control, but rather the ability to grow externally to the
mainstream without being squeezed out of existence.”
21
Authority, she argues, is
needed not to control or regulate but to clear a space for its power to be chal-
lenged by semi-autonomous local communities.
That consumption is driven as much by social pressure and status as economic
rationality is an important concern that Chapter 4 explores. As Chapter 3 argues,
globalization adds a level of complexity to exchange relations that threatens
social and ecological sustainability. Yet, I cannot accept that localization is nec-
essary or sufficient to reverse that trend. Instead, I argue that self-interested
individuals who seek more enjoyment in life will learn to reduce their consump-
tion. Cooperation within a community is not practical in large urban areas and
not necessary in smaller ones because people who share a mental model will
naturally behave similarly. As Chapter 3 suggests, the system paradigm will
change, if enough people share a new mental model.
It’s about systems
Homer-Dixon argues that as the world becomes more interconnected physically,
socially, and economically, it becomes more fragile and less resilient.
22
In over-
coming persistent challenges either from the environment – earthquakes, wild
fires, climate change, and so on – or from within human systems such as financial
crises and terrorist attacks, it becomes ever more complex. Each response to a
challenge is met with a ‘patch’ that fixes the problem for now with no thought
for its long-term effect. And each patch increases the overhead burden of keeping
our socio-economic system functioning. Without persistent innovation to reduce
the costs of increasing complexity or simplify the system, the system will even-
tually collapse. What is required now is a change in values.
Homer Dixon’s book is an interesting variation on the usual approaches to
sustainability. In fluent prose he explains the problem: an increasing brittleness
in ever more interconnected socio-economic systems. However, he is less con-
cerned about managing the interactions between human systems and ecosystems.
For him, the problem is the decline in the resilience in human systems for which
there is mounting evidence that is systematically ignored. While he does not
directly address sustainability or the capitalist system, his work is useful because
it delves in more detail into the nature of complex social systems and how they
may fail. The complexity of human systems is an important consideration that
is often overlooked and one that I consider in some detail in Chapter 3 .
Focusing on an immediate threat to sustainability, Lovins and Cohen describe
a capitalism that would mitigate climate change. There are three principles of
climate capitalism: use all resources as efficiently as possible, redesign produc-
tion processes to cradle-to-cradle, and manage institutions to restore human and
natural capital. If we saw “the world as a set of interlinked systems” (as Homer
Dixon does and as I do here) we would realize that we cannot continue with
business-as-usual.
23
But who is to make these changes? Governments, lobbied

The failure of authority and altruism 19
by industry, cannot resolve the problem. After showing that Adam Smith believed
that the pursuit of “vanity and superiority” destroys happiness, Lovins and Cohen
argue that a low-carbon world would be perfectly habitable. Visual simulations
of such a world could make people realize that they would enjoy living in such
a world. They then make a plea for personal effort: “Real leadership is extraor-
dinary courage by ordinary people. This little blue marble, Earth, suspended in
space, is the only place in all the known universe where there is life. Will you
protect it?”
24
I accept, as detailed in Chapter 8, that social relations, especially
in voluntary groups, can be critical to the broad dissemination of a new mental
model. But hoping that enough people will be driven by the abstract notion of
protecting the planet is a poor substitute for an immediate and personal benefit
from changing our mental models that has the incidental effect of reducing
consumption. Later in this chapter I reject the power of the altruism that Lovins
and Cohen propose.
An undercurrent flowing through all these analyses but that is rarely visible
is the suspicion that market capitalism is inevitably destructive of the planet and
the human spirit. Only Porritt makes a full-throated call to harness the potential
of capitalism. He argues that capitalism is essential to sustainable development.
25

He rejects calls – usually from environmentalists – for an end to capitalism
(broadly defined), strict regulation by governments of markets (where is the politics
for this?), or a reversion to idyllically imagined, precapitalist village life. He
defends capitalism as the only viable economic system, emphasizes the need for
“new opportunities for responsible wealth creation,” and wants a capitalism that
emphasizes “enlightened self-interest and personal well-being.”
26
It is, he argues,
the only way “to provide any serious political alternative to today’s economic
and political orthodoxy.” He speculates that incremental change in capitalism is
advisable and possible in Northern Europe, perhaps in the UK, but not in the
US. Sustainability, he argues, can “come from working with the grain of markets
and free choice.”
27
However, markets must be “properly regulated . . . within a
genuinely sustainable macro-economic framework” if they are to be the “most
effective (and sustainable) mechanism for allocation of resources.” This implies
heavy government intervention in the institutions that shape and mold markets
to provide social and economic sustainability.
28
The other authors reviewed here
agree with this posture: markets cannot be trusted and must be shaped and chan-
neled through the political system. They all expect that this is possible, that
governments are independent enough of business to be able to regulate effectively
corporate choices and interactions. They have faith that governments (who exer-
cise authority) can make the hard and effective decisions that are needed to
ensure sustainable outcomes from markets.
This seems naïve on several levels, not least because governments are rarely
effective or efficient. Because human and ecological systems are complex, govern-
ments are not up to the challenge of substantial change (as shown in Chapter 3 ).
I also argue in that chapter and further in Chapter 7 that in the modern capitalist
economies, democratic governments are rarely sufficiently independent of business
to appropriately regulate market interactions to sustainable ends. For example,

20 The failure of authority and altruism
localization advocates demand a roll-back of globalization or at least government
protection of community self-organization from the ravages of global trade.
Although the Great Recession caused some increased resistance to globalization –
primarily around immigration – governments in North America, the EU, and
Japan have resisted popular demands to increase trade barriers.
Authority and institutions
As the generally preferred route to sustainability, the application of authority
deserves a more detailed discussion. Exercising governmental authority to ‘get
the institutions right’ is the commonly preferred way to move society to a sustain-
able path. The “Tragedy of the Commons” is a parable much quoted by scholars
of environmental politics about how the untrammeled pursuit of self-interest
destroys the environment that we all ultimately rely on.
29
If several sheepherders
graze their stock on common or public land, it is rational for each to keep adding
to their flock until the number of grazing sheep exceeds the carrying capacity
of the land. The number of sheep the land can sustain is limited by the rate at
which the grass grows. This powerful tale drives much of the environmental
movement’s opposition to market capitalism.
There are several ways to avoid this tragedy. The three most popular solutions
are institutional: negotiated coordination, external regulation, or privatization.
The users of the common resource can get together and organize a system that
each agrees is fair and that conserves the resource for all.
30
In small groups,
informal rules to enforce restraint of self-interest – and punish those who refuse
to comply – may be very effective and produce a collective benefits that all can
share.
Myriad such negotiated solutions to specific local environmental problems
may or may not sum to global sustainability. For example, a local institutional
arrangement that secures sufficient water for all farms in a watershed may produce
enough food to feed the farmers and their families but not enough to contribute
to feeding a growing city nearby. In small settings, face-to-face meetings may
readily secure agreement over a fair and sustainable division of the spoils of a
local resource. But modern societies are increasingly urban: more than half the
global population lives in cities and nearly a quarter in cities of over 750,000.
31

By 2050 nearly 70 percent of the global population will be urban, and even in
the least developed countries more than half the population will live in urban
areas. While some small groups may self-organize within cities, particularly
around specific issues, self-organization of large populations is not practical,
though as discussed in Chapter 8 , social media may be changing that. Cities still
seem to need governments.
The two other solutions to the Tragedy of the Commons demand more formal
institutions. Governments have emerged to improve social and economic coor-
dination in large populations. They can regulate the use of common resources
to prevent any user from overusing it. Finally, governments can license the
privatization of the resource. If a single owner has exclusive use of the resource,

The failure of authority and altruism 21
it is in his self-interest to manage it so that it is not overused.
32
A sustainably
managed resource will produce longer and should, over its lifetime, generate
greater economic value. However, the time value of money that neoclassical
economics demands restricts sustainable resource management, and demands for
current cash earnings can lead to less than economically optimal resource
exploitation.
33

In addition, governments can establish institutions to “get prices right” –
economists’ preferred means for limiting the consumption of natural resources
by private producers and their emission of pollution. Markets often fail to
appropriately value the consumption of natural resource stocks (e.g., petroleum)
and flows (e.g., water) or the effects of dumping of waste products into natural
sinks.
34
Governments can, in principle, levy taxes or enforce regulations to
correct those failures. For example, a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade regime
would increase the price of carbon and make carbon-based energy less eco-
nomically attractive and alternate energy resources relatively more
attractive.
Applying authority
The formal institutions that are created and adjusted by government are frequently
promoted as essential to sustainable development. While this literature is large,
three books exemplify this approach.
35
First, William Ophuls offers a political
perspective to social control for sustainability.
36
The need to urgently combat
ecological scarcity has “cut the ground out from under our political system,
making merely reformist policies of ecological management all but useless.”
37

Modern liberal democracy is “doomed.” As the age of abundance ends, political
systems will “necessarily move from liberty toward authority,” giving priority to
communal rights over individual rights, and institutions will be created that will
be based on “principles designed to foster the common interest of the steady
state instead of the particular interests that would destroy it.”
38
Competence in
administration and policymaking will become increasingly important: a govern-
ment of philosopher kings who could make the hard rational decisions would
be needed. A political system by common consent founded on a “set of values
fit to be ruled by” that include frugality, humility, and gentleness, would have
to replace laissez-faire market capitalism.
Second, a seminal book by Herman Daly advocates changes in values and
the creation of novel institutions to move capitalism from constant growth to a
steady-state.
39
A steady-state economy is “an economy with constant stocks of
people and artifacts, maintained at some desirable, sufficient levels by low rates
of maintenance ‘throughput.’ ”
40
In addition to some desirable values – material
sufficiency, a sense of stewardship of all creation, humility, and holism – the
steady-state requires three institutions that control the distribution of income,
births, and depletion of natural resources. These three exercises in authoritative
rule-making should follow a guiding principle that provides “the necessary
social control with a minimum sacrifice of personal freedom, to provide

22 The failure of authority and altruism
macrostability while allowing for microvariabiliy, to combine the macrostatic
with the microdynamic.”
41
The Distributist Institution limits the minimum and
maximum income and the maximum wealth with the intent to distribute power
over vital resources more equitably with environmental limits enforced by quotas.
Transferable Birth Licenses would be designed to cap the population. Each
female would be provided with a license to give birth that could be transferred.
Births without a license would be punished. The third institution would set an
aggregate Depletion Quota for every resource, especially nonrenewable resources.
Production and pollution quotas would operate differently from price quotas
that “intervene at the wrong end with the wrong policy tool” by providing micro-
rather than macro-control.
42
Depletion quotas would still allow private ownership
of resources but limit overall resource consumption, driving up prices and
reducing overall demand, and still allow the market to allocate production
between firms.
The third book is more recent but shows that authoritative intervention in
social and economic interactions is still central to the sustainability project. While
Daly questions whether sustainability is possible within a growth economy, Tim
Jackson bluntly denies that it is. First, Jackson shows why technological change
cannot deliver sustainability. Then he conclusively rejects the sufficiency of
decoupling consumption of the natural environment from continued economic
growth. In a later article tellingly entitled “Societal Transformations for a
Sustainable Economy,” he further concludes that “there is a need for profound
transformation of the economic system itself, for which the rich nations must
take a primary responsibility. This transformation has implications for incentive
structures, ownership patterns, investment portfolios, the organisation of financial
markets, and the structure of economic activities and for expectations of economic
growth.”
43

Commenting that “a new vision of governance does make sense,” Jackson lays
out a program to establish resource and emission limits, fix the economic model,
and change the social logic: “there is a need for profound transformation of the
economic system itself. . . . This transformation has implications for incentive
structures, ownership patterns, investment portfolios, the organisation of financial
markets, and the structure of economic activities and for expectations of economic
growth.”
44

Many policies he prescribes are extensions of what governments currently do.
Governments, he tells us, should invest in jobs and infrastructure, especially
related to “ecological investment” to increase energy efficiency and reduce
resource consumption; invest to increase labor productivity; reform the regulation
of financial markets; reduce income inequality; and increase public control of
the money supply. They also should reduce the working week to share out a
diminished supply of work; strengthen social capital; enforce stronger regulation
of commercial media; and create better trading standards. Other jobs for govern-
ments are to modify national accounts to “provide a more robust measure of
economic performance”
45
and to develop an ecological macro-economics. Jackson
assures us that “there is now a unique opportunity for governments in advanced

The failure of authority and altruism 23
economies – by pursuing these steps to initiate change of a wider nature. . . . [and]
champion international action on sustainability.”
46

Governance problems
If these policy changes were possible, would they markedly reduce consumption
of goods and services? For four reasons, their effect is unlikely to be sufficient.
First, governments around the world have a long history of bad policy and worse
implementation. Policy often deviates substantially from objectively rational
solutions to defined problems because of the intervention of interested parties
inside and outside government. Lobbying can serve a legitimate information
function but often becomes something entirely less benign. As an instrument of
special interests, lobbying has the power to substantially influence policy design,
making it more effective at serving private rather than public interests. Once the
policy is formed, implementation is left to the executive branch that usually
interprets it through its standard procedures and practices. In its practical effect,
the policy may become something entirely different from what the drafters envis-
aged and even further from rational policy.
47

The second reason why government intervention is unlikely to direct the capi-
talist economy along a sustainable path is simple: human systems are complex.
As such they are unpredictable, as are their responses to government interventions
aimed at forcing specific behavioral changes in populations. The Federal Reserve
forced interest rates down after the so-called “Dotcom Bubble” to encourage
capital investment and stimulate economic activity. The response of homeowners
was to take on more debt and buy larger houses, creating another asset bubble.
The complexity of human systems and the ecological systems on which we
depend is discussed in more detail in the next chapter. This complexity means
that authority – top-down regulation and control – is less effective than emergent
self-organization, which could potentially open unique opportunities for system
change.
Third, humans are endlessly adaptable. They like to be free to pursue their
self-interest as they please and are constantly creative in their avoidance or
manipulation of formal rules to serve their needs and wants. Authority is always
resisted or circumvented, sometimes in petty ways, occasionally in revolution.
In many countries, the informal (and untaxed) economy thrives. In developing
countries its output can be 25 percent to 40 percent of GDP.
48
Even in OECD
countries, it is substantial, estimated at an average of 14 to 16 percent of GDP.
49

In Italy and Greece, it may be as much as 27 percent or 30 percent of the national
economy; in the US, it is estimated at 10 percent, which still makes it larger than
the whole economy of Turkey. In the US, the 1994 assault weapons ban was
ineffective because both producers and consumers modified their behavior to
avoid them.
50
Even those who make the laws in democratic countries, break them;
among other infractions, they exaggerate their expenses or tax deductions.
51

Finally, national governments cannot deliver us onto a sustainable pathway
because they are constructs of business as usual. Tim Jackson has stated that

24 The failure of authority and altruism
sustainability “has to be companies. It has to be civil society. But it has to have
political leadership. ”
52
Because governments are products of the system that
must be changed, they cannot by themselves transform it or lead that transforma-
tion. They are only competent to “play with parameters” and cannot change the
goals of the system, modify the paradigm that underlies it, or transcend the
paradigm, all of which would much more effectively transition society to a
sustainable path.
53
Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were able to make substantive
changes to the American system within the context of existential security threats.
It would take a much more skilled and charismatic leader to change the system’s
goals from economic growth to sustainability or to change the system paradigm
from eternal growth in material consumption to the well-being of citizens.
Fortunately, we have the experience of several command and control economies
within centralized states – including the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and North
Korea – to demonstrate for us that authoritative manipulation of supply and
demand toward a social goal is ineffective.
Governments may have a role in the transition to sustainability. But that role
is much more limited and peripheral than supporters of the institutional approach
propose and would be limited to aiding and abetting the social revolution insti-
gated by emergent properties of the system. For example, if people begin to
demand more leisure or the quantity of work declines, governments might remove
structural and fiscal disincentives to work-share programs and part-time or con-
tract employment.
Our current consumption of natural goods is equivalent to at least one and
one-half Planet Earths.
54
In other words, we use 50 percent more of nature’s
beneficence than the Earth can sustainably produce. Is it likely that governments
either individually or collectively will be able to reduce natural goods con-
sumption by one-third while the global population continues to increase, and
nearly 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians demand to live like Americans? The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that to avoid a dangerous
change in the global climate would require up to an 85 percent reduction in the
greenhouse gas emissions of the rich countries by 2050.
55
Thus far, most govern-
ments have failed to even meet their promises on the first small step, the Kyoto
Protocol.
56

Reducing freedom
By their nature, democratic governments are unable to force the level of systemic
change required. An all-powerful “Sovereign” limits conflict within society by
restraining each of us from pursuing everything we want in any way we choose.
57

In rich modern nations, the sovereign usually is an elected representative govern-
ment whose formal institutions regulate our actions to achieve preferred collective
benefits.
58
The objective is to limit our choice of the ways in which we can
pursue our desires. Laws against public nudity, drunkenness, or fighting are
promulgated to promote social peace. But this task is much simpler than chang-
ing the system goal or paradigm, as I discuss further in Chapter 3 .

The failure of authority and altruism 25
The conventional solution to the problem of fossil fuel energy is to require
replacement of old products with newer more efficient technology. This has the
benefit of feeding the constant demand for economic growth, as well as reducing
consumption of natural goods and harmful emissions. Sales of incandescent light
bulbs were recently banned in the US (as they have been in Australia and other
countries for some time) to force producers to supply only more efficient compact
fluorescents or light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Government-imposed mileage stan-
dards increase the cost of automobiles but encourage replacement of the gasoline-
powered cars with more efficient automobiles, such as hybrids and electric
vehicles. A carbon tax or cap-and-trade system increases the cost of energy from
fossil fuels and makes renewable energy more attractive to consumers. In each
case, our freedom of choice is curtailed and the ways in which we can pursue
our self-interest are circumscribed by external authority.
None of these limits of personal freedom is likely appreciably to increase
social and ecological sustainability. Even taken together, they fall short while
they appreciably reduce human freedom. Sustainable development, if it is to
mean anything, cannot be only about trade-offs between social, economic, and
ecological systems such that conservation of natural systems must be ‘bought’
with lower growth or greater political control. As I show in the next chapter,
this is all playing with parameters that is wholly inadequate for the task at hand.
Altruism
Authority exercised through formal institutions is an external constraint on human
desires. Mirroring Burke, the alternative is for individuals to voluntarily limit
their desires or their fulfillment of those desires. Adam Smith also prescribed
self-restraint for a healthy functioning society.
59
Self-restraint – limiting our
self-interest – for the benefit of some others or for the public good is altruistic.
If one person bears the costs and others reap the benefits, on the face of it that
choice is altruistic. Altruism is part of the foundation of society, but it is much
less common and much weaker than commonly supposed.
If it is natural for each of us to pursue our self-interest, should I deny my
desire in order to save the planet? Should I consume less so that your grand-
children will inherit a planet alive with abundant nature? Will I live long enough
to suffer the climate change, pollution, conflict, and economic collapse that
may result from my oil-indulgent choices today? The many popular calls by
environmentalists for voluntary self-restraint essentially are calls for altruistic
behavior.
Altruism is acting not in our immediate personal interests but to provide some
benefit for others. Altruism continues to play an important social role even in
capitalist (that is, self-interested) societies because it is hardwired into human
behavior. It is important within families in raising children and in small social
groups and other situations in which reciprocity may be expected. But as a rule
for organizing mass societies to sustainability, it makes little sense. However,
all definitions of sustainable development include some notion of considering

26 The failure of authority and altruism
the future, usually expressed as “future generations.” In other words, we are
exhorted to mold our behaviors to conserve ecosystems for the benefit of abstract
persons living in the very long-term future, to deny ourselves in order to leave
as much or as good for some unknown being in an ill-defined future life. If I
voluntarily drive less and walk more to help reduce concentrations of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere and reduce the threat of climate change, I incur most
of the cost or inconvenience here and now, while others benefit in the future
from a world that otherwise would have been ravaged by climate change. Of
course, my contribution to the comfort of future generations would be small,
but if we all sacrificed for the future, we could change it. All such calls for
altruistic behavior to save the planet reflect the hope that enough consumers
will put “moral chains” on their appetites to reduce pressure on natural sources
of raw materials and natural sinks for wastes from human processes. Consumers
would choose to limit their pursuit of their own interests to support the interests
of others.
As a remedy for unsustainable development, this strand of thought expects
(or, at least, hopes) that individuals will voluntarily refuse to fulfill all their
desires to relieve pressure on vital ecosystems. These moral chains also may be
founded in demands that we act more ethically toward nature. While altruism is
an action that we choose because it benefits other humans, ethical behavior
toward nature concerns patterns of action that give nonhuman life comparable
status to human life: they treat conservation of all life as morally right. In ethical
argument, our choice to put “moral chains” on our appetites is the right thing
to do, either because it benefits nonhuman life or because it better aligns our
psyche with the ecological systems of which we are a part. Thus, ethics argu-
ments are more or less about the morality of recognizing our place within a
holistic Earth system. The ethics systems designed to treat human and nonhuman
life holistically include:
• Accepting the inherent value of species and reverence for life in all its forms
• Realizing the ethic of inherent worth of all organisms in a web of life
• Implementing a Land Ethic that emerges from an ecological conscience with
responsibility for the health of the land’s biotic community
• Adopting the ‘Ecosophy’ of Deep Ecology that advocates personal self-
actualization through biocentric equality.
60

Altruism, however, is not a matter of right or wrong: it is less an aspect of
morality than a social act with a social purpose.
Despite the differences between ethical action and altruism, their effects are com-
parable. Perceived pragmatically, self-restraint toward nature based in ethical argu-
ments and altruistic action are much the same. In both instances, we deny ourselves
some benefit available to us without expectation of material reward. In both instances,
any reward is personal and intrinsic, possibly supporting our well-being and our
sense of autonomy and integrity (see Chapter 6 for more on the value of autonomy).
Therefore, for our present purposes, I treat ethical action as altruistic.

The failure of authority and altruism 27
Altruism in practice
Calls for altruism often are hidden in other concepts. For example, environmen-
talists press firms to accept their ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR). The
economy is a subset of society, the place where we produce, consume, and
exchange to satisfy our material desires. As such, we would hope that the economy
would serve the needs of society. However, modern market capitalism is predi-
cated on self-interested maximization. Corporate executives have a primary (some
say ‘sole’) duty to manage their firm so as to generate the largest possible profits
for its owners.
61
From this perspective, CSR is voluntary restraint of the firm’s
capitalist obligations to its shareholders in order to limit its potential harm to
other stakeholders in society.
62

Advocates of CSR hope to impose an ethical influence beyond the merely
instrumental effort to manage a social environment composed of multiple stake-
holders. For them, CSR constitutes “societal expectations of corporate behavior”
that may be “expected by society or morally required and is therefore justifiably
demanded of a business.”
63
Thus, environmentally beneficial actions that reduce
a firm’s operating costs are neither altruistic nor an expression of CSR because
the firm earns a return on that investment that contributes to its profit motive.
For many firms, CSR is little more than a reputational tool that responds to
social organizations that are increasingly pressuring firms to demonstrate an
ethical concern for their effects on society. The pressure of these organizations
reduces the altruistic nature of reputation burnishing: because they are attacked
as antisocial, firms that respond with active CSR are self-interested and not
altruistic. They are protecting their reputation with consumers, suppliers, and the
investment community in order to prevent the economic harm that damage to
that reputation may cause.
‘Responsible Investing’ similarly expects self-restraint for the greater good.
This is the idea that investors who are intent on maximizing their investment
return should integrate consideration of environment, society, and corporate
governance (ESG) into their decision-making and in doing so, “balance the
competing goals of business, society and finance.”
64
Reflecting an effort to pres-
sure public companies to behave sustainably, the United Nation’s Principles of
Responsible Investment assume an investor’s duty to act in the best long-term
interests of their beneficiaries and that ESG issues affect those interests.
65
Based
on that assumption, the Principles advocate active ownership, put pressure on
firms to improve relevant disclosures, and demand the inclusion of ESG in
investment selection. Either because beneficiaries have interests that are less than
long -term or because applying ESG in investment selection may reduce invest-
ment performance, beneficiaries are forced by responsible investment companies
to sacrifice returns for the ‘greater good.’
Closer to home, we are advised to reduce, recycle, and reuse; to seek simplic-
ity in everything we do; to install renewable power and get off the grid; to give
up meat to save the land; and to build our houses with straw for insulation.
66
All
worthy practices for those who volunteer for this effort. Therein lies the rub. If

28 The failure of authority and altruism
the reward for voluntary consumption limits is mainly in feeling better than our
neighbors because we, not they, are saving the planet, not only will few people
sign on, but those who do will become unbearable boors. There is nobody so
tedious as someone who believes they are better than us.
If there were a direct payback for the extra effort to live “outside the box” of
our prevailing consumer culture, many more might live that way. Economists
tell us that if we “get prices right” – for example, by taxing energy sources on
their carbon emissions – there would be monetary rewards for replacing fossil
energy with ‘green’ energy. There are two problems here. First, governments
have to impose their power to get prices right in the first place. Regulating emis-
sions, taxing production, or subsidizing renewable energy means that governments
regulate social activities and limit consumer choice. They prefer to avoid such
top-down authority because firms oppose it and because consumers usually resent
it. Second, providing monetary rewards means that these worthy activities are
no longer altruistic. Either governments impose lifestyles – using their authority
– or we choose a lifestyle that has no benefit to us save the satisfaction of being
better than everyone else.
The limits of altruism
In practice, true altruism is quite rare because it is limited by institutions and
emotions. Participation in a local institutional arrangement gives reasonable
assurance that the personal self-restraint we negotiate will be rewarded or
reciprocated. We accept self-restraint with other participants because we expect
to benefit from the maintenance of the common property. Even when we do
not personally negotiate for a share in a common benefit, the knowledge that
others are limited like us rewards our innate senses of fairness: we have lost
no more than anyone else. An authoritative restriction on how we satisfy our
desires – for example, with a national fuel economy standards for cars – allows
us the small satisfaction that everyone else is comparably limited. In both cases,
external institutional restraints do not limit our personal desires but only how
they may be satisfied. In the first instance, we expect to benefit as a participant
in the negotiated collective benefit. In the second instance, we lose no more
than anyone else in society: everyone is equally limited. Altruism, however,
asks us to sacrifice personally with no expectation of any reward, either material
or social.
True altruism is acting without an expectation of material gain or with an
expectation of some net loss. If we assume that humans always act in their self-
interest, altruism means that they include in their interests pursuit of benefits for
others in which they themselves may not materially participate. There is then a
satisfaction or sense of fulfillment in providing benefits to others that it is in our
interests to feel. There is an emotional reward that negates altruism. We like the
feeling and hope to replicate it. However, as we are here considering ways to
reduce material consumption, it seems more reasonable to limit the definition
of altruism to actions that are not in our (material) self-interest but that may

The failure of authority and altruism 29
(materially) benefit others. The warm glow of charity is therefore eliminated
from our assumption of human self-interest.
I also would not be an altruist if my behaviors reduce my material costs by
as much as others gain. If governments force the costs of negative externalities
like pollution to be included in products and I reject a polluting product, I might
save money at least equal to the value of the benefits that future generations
would gain. I would not be an altruist: even if others gain in the future, I make
a material gain from the choice. Preferring a product that uses renewable resources
over one that consumes a scarce resource would similarly not be altruistic, as
long as the value of scarcity and renewable plenitude were appropriately included
in my costs. An appropriate rate of tax on carbon emissions would reduce an
altruistic decision on whether to bike to work or drive into a simple material
cost-benefit analysis.
A weak force
The inherent problem with altruism, as shown by a brief consideration of the
philosophical underpinning summarized above, is that these are personal founda-
tions for changes in behavior that modify self-interest to include nonpersonal
benefits. As such, they are unlikely to aggregate into a self-conscious mass
movement that intends to change personal behaviors across society. In other
words, altruism cannot generate concerted political action with a remit for wider
action to reduce consumption precisely because arguments for altruism are for
ethical personal behaviors that cannot be mass-reproduced in the public sphere.
The plaintive request “Will you protect it [the Earth]?” is unlikely to generate
a mass movement of people ready to deny themselves for an abstract idea.
While humans do act altruistically at times – indeed without selfless Good
Samaritan acts society might not function – is it reasonable to expect enough
people to act consistently outside their self-interest so that future generations
may meet their needs (as they define them)?
67
For example, we are told to “think
globally, act locally.” Is it realistic to ask the great mass of humanity who are
living day to day to think about the pressures on global and local ecosystems
and then translate their understanding into selfless denial every day? This popular
slogan is an example of the weak force of altruism in the face of the large
changes needed to put society on a sustainable pathway. In addition, we are
increasingly trained by life in capitalist societies to be self-interested.
The strong force of self-interest
The reviews of the selected books shows that analyses of sustainability follow
a pattern. They are long on detailed analyses of how and why business-as-usual
is not sustainable and conclude with a short call to action that inevitably resonates
with exasperation. The author sees the problem but cannot visualize a truly
effective solution beyond the application of government authority to force changes
in behavior or call for altruistic personal effort by dedicated activists. Although

30 The failure of authority and altruism
they do not develop the idea, several authors argue for a change in shared mental
model or a change in the ways we think about environment and society.
The 2008 financial panic brought forth similar ideas. Writing about the causes
of the panic, Gordon Brown, who was the UK Prime Minister at the time, com-
mented that “[w]e can no longer say that markets do not need morals . . . we
need a shared ethics [sic] for globalization that goes far beyond the interests of
a few large global companies and financial institutions . . . [in which] each new
policy direction we take will be founded not just on the common interests that
arise from our interdependence, but the shared beliefs that arise from our common
values.”
68
This is a remarkably naïve statement from a sophisticated government
minister who was a long-serving UK Chancellor (roughly equivalent to Treasury
Secretary and Director of Office for Management and Budget) who also professes
a faith in open markets and globalization. “Shared beliefs” and “common values”
that, if they exist, are implemented through political systems. These systems
seem to have seized up precisely because common values were overwhelmed in
many countries by individual interests.
Any beliefs or values that we shared or held in common – the glue that holds
together nation or community in the absence of family or tribal relations – are
formed prior to the market but are weakened through contact with the market.
Before the Enlightenment, few people thought of themselves as separate from the
group or the totality of creation.
69
The Enlightenment emancipated the human
mind and encouraged independent thought. The enlightened individual is free to
explore ideas and adopt those that they are interested in. Capitalism is an exten-
sion of the Enlightenment: it allows pursuit of personal material interests.
Participating daily in multiple markets teaches us that self-interest is all we
need. We are born altruists but quickly learn self-interest.
70
Most infants will
instinctively share their favorite toy when they are asked and recognize the fair-
ness of sharing. Individual humans are constructed within a system of social
relations: we learn from the context in which we mature. If we are raised in
capitalism, we learn self-interest at our mother’s knee. Being raised in a capitalist
society, it is nearly impossible not to see oneself as an individual with material
and nonmaterial personal interests. We no longer self-identify exclusively as a
member of a social group. Now we are able to build our identity with material
indicators to the world of who we see ourselves to be. The modern middle classes
seem to think “of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny
is in their hands” because they own their home and have sufficient other assets
to largely disregard the wider society.
71
The pursuit of this brand of imagined
self-reliance is built on the dedicated pursuit of self-interest that, in the market,
allows the accumulation of isolating assets. In the absence of a common moral
language, “the one moral code all modern people can understand is self-interest.”
72

As adults we accumulate assets and become less interested in sharing, more
conservative of what we have. This is a natural effect of capitalism. Indeed,
maturity is often seen as accumulating and conserving material (usually financial)
assets. We see others as immature if they fritter their income on fun and frivolity.
We say that they “never grew up.”

The failure of authority and altruism 31
Modern capitalism may have unappetizing social and environmental effects,
but in economic terms it is highly effective because it allows us the simple task
of only seeking to satisfy ourselves. Smith predicted that a collective economic
benefit would emerge from the interactions of self-interested individuals in free
markets, and the wealth of the modern capitalist economies is a testament to the
power of self-interest. While acknowledging the power of markets to generate
wealth, critics argue that it is the market that prevents sustainability. But markets
are only socially and ecologically destructive because the people who exchange
through them are self-interested.
Self-interest makes markets work – we enter them to acquire something we need
or want. Thus, markets are mechanisms, systems for eliciting a collective effect out
of individual choices. They are, therefore, a reflection of the mental models shared
by all participants. Economists, governments, and capitalists have sold us the idea
that constant economic growth increases social welfare. In short, that growing wealth
will make us happy. Thus, in modern capitalist economies, every participant is
pursuing their individual material interests with the expectation that they will be
happier as a result. Not surprisingly, the consequence is an excess of consumption.
In pursuit of happiness, we pursue ever-increasing wants and consume the planet.
Suppose that market participants were interested in directly enjoying life, not
vicariously seeking happiness through material possessions. They would then only
use the market to satisfy their material needs (I return to this idea in Chapter 7 )
but turn elsewhere to satisfy those needs the market cannot address. In the chapters
that follow, I show how the personal pursuit of well-being is central to an enjoy-
able life and will allow capitalism to become sustainable. In this way, if self-interest
is redefined primarily in nonmaterial terms, the capitalist market can become the
engine of sustainable development both in the sense of ecological conservation
and human happiness. Market participants will continue to be self-interested, but
they will understand their interests in terms of the direct enjoyment of life rather
than material accumulation in the vain hope that it may bring happiness.
Notes
1. Thomas Princen, The Logic of Sufficiency (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), xvii.
2. These often quoted words come from Edmund Burke, a conservative 18th-century
statesman who wrote them in a “Letter to a Member of the National Assembly in
Answer to Some Objections on his Book on French Affairs,” in 1791 in which he
argued, like Hobbes, that society required effective governance. Accessed at www
.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/burkee/tonatass/ on March 31, 2011.
3. Peter Dauvergne, The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global
Environment (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008), xiii.
4. Ibid., 6 and 220.
5. Ibid., 231.
6. Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
(New York: Times Books, 2007).
7. Ibid., 231–232.
8. Princen.
9. Ibid., 17.
10. Ibid., 355.

32 The failure of authority and altruism
11. Ibid., 355.
12. Ibid., 359.
13. Ibid., 365.
14. John E. Ikerd, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense (Bloomfield, CT:
Kumarian Press, 2005).
15. L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of
Climate Change (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 300.
16. Gill Seyfang, The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds of Change
(Basingstoke, England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
17. Tim Jackson, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan
Publications Ltd., 2009).
18. Seyfang, The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption, 170.
19. Ibid., 21.
20. Ibid., 170.
21. Ibid., 184.
22. Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the
Renewal of Civilization (Washington: Island Press, 2006).
23. Lovins and Cohen, 297.
24. Ibid., 307.
25. Jonathon Porritt, Capitalism as If the World Matters (London: Earthscan, 2005).
26. Ibid., 20.
27. Ibid., 19.
28. Ibid., 70.
29. Garrett Hardin, “ The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, (1968): 1243–1248.
What follows is a summary that reflects Hardin’s basic argument.
30. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective
Action (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Elinor Ostrom et al.,
Drama of the Commons (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2002).
31. “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision,” United Nations, 2010.
32. All the users of the land might take possession of an equal share of the land and
graze their own animals. History shows that this rarely happens. In some instances,
a minority of families enclosed the commons and privatized the land, usually with
the consent or assistance of the Sovereign. Several explanations as to how and why
they were able to may be equally plausible. See Roger J. P. Kain, John Chapman,
and Richard R. Oliver, “The Enclosure Maps of England and Wales, 1595–1918”
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1–10.
33. If incomes far in the future are discounted to present value, intergenerational sustain-
ability becomes qualitative rather than an economic force, unless discount rates are
set near zero. In addition, uncertainty about future demand for the resources and
capital market pressures for current earnings encourage a more rapid plundering of
the resource than theoretically optimal. See Harrison, Constructing Sustainable
Development 19–36.
34. Natural stocks such as fossil fuels are essentially fixed in human time scale. Waste
products of human activities are processed by natural sinks. For example, carbon
emitted from burning fossil fuel is absorbed by oceans and in the atmosphere. If
sinks are overloaded, they may be permanently changed and the efficiency with which
they process human wastes diminished.
35. Concerns about systemic limitations on the ability of economies to grow continuously
began with Adam Smith, op.cit. More recently: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, “Energy
and Economic Myths,” Southern Economic Journal. 41, no. 3 (1975): 347–381. However,
I summarize three more recent books that broadly represent the field of inquiry.
36. William Ophuls and A. Stephen Boyan, Jr., Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity
Revisited. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1992). Also see, for example,

The failure of authority and altruism 33
Elinor Ostrom, Larry Schroeder, and Susan Wynne, Institutional Incentives and
Sustainable Development: Infrastructure Policies in Perspective. (Boulder: Westview,
1993).
37. Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited, 3.
38. Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited, 285, 286.
39. Herman E. Daly, Steady-State Economics. Second ed. (Washington, DC: Island Press,
1991).
40. Daly, Steady-State Economics, 17.
41. Daly, Steady-State Economics, 51.
42. Daly, Steady-State Economics, 63.
43. Tim Jackson, “Societal Transformations for a Sustainable Economy,” Natural
Resources Forum 35, no. 3 (2011): 155–164.
44. Tim Jackson, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan
Publications Ltd., 2009). The quote is from the abstract of Jackson, “Societal
Transformations for a Sustainable Economy.”
45. Jackson, Prosperity without Growth, 180.
46. Jackson, Prosperity without Growth, 184–185.
47. Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1973).
48 . “Workers in the Informal Economy,” World Bank reports. Accessed at http://web
.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/XTSOCIALPROTECTION/
EXTLM/0,,contentMDK:20224904~menuPK:584866~pagePK:148956~piPK:
216618~theSitePK:390615,00.html on December 1, 2011.
49. Friedrich Schneider with Dominik Enste, Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the
Underground Economy (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2002).
Accessed at www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues/issues30/index.htm on December 1,
2011.
50. Paul M. Barrett, “The Guns that Got Away,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November
21–27, 2011: 78–83.
51. “ Three MPs and One Peer to be Charged over Expenses,” BBC News. February 5,
2010. Accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8500885.stm on
November 17, 2011; James Kirkup, “Jacqui Smith to ‘resign’ as Home Secretary,”
The Telegraph, Jun 2, 2009. Accessed at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-
expenses/5428871/Jacqui-Smith-to-resign-as-Home-Secretary.html on November 17,
2011.
52. “Tim Jackson’s Economic Reality Check,” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. Accessed at
www.ted.com/talks/tim_jackson_s_economic_reality_check.html on September 15,
2011. Emphasis added.
53. Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, edited by Diana Wright of the
Sustainability Institute. (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008):
145–165. In Chapter 6 we return to the small but useful role that governments may
play in sustainability.
54. See measurements made by The Global Footprint Network at www.footprintnetwork
.org/en/index.php/GFN/.
55. Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, and A. Reisinger, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis
Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC, 2008).
56. Anon. “Pretty Basic,” The Economist 400, no. 8749 (September 3, 2011): 59.
57. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1946), 84.
58. At least, this is the theoretical purpose. In practice, governments often fall short for
many reasons that are not relevant to the present discussion.
59. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L.
Macfie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).

34 The failure of authority and altruism
60. For a summary of these and other arguments for ethical personal restraint, see Harrison,
Constructing Sustainable Development 81–97.
61. Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,”
The New York Times Magazine September 13, 1970.
62. R. Edward Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman,
1984).
63. Frank G. A. De Bakker, Peter Groenewegen, and Frank Den Hond, “A Bibliometric
Analysis of 30 Years of Research and Theory on Corporate Social Responsibility and
Corporate Social Performance,” Business & Society 44, no. 3 (2005): 283–317.
64. Céline Louche and Steve Lydenberg, Dilemmas in Responsible Investment (Sheffield,
UK: Greenleaf Publishing, 2011).
65. See the Principles at www.unpri.org/principles/.
66. Thomas Princen, Michael F. Maniates, and Ken Conca, eds., Confronting Consumption
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002).
67. Colin F. Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). A majority of participants in structured
experiments voluntarily performed altruistic acts.
68. Gordon Brown, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation (London:
Simon & Schuster, 2010): 13.
69. Luc Ferry, The New Ecological Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
70. Marco F. H. Schmidt and Jessica A. Sommerville, “Fairness Expectations and Altruistic
Sharing in 15-Month-Old Human Infants,” PLoS One 6, no. 10 (2011). Accessed at
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023223.
71. Robert N. Bellah, “Individualism and Commitment in American Life,” a lecture at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, February 20, 1986. Accessed at www.robertbellah
.com/lectures_4.htm on September 20, 2011.
72. Alan Wolfe, Whose Keeper? quoted in Robert Bellah et al., “Taming the Savage
Market,” The Christian Century , September 18–25, 1991: 844–849.

Sustainable development under market capitalism is a problem like no other that
humanity has faced. It requires simultaneous ‘management’ of three massively
complex systems. Society relies on the economic and ecological systems and
the economic system cannot develop without social stability and a healthy eco-
system.
1
None of these systems can exceed its limits without undermining the
other systems. For example, collapse in either ecological or economic systems
would threaten stability in the social system. Equally, social instability affects
the other two systems: revolution in the streets is bad for business. As the Great
Recession showed, excess in the economic system harms the social system and
destroys dreams. Therefore, all three complex systems have to evolve together
so that no one system is preferred over any other and no system exceeds its
limits and becomes unstable.
Complex systems are more than ‘complicated’ or ‘difficult to understand.’
They differ in several important ways from the simple systems of the Newtonian
paradigm with which we are familiar. Ecological systems are extremely difficult
to predict and manage; human systems are even more complex and unpredict-
able. Therefore, none of the three interacting systems is amenable to management:
they cannot be regulated and controlled to attain a prescribed goal. We cannot
predict their futures or how they will respond to attempts to move them toward
a specific goal. We may want to end poverty, reduce inequality, prevent excessive
consumption, or conserve ecosystems, but our best laid plans inevitably go astray
in the reality of complex human systems. It is appropriate that sustainable devel-
opment, perhaps the last problem that humans have to solve, is a truly complex
problem.
Principles of complexity
A computer and its software are simple yet complicated; a mouse is complex.
Both simple and complex systems have many parts, but they differ in the nature
of their parts, how those parts interact, and in the system states that may result.
2

Like other living systems, the furry, cheese-loving system we call a mouse is the
result of the less structured interactions of its many diverse parts. As a result,
the mouse and its behavior are less predictable than the computer is.
The complexity of sustainable
development
3

36 The complexity of sustainable development
A complex system, such as a living system, is more than the sum of its parts.
The average car has some three thousand very varied parts. A living system is
complex because it cannot be described by enumerating all the units that constitute
it.
3
Yet, it is a simple system because the behavior of the parts is predictable – they
are designed that way – a fuel injector does one thing and a wheel does something
else. But a system with as few as one hundred parts may be complex.
4
It is pos-
sible to deconstruct a car, to strip it down to its parts, and rebuild it so it operates
exactly as before. As any high school student in biology class knows, a dissected
frog cannot be reconstructed, and Victor Frankenstein remains a fictional scientist.
By dissecting the frog, we learn about its parts – its brain, heart, limbs, and so
on. Once we have identified all the parts, we no longer have a frog. The living
being that we called a frog is gone and cannot be resurrected.
The frog that jumps, like the mouse that chases cheese, is the system that emerges
from the many and variable interactions among its diverse parts. Thus, a system’s
complexity comes not from the number of its parts but from the diversity of pos-
sible behaviors available to the parts from which the system emerges. All living
things have more degrees of freedom than a simple mechanism, and more complex
systems display greater diversity of behavior. The behavior of bacteria is much
more limited and predictable than that of a mammal. The diversity among human
animal behaviors is the greatest of all, as discussed below.
Self-organization and emergence
A complex system self-organizes as a system and emerges from these ever-
changing interactions.
5
The Amazon rainforest was not always as it is today. It
emerged from the interaction of plants with the natural environment and organized
itself into the system that we call a rainforest. Before the Andes were formed
by the South American tectonic plate pushing into the Nazca plate, the waters
from central South America flowed westward. The rise of the mountains created
a swampy lake that eventually worked its way through limestone rocks to the
east, and the Amazon River began flowing to the Atlantic.
6
Trees sprouted and
animals and insects inhabited the forest that eventually grew large enough to
influence the local climate, causing frequent rain.
Social systems emerged from interactions between families as tribes and then
ever more complex societies. Even cities can self-organize. London developed
as a result of the personal and collective (often mob) choices of the people who
lived there, largely independent of the monarchy that ruled the rest of England.
7

Many of the winding streets of London once were beaten paths between rural
villages. As the villages grew and the city came out to meet them, these paths
became wider and were then paved over; the villages were consumed by urban
expansion and became districts within the metropolis.
Adaptation and co-evolution
In a complex system, each constituent part follows its own internal rules for
choosing its behavior within the context in which it finds itself. In order to

The complexity of sustainable development 37
survive, a part within the system adapts to its environment – the behaviors of
the other parts of the system that it encounters. Neither the parts nor the system
has a given or preordained purpose.
8
The parts thus ‘co-evolve,’ and in the process
of adapting each to the others they create the system. The mouse emerges from
the co-evolution of its many parts starting with cells and proteins.
The same process occurs at other scales. For example, the mouse both adapts
to its environment and changes it.
9
Organisms draw energy from their environ-
ment to maintain themselves and excrete wastes back into that environment.
10

By living, they change the environment in which they live and, then, must adapt
to that changing environment. Within limits, organisms can continually adapt to
changes in their environment and maintain their organization as living systems.
11

The human body comprises trillions of cells that self-organize into a system
that continuously evolves within its natural environment, which also evolves
dynamically from its own internal interactions as well as from the changes we
create in it through our lives and work. Our genes map out the general parameters
of who we are, whether we are left- or right-handed, the color of our eyes and
hair, and so on. They also give the limits to how tall we may grow but nutrition
also plays a part in determining our adult height. Similarly, our genes influence
how our bodies process food and whether, if there is a surplus of fat and sugar
in our diet, we shall become obese. But again, our upbringing may have some
effect: the more education we have, the more likely we are to make healthy
choices in our food intake and exercise regime. Nature and nurture: we emerge
as adults from their interaction, and we continue to change until we die. We are
learning processes that are self-aware and can plan for the future.
Feedback loops
Many systems have feedback loops; in complex systems, these feedbacks often
are positive.
12
We are most familiar with negative feedback that returns the system
to a stable state. A thermostat is a common example. It is cold outside and the
heating is on. When the room reaches the desired temperature, the thermostat
turns the heating system off until the temperature drops. With this mechanism,
the heating system will never heat the room beyond the selected, comfortable
temperature.
13
Much of economics assumes that in a perfect market, producers
will produce more and consumers demand less if prices rise and vice versa.
Thus, price movements are expected always to bring supply and demand into
balance. Based on such simple ideas, exaggerated interpretations of libertarian
economics argue that markets are always self-correcting.
14

A negative feedback loop limits changes in the system; a positive feedback
accelerates them. Positive feedback is an “amplifying, reinforcing, self-multiplying,
snowballing . . . vicious or virtuous circle” in which an element of the system can
continually reproduce itself.
15
We have all heard the howl when a microphone gets
too close to the loudspeaker that is amplifying the microphone input. The small
electrical voltage produced by the microphone as we speak is amplified and emitted
as sound by the loudspeaker. When that sound is picked up by the microphone, it

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insensate adornment that is the first magnetic glimpse that awakens
the romantic dreams of some impassioned boy, yes, and even the
staid man of the world. But I must leave blue ribbons alone, also my
reasons for mentioning them, till later, and tell of one memorable
night.
I was sitting in the grog shanty dreaming of old England, and
wondering what my people would think could they see me playing
my violin to that weird crew. I felt sure that it would have damped
their ardour over any idea of my retrieving the family’s fortunes
during my travels.
Well, as I sat there I noticed a handsome man (whom I will call
John L——) stumble out of the bar as usual on his way home, drunk.
He was seldom sober, had little to say and was regarded as a
mystery by all. From hearsay I gathered that he had arrived in the
Marquesan Group about ten years before, bringing a pretty mite of a
girl with him. Probably he was one of those individuals who had
hurried away from his native land so as to retain his liberty—or his
neck. Anyway, the little girl interested me most. This little waif’s
name was Pauline, and she had, at this period, arrived at the stage
when girlhood meets womanhood. Her mother was dead. We all
knew that, because when John L—— was drunk he would sweep the
stick he carried about, and sweep imaginary stars from the low roof
of the shanty as he cursed the heavens and God. Even the Ranjos
paled slightly during those fits of ungovernable frenzy, when he
yelled forth atheistic curses till he fell forward and sobbed like a
child. It would strike me with sorrow as well as horror to witness
those paroxysms.
John L—— and his daughter lived in a little homestead situated up
near the mountains that soared in the background of Tai-o-hae. It
was a wild spot this fugitive had chosen for his home in exile; only
the South Sea plovers passed over that place on their migrating
flight to the westward.
To me the memory of that homestead is like the “Forsaken
Garden,” a remote spot of that South Sea isle, its ghost of a garden

still fronting the sea:
“Where there was weeping,
Haply of lovers none ever will know,
Whose eyes went seaward, a hundred sleeping
Years ago.”
It isn’t a hundred years ago, though, but it seems so to me. I
could half think that I dreamed that white wooden homestead by the
palms; that it was some ghostly hamlet hidden up there in the wild
South Sea hills—a beautiful phantom-like girl trembling inside—and
Destiny knocking, knocking at the door. Ah, Pauline!
But to return to John L—— as he staggered away from the shanty
into the darkness. I recall that his farewell sounded more like a
death-groan than anything else. Almost every incident of that night
is engraved on my memory. I still see the haggard, haunted face as
he departs, and the shellbacks look into one another’s eyes
significantly. I can even remember the swaying of the palm leaves
outside the open door as I saw them drift apart, revealing the
moonlit seas beyond, and John L——’s white duck-suit jacket
fluttering between them as he staggered homeward. His thin-faced
companion holds his arm—he’s a sardonic-looking individual—and I,
as well as the shellbacks, wonder why he tolerates such a sinister
comrade.
After their departure I played the fiddle once more, as that
wonderful collection of the drifting brigade sat listening. Serious
faces, funny faces, bearded, expressionless faces, sensitive, cynical,
philosophical, humorous, tawny and pasty faces, all holding rum
mugs, and looking like big wax figures clad in ragged duck-suits,
dirty red shirts and belted pants, wide-brimmed hats or
cheesecutters, sitting there on tiers of tubs, while Ranjo swished his
towel and served out drink. Over their heads were suspended
multitudes of empty gin bottles, hanging on invisible wires. Each
bottle held a tallow candle that dimly flickered as the faintest breeze
blew through the chinks of the wooden walls and open doorway. And

as I fiddled on with delight, it seemed as if that bar was some
ghostly room stuck up in the clouds, and that in some magical way
those fierce, disappointed, unshaved pioneers of life had stolen a
constellation of stars of the third and fourth magnitude, which
shone, just over their sinful heads, in a phantom-roofed sky of
ethereal deep blue drifts—tobacco smoke.
Against the partition Ranjo had fixed a huge cracked ship’s mirror,
which had once adorned the saloon of a man-of-war, and which now
revealed in a kind of cinematograph show all that happened within,
and all who might enter.
The fiddle, the banjo and the mouth-organ were in full swing.
Grimes had come into the shanty and was sitting beside me, and the
French sailors from the man-of-war in the bay had just sung the
Marseillaise for the last time and gone aboard. Suddenly the scene
changed, silence fell over the shanty. I swear that I had only drunk a
little cognac, so as to be sociable with Grimes, when something like
an apparition stood before me, framed in the shanty’s doorway! It
was a white girl.
A deep gleam shone in her blue, star-like eyes; her lips were apart
as though she were about to speak; she seemed like some figure of
romance, a strip of pale blue ribbon fluttering at her warm, white
throat.
The wild harmony of oaths and double-bass voices of good cheer
ceased. Each beachcomber, each shellback, stayed his wild
reminiscences. The new-comers, who were sympathetically treating
the old-comers, fairly gasped as they turned to see the cause of the
sudden silence. That tableau of astonishment and admiration on the
grim, set faces of those bearded sailors made one think of some
mysterious contortion of the Lord’s Last Supper; and they—a crew of
sunburnt disciples looking at the materialised divinity of their
dreams.
The swashbuckler who spoke all day long about his pal Robert
Louis Stevenson, and swore that he was the main character of that

author’s latest book on the South Seas, dropped his glass smash on
the floor and muttered: “What a bewt!”
As for me, I felt the first thrill of romance since I went to sea,
arrived in a far country with a black eye and took up my residence in
a wharf dust-bin.
The girl looked unreal, like some beautiful creation that had just
stepped hurriedly out of the distant sky-line beyond the shanty’s
door. Her crown of rebellious hair seemed still afire with some
magical glow of the dead sunset. Nor was I quite mad, for as the
escaping tobacco smoke of that low-roofed den enshrouded her in
bluish drifts, as the winds blew up the shore, she did look ghost-like,
and her delicately outlined form seemed robed in some diaphanous
material cut out of the vanished glory, the golden mist of the
western skies. Hibiscus blossoms, scarlet and white, were wantonly
entangled in her mass of loosened tresses that fluttered to the
zephyrs, as though magical fingers caressed her and would call her
back to the portals beyond the setting suns. Ah, Pauline, you were
indeed beautiful. When I was young!
Her clear, interrogating eyes seemed to say: “Is dad here?”
I saw her lips tremble. She wavered like a spirit as I watched her
image, and mine staring in the mirror beside her.
None answered that gaze of hers. We all knew that her father had
just gone staggering home, blind drunk, crying like a demented
man.
Even Queen’s Vaekehu’s valet de chambre (a ferocious-looking
Marquesan who haunted the shanty, cadging drinks) looked sorry for
the girl.
Though it was years ago, I recall the sympathetic comments of
those men, the look in their eyes, expressing all they felt.
That picture of astonishment, the breathless stare of admiration
on the upturned, bearded faces, resembled some wax-work show, a
kind of Madame Tussaud’s fixed up in a South Sea grog shanty. But I

know well enough that those unshaved, apparently villainous-looking
men gazed on the avatar of their lost boyhood’s dreams. So grim did
they look, all mimicked in the huge ship’s mirror as they still held
their rum mugs half-way between their lips, staring through the
wreaths of smoke, in perfect silence.
“Gott in Himmel!” said the Teuton from Samoa.
“Mon Dieu!” said the awestruck gendarme from Calaboose Hill.
“A hangel form!” gasped Grimes, as the three swarthy Marquesan
women, who wore loose ridis and had no morals, grinned spitefully
to see such admiration for a white girl.
“Did you ever!” sighed several more, as I laid the fiddle down and
felt a warm flood thrill me from head to foot.
Pauline vanished as swiftly as she came. Went off, I suppose, to
seek her drunken parent.
I half wondered if I had dreamed that glimpse of a white girl, a
glorious creation here in the South Seas, by the awful beach near
Tai-o-hae. It seemed impossible.
Then the hushed voices subsided. Once again came the wild
crescendos of ribald song from those lips, as the shanty trembled to
the earthquake of some crashing finale of a wild sea-chantey and
thumping sea-boots.
“Grimes, have another,” said I. So we drank again, and then again.
What a night of adventure and romance that was, for another
came out of the night like an apparition and startled us.
I rose to go, and as I wished Grimes good-night two little native
children, peeping in at the shanty door like imps of darkness,
shouted “Kaolah!” and suddenly turned and bolted in fright as I
tossed them a coin. I turned to see what was up, and there stood
Waylao.
I noticed that her eyes had a wild look in them. On her arm hung
the old wicker-work basket wherein she always placed her mother’s

stores. I suppose she had come to the shanty to do some shopping,
for Ranjo sold everything from bottled rum to tinned meat. I
guessed that her mother had sent her off hours before, with those
usual strict injunctions to hurry back home with the soap and the
flask of rum.
Some of those rough shellbacks had known her since she could
first toddle down to the beach. None were surprised to see her at
that late hour. She was as wild as Tai-o-hae itself to them. She had
even gone up into the mountains when the shellbacks had
bombarded the cannibal chief Mopio’s stronghold; yes, when he had
captured Ching Chu the Chinaman and bolted off with him as though
he were a prize sucking pig. They had found the Chinaman trussed
like a fowl, the wooden fire blazing, while that half-mad cannibal
chief, who was the horror of the little native children in the villages,
was about to club his half-paralysed victim. But Uncle Sam had
whipped out his revolver and blown off the top of the cannibal’s
head, in the nick of time.
“Hallo, girlie, how goes it?” “Give us a curl,” “Ain’t she growing,”
said the beachcombers.
“Why, Wayee, you’re getting quite a woman,” said Uncle Sam, as
he chucked her affectionately under her pretty chin.
“Give us a dance, there’s a good kiddie,” said another.
“What-o!” reiterated the whole crew, as they lifted their rum mugs
and drank to those innocent-looking eyes.
Wayee, who had so often entertained those rough men by dancing
and singing, at first quietly shook her head. She gazed at the men
with steady eyes. Her picturesquely robed figure, her pretty olive-
hued face and earnest stare, that was imaged in the mirror beside
her, reminded one of the white girl who had just peeped in like an
apparition and then vanished. Indeed, meeting Waylao by night in
the dusk for the first time, one might easily have mistaken her for a
pure-blooded white girl. She was one of that type of half-wild
beauty, a beauty that seems to belong to the mystery of night and

moonlight. All the passionate beauty of the Marquesan race and the
finer poetic charm of the white race seemed to breathe from the
depths of her dark, unfathomable blue eyes. The curves of the
mouth revealed a faint touch of sensualism, so faint that it seemed
as though even the Great Artist had hesitated at that stroke of the
brush—and then left it there.
Sometimes her eyes revealed a far-away gleam, like some
ineffable flush of a dawn that would not break—a half-frightened,
startled look, as though in the struggle of some dual personality a
dim consciousness blushed and trembled, as though the dark strain
and the white strain struggled in rivalry and the pagan won.
“Come on, Wayee,” shouted the shellbacks, determined to make
the girl dance to them. She still hesitated. “Don’t be bashful, child,”
said Uncle Sam in his finest parental voice. It was then that the new
robe of self-consciousness fell from the girl. The old child-like look
laughed in the eyes. In a moment the men had risen en masse and
commenced to shift the old beef barrels up against the shanty’s
wooden walls, making a cleared space for the prospective
performance. Looking up into the faces of those big, rough men,
Waylao was tempted by the pleased looks and flattering glances of
their strong, manly eyes. As one in a dream she stood looking about
her, for a moment mystified. Then softly laying down her little
wicker-work basket, she tightened the coloured sash bow at her hip.
A hush came over the rowdy scene and general clamour of the
shanty. A dude in the next bar, craning his neck over the partition,
stared through his eyeglass—Waylao had lifted her delicate blue
robe and commenced to dance.
The regular drinks, getting mixed up with the between drinks, had
made those old shellbacks violently eloquent.
“Go it, kiddie! Kaohau! Mitia!” yelled their hoarse voices, as they
wiped their bearded mouths with their hands. Their eyes bulged with
pleasure. What had happened, they wondered. Her eyes were aglow
like stars. She commenced to sway rhythmically to Uncle Sam’s
impromptu on the mouth-organ. O! O! bound for Rio Grande

trembled to the strain of Waylao’s tripping feet, as the silent hills re-
echoed the wild chorus.
Attracted by those phantom-like echoes, pretty little dusky
gnomes crept out of the forest, and there, in semi-nude chastity,
with half-frightened eyes they peeped round the rim of the grog
shanty door. Then off they bolted, for lo! they suddenly saw their
own demon-like faces and curious, fierce eyes revealed in the large
cracked mirror of that low-roofed room. They were native children,
truants from the village huts close by.
Suddenly the hoarse bellowings of the beachcombers ceased. The
big, inflated cheeks of those old yellowing shellbacks suddenly
subsided, and looking like squashed balloons resolved back into
wrinkles. Even Uncle Sam ceased his unmelodious impetuosissimo
on the mouth-organ, as he looked at the fairy-like figure that danced
before him. The superstition, the magic of some old world, some
spell of the wild poetry of paganism seemed to exist and dance
before them. Waylao’s lips were chanting a weird native melody. The
atmosphere of that grog shanty was transmuted into the dim light of
another age. Those graceful limbs and musically moving arms, the
poise of the goddess-shaped head of that dancing figure, seemed to
be some materialised expression of poetry in motion. Her face was
set and serious, her eyes strangely earnest looking, yes, far beyond
her brief years. She seemed to be staring at something down the
ages.
The open-mouthed shellbacks sat on their tubs and stared. Ranjo
stood like a statue in bronze, holding a towel as he gazed on the
scene. His low bar-room had become imparadised. Instinctively, in
the polished utterance of his saloon-bar etiquette, he breathed forth:
“Ho! Hi say! ’Er heyes shine like a hangel’s!”
Waylao heard nothing. The low-beamed shanty roof and its log
walls, with the men enthroned on tiers of tubs around her, had
crumbled, like the fabric of a dream. A magical forest, with wild hills
heaved up slowly and grandly around her, a world that was
brightened by the vaulted arch of stars and a dim, far, phantom

moonlit sea. Her lips were chanting a melody that seemed to bewail
some long-forgotten memory of love-lit eyes, eyes that gazed
beneath the unremembered moons of some long-ago existence.
The awakening passion of womanhood had stirred some barbarian
strain in the girl. It awoke like some fluttering, imprisoned swallow
that heard the call of the impassioned South. It beat its trembling
wings in the blood-red heart of two races—the dual personality, the
daughter of the full-blooded Lydia and the blue-eyed sailorman,
Benbow.
The poetic power, the wonderful visualising imagination of a dark
race, that had peopled their forests with marvellous pagan deities
was awake, revelling in her soul. The tropical moonbeams that
poured through the grog shanty’s vine-clad window crept across her
dancing eyes and head of bronzed curls as she swayed and chanted
on.
“Well, I’m blowed! if it don’t beat all,” ejaculated the half-
mesmerised shellbacks. Waylao’s performance had created an
atmosphere that affected them strangely. “Is visions abart,” said
Grimes in an awestruck voice.
“My dear Gawd, ain’t she bewtifool!” he murmured to himself as
he licked his parched lips and called for a “deep-sea” beer.
At the sound of the men’s voices the spell was broken. The half-
caste girl abruptly ceased to dance. With the sight of reality so grim-
looking around her, and the disenchantment of her own senses came
a sense of shame. For a moment she gazed at the men before her
with a bewildered stare, then stooped and picked up her little
basket.
“Waal, Wayee, I guess I never seed yer dance like that ’ere afore,”
said Uncle Sam.
“Why, blimey, kiddie, if I had yer in London town I’d put yer before
a top-note audience, and make yer blooming fortoone and [sotto
voce] me hone fortoon too,” said the late jockey, Mr Slimes.

Grimes went to the bar and ordered a glass of the best lime-juice;
he handed it to Waylao with a trembling hand. His clumsy courtesy
was almost pathetic; his half-opened mouth reminded me in some
mysterious way of the pathetic spout of a tea-pot. The shellbacks
winked and nudged each other, for the look in Grimes’s eyes was
unmistakable—he had fallen in love.
Grimes noticed the manner of the men. He returned to his tub,
and gave them that inimitable, contemptuous Cockney sidelong
glance, which is accompanied by a little jerk of the head, that
defiance, that imperturbable disdain, and the genius required to
inflict it upon one whom one may hate, which is the sole prerogative
of Cockneys. Men of all races throughout the world have sought to
imitate that Cockney glance, but only to end in inevitable, miserable
failure.
Listen:
[ [MIDI]
Music MXL: [MusicMXL]

T
CHAPTER VII
Father O’Leary’s Confessional Box—Penitent Natives, Chiefs, Dethroned Kings
and Queens—Waylao goes into the Confessional Box—Father O’Leary’s
Philosophy
HAT dance of Waylao’s in the grog shanty created a strange
impression in my mind. Henceforth I looked upon her as some
half-wild faery creature of the forest. I do not wish to give the
impression that I was in love with Waylao. It was only a romantic
boy’s fancy, a clinging to something that faintly resembled his
immature ideals. I cannot tell the events that followed in their exact
progression. I recall that about this period I started off with Grimes
seeing the sights of the isles. I could not tolerate sitting in a grog
shanty for any length of time, though I must admit the tales I heard
there and much that occurred was deeply interesting to one who
wished to see more sides of life than one.
I think Grimes and I were away from Tai-o-hae two or three
weeks. Things were about the same when we returned. The natives
were still singing as they toiled on the various plantations. A few
fresh schooners were in the bay, and others loaded and ready to go
seaward on their voyages to the far-scattered isles of the Pacific.
My immediate recollections are centred on the occasion when,
with the help of Grimes, I was building a little outhouse for Father
O’Leary. It was near his mission-room, which, by the way, adjoined
his homestead. During the erection of this wooden building I
became very pally with the priest. Up to that period I had looked
upon priests as unapproachable mortals who lingered between the

border-line of mortality and the Promised Land. To my pleasant
surprise, I found the Father a human being of intellectual calibre. He
knew the hearts of men and women to an almost infallible degree.
Nor was this to be wondered at, for his old confessional box had
held what strange types of mortals, what strange tales of hope and
remorse had he heard there!
The experiences of his profession seemed to have gifted him with
second sight and imbued his heart with extreme sympathy for erring
mankind. Yes, he toiled on in that temple of thought, a temple of
spiritual faith he had slowly built up, as it were, wall by wall, and
turret by turret, round the sorrow of his mortal dreams. Just think of
it—the multitudes of disenchanted native children who had crept out
of the forest depths to fall and confess at his feet! What hearts full
of remorse, what benighted lovers, what hapless wives, youths, girls
with their cherished dreams, quaking, had come to him after passion
had burnt their converted souls!
I myself had seen them arrive: dethroned kings and guilty queens,
aged, tattooed chiefs on tottering feet, shaking with fear of the
wrath of the great white God, after some wild reversion to the
heathen orgies in the old amphitheatres by the mountains. I had
seen the Father put forth his hands to hold up the stricken forms as
they appeared before him—tawny old chiefs swaying like dead men
with the terror they felt—ere they entered that confessional box.
For lo! a native once converted to Christianity takes to it seriously,
believes implicitly all that he professes to believe but cannot adhere
to.
I have seen old chiefs and women, girls too, come out of that
confessional box as though they had just been given everlasting life.
The tears all vanished as they leapt off into the forest, or stood on
their heads with delight just behind the mission-room coco-palms.
There’s no doubt about it, but that box was the supreme court of
true justice and glad truth. In there terrible dramas were unrolled to
the Father’s ears. He was the solitary judge; nor was he hard in the

sentences that he meted out to the culprits, for alas! he expiated for
all their crimes with prayers from his own soul.
But to revert to my experiences. I was digging away at post-holes
and feeling down in the mouth (for I do not tell all my reflections
and troubles of those times), when Waylao stepped out of the shade
of the pomegranates. In a moment I perceived that something was
wrong with her. Her eyes stared wildly. She did not respond to my
cheery salutations in her usual way.
As the Father stepped out of his mission-room she nearly fell into
his arms. I saw her embrace the old fellow as a daughter would a
father. “What’s the matter, my child?” he said, as he noticed her
hysterical manner. I threw my spade aside. The knowledge that the
girl was in trouble upset me. I could get no further than wondering
at the meaning of it all as I heard her weeping violently in that
silent, sacred wooden enclosure—the confessional box.
I heard the girl’s sighs as she ceased weeping, and the Father’s
solemn voice as he gave advice and absolution. I suppose Waylao
was a true daughter of Eve, and only told the Father half the truth. I
know she did not tell all, otherwise things would have taken a very
different course. Though the Father knew it not, Waylao had become
the wife of a sensualist.
So much I discovered long after. I did not know then how some of
the native girls and white girls got married in the South Seas. I had
heard a good deal of chaff, as I thought, about the ways of the
Chinese and the Indians, but I little dreamed how true it all was. As
it turned out, Waylao had married an Indian—which means that she
had gone through a midnight ceremony which was as follows. A
deluded girl would come under the influence of some emigrant
hawker from Calcutta, or the Malay Peninsula, usually a man with a
smile that would have brought a fortune to a Lyceum tragedian, for
it was the breathing essence of limelight sadness and sensual
longing. One can imagine how such a man would trade on a girl’s
infatuation. It was the custom to lure them into the forest and
repeat the following wedding service, which is the Mohammedan

marriage prayer:—“There is no deity but Mohammed, and
Mohammed is the one prophet of Allah. I who now kneel before
thee, O man, renounce the heathen creed called Christianity, I, such
an one’s daughter, by the grace of my heart and the testimony of my
virtue, give myself up to thee body and soul for life and life
everlasting.”
After getting the maid to repeat the foregoing drivel, the
Mohammedan would murmur mystical Eastern phrases. The deluded
girl then thought the great romantic hero of her life had blessed her
with faithful love. Her lips met those of the sensualist. The light of
fear died away from the child-girl’s eyes as she clung to her prize.
Well might Adam and Eve have sighed in their graves!
Such was the practice of the followers of Islam in the South Seas,
and probably closely resembled the marriage service that had
brought Waylao in fright and remorse to Father O’Leary’s mission-
room. I remember that Waylao was considerably cheered up after
she had received the priest’s blessing.
That same night, as I played the violin and the Father
accompanied me on the harmonium, she returned and sang to us.
She seemed to want to haunt the father’s presence. The old priest
was as pleased as I to see her again. She had a sweet, tremulous
voice.
I suppose I was happy that night, for it is all very clear to my
memory after many years.
We sat outside beneath the palms. Far away between the trunks
of the giant bread-fruits we could see the moonlight tumbling about
on the distant seas. Father O’Leary had been speaking of his native
land. I was deeply interested, and surprised to hear much that he
said. It was somehow strange to me to find that an old Catholic
priest had once been a romping, careless boy.
I cannot tell how the conversation turned to the subject of
emigrant Indians, but it certainly did do so. Probably it was a subject
that deeply interested Waylao.

To the priest’s surprise and mine, Waylao looked up into the old
man’s face and said in this wise:
“Father, why do you call these strange men, who come from other
lands than your own, infidels?”
The old priest was suddenly struck dumb with astonishment.
Even I noticed that something had happened that he had never
expected to hear in his lifetime from that girl’s lips. For a moment he
was silent, like to a man who sees a multitude of meanings behind
one remark. His high, smooth brow creased into lines of thought.
Then he laid his hand upon Waylao’s shoulder and said, in his rich,
kind voice, the following:—
“My child, there are many paths that lead to many heavens, for
that which is heaven to one man is hell to another. But, believe me,
there is only one path to the reward of righteousness and a clear
conscience.”
Waylao, who listened more to the music of that old voice than to
what it actually said, stood like an obedient child as the priest
proceeded:
“Listen, Waylao. Many paths have evil-smelling flowers by the
wayside; some paths have sweet-scented blossoms; and is it not
best to follow the sweeter path—to drink the pure waters of the
singing brook, bathe in the seas of holiness and avoid those dismal
swamps of pestilence wherefrom they who drink shall find only
bitterness?”
Seeing Waylao’s earnest attention, he continued with tremulous
voice, for he was a religious man and not a bigot:
“And, my child, if indeed all paths should happen to be stumbling-
blocks that lead, in the inevitable end, to darkness, still, is it not best
to go home to God after our travels, full of sweetness? Yes, even
though we should go home deluded, it shall not be said that we did
not do our best. And do not old graves look the sweeter for the
bright flowers upon them, instead of rank, evil-smelling weeds?”

“Father, why does God have so many paths and creeds that are
evil or good?” said Waylao.
At hearing her say this, I looked at her. Her face was very serious.
It seemed like some dream to me as the seas wailed up the shore
and the face of the girl turned with so serious a glance up at the
priest. Then the Father continued:
“My child, but a little while ago you played in your father’s house
with your many dolls: some had black faces with dark eyes, and
some pale faces, yet did you not love them all, even the ugliest, and
love one more than all the rest? Did you question or wonder why
there was a difference in them, or did those old dolls question you?”
“Not that I remember, Father,” said the girl absently.
“Just so, then, as we are the children of God, shall we question
the mysteriousness of His ways? Oh, my child, listen to me. We are
the sad poems that the Great Master writes on the scroll of Time.
We are written for some purpose that we know not of. And shall the
poems in the great Poet’s book of Life arise from their pages, inquire
and demand from whence came their thoughts—or criticise the
Great Author and His works?”
The foregoing is the gist of all that I remember of old Father
O’Leary’s replies to Waylao’s strange questions. I saw the girl home
that night.

I
CHAPTER VIII
Characteristics of Marquesan Natives—Mixed Creeds—Temao and Mendos—
Queen Vaekehu
T may strike one as rather overdrawn that a girl of Waylao’s age
should interrogate a priest, or worry about religion at all. But the
maids of southern climes must not be judged in the same way as
the maids of our own lands. From infancy a child in the South Seas
hears wild discussions on creeds. Ere the dummy is cast altogether
from their lips they see the big, tattooed chief pass down the forest
track swearing against the fates that brought the white man to his
demesne. Yes, with his old tappa blanket wrapped about him, he
shouts and yells his defiance to the missionary, or to anyone who
would speak disparagingly about his race. Half-caste girls and youths
(children of the settlers) lived in a world of perpetual change. For
those isles, where I found myself as a boy, were not only populated
by fearless shellbacks who drifted in on the tide.
Tai-o-hae at that time was surrounded by wild scenery and
mountain-guarded glooms. Those glooms were haunted by
handsome, tattooed native men and picturesquely robed girls. By
night one could hear their songs from afar, chants in a strange
tongue, as they flitted soft-footed through the moonlit forest.
In cleared spaces of those wild valleys nestled villages full of the
hubbub of native life. I spent days in those tiny pagan cities, and so
got a good insight into the native ways.

Native tattooed with Armorial Bearings
Through the influence of emigrant missionaries, their arguments,
hopes and ambitions seemed to be based on the subject of creeds.
Natives who one day had embraced Catholicism, or Protestantism, or

had become sun-worshippers, Mormons, Buddhists and
Mohammedans, to-morrow cast the faith aside and re-embraced
some other creed that appeared to give greater hope of earthly
happiness. These changes were chiefly caused by some apparent
miracle performed by a native who had gone over to a new creed.
He would rush into the village and tell the excited mob of his
success; probably some scheme had met with sudden triumph. I
myself have heard a native chief shout in this wise:
“What ams ze goods of a creed that promise me heaven to-
mollow, when me allee samee have heaven to-day?”
His prayers had evidently been answered. His neighbour’s chickens
were missing, or the adulterously inclined wife of the high chief
Grimbo had fallen into his arms—at last.
Withal, they were a fine race. I have seen dethroned kings and
stately, tattooed chiefs stalk into the grog shanties for a drink. They
still retained something of their erstwhile majesty as they flung the
coin (just begged from some white man) carelessly on the bar. Even
the well-seasoned shellbacks looked up from their drinks as one old
king of other days stalked into the white man’s gin palace. Their
oaths were hushed as they saw that handsome, god-like figure with
the atmosphere of past barbarian splendour wrapped about him.
About his loins was flung a decorated, tasselled loin-cloth. It was
drawn down and tied in a bow in true native cavalier fashion at one
tawny knee. His handsome, chestnut-brown physique was artistically
tattooed with the armorial bearings of his tribe. No laugh or gibe
escaped the lips of the white men as he stood there, looking
scornfully at them as they sat in rows, and poured the last dregs of
the fiery rum down his wrinkled throat. Then that remnant of the
past splendour of the South Sea Rome gave us all a glance of
defiance and stalked out of the bar door, followed by his obsequious
retinue—namely, a mangy dog, three scraggy (once handsome)
women and two nude children. To see such fine men and to realise
the true independence of their natures made me think of the lost
potentialities of the never-to-be South Sea Empire. What would their

race have become had their blue sky-lines been adamant crystal
walls, whereon ships bringing the reformers from civilised lands
would have dashed and been smashed to atoms?
I have often thought what sparkling, terraced cities of heathen
beauty might not have arisen on those sunny isles, enshrined by
those horizons of mythological stars that shine in the heathen’s
poetic imagination.
Yes, they were wonderful lands, more wonderful than romance.
Chiefs would come into the grog shanty and for a drink tell one of
the most exciting events of Marquesan history. True enough, they
were wont to exaggerate, but a close observer could easily sift the
truth from fiction.
I recall Temao. He was a regular travelling volume of Marquesan
lore, romance, mythology and breezy barbarian crime.
Temao would stalk into Ranjo’s store and entertain Uncle Sam,
Grimes and all the rest with the history of Marquesan royalty for a
period of about forty years. As the white men filled him with rum,
his eyes would flash with grateful eloquence, and he would tell such
tales that even those seasoned shellbacks gasped.
Much that was told me first-hand of the terrors of those heathen
times I heard from a white man, one called Mendos, an old-time
beachcomber. He, I am sure, was one of the most wonderful
characters that ever roamed those Southern Seas. I have heard a lot
about Bully Hayes, a South Sea character, but to my mind Mendos
stood far from the ruck of the ordinary type of trader, for such he
had been. He was well advanced in years and intellectually superior
to any man I met in those days. From him I heard much about
Queen Vaekehu. Indeed I believe that he was the only white man
who had once been the barbarian queen’s lover. But it’s not my
intention to dwell here on Mendos and his adventures.
As Queen Vaekehu was one of the most romantic royal
personages of her time, I feel that it would be interesting to give a

brief account of her, based on hearsay and also my own intimate
reminiscences. This I will attempt in another chapter.

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Sustainable Capitalism And The Pursuit Of Wellbeing 1st Edition Neil E Harrison

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