Published in Futures 32 (2000) pp. 317-337, Elsevier/Pergamon |
This paper looks at the prospects for using the new information and communications technologies (ICTs) to support sustainable economic activity. It uses systems principles - information flows, control variables and sub-system boundaries - and a biological metaphor - the difference between an ecosystem and an organism - to establish some principles upon which sustainable economic activity could rest.It shows how the new ICTs could be used to implement these principles: how information flows could be used to shift the balance of control of the economy from the needs of the provider towards the needs of the receiver, and how new ICT-mediated groupings could form which are oriented more towards collaboration and community than competition and individualism. The proposed information flows would make explicit the environmental costs of products and activities. The proposed economic structures - local exchange groups - would enable people to base production and services on real costs, including environmental rather than financial costs.
Environmentalists have been commenting on the conflicts between economic pressures and the health of the environment for many years[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. This paper contributes to that discussion. The issue is the prospect of creating a truly sustainable culture, worldwide.
One widely shared view is that the problem is basically how to include environmental costs within financial cost structures[8]. This could be done, for example, by taxing resource extraction or waste disposal. It is described as 'internalising the externalities'. An alternative is direct regulation: "It is regulation rather than taxation that more efficiently improves the market." [9] Neither of these approaches gets to the root of the problem. This paper looks well beyond those views.
As we enter the twenty-first century, many now consider the global economic system to be unstable and fragile.[10] [11] [12] The contradictions within it are as significant as the contradictions between it and the health of the environment. We are faced with the twin possibilities of environmental disaster and economic collapse.
Yet there is another possibility: that humanity will slip gracefully, or at worst collapse awkwardly but not fatally, into a new mode of social organisation based on collaboration, community and respect for the environment - a sustainable culture. This paper spells this out more fully.
It is an interesting paradox (or perhaps a cosmic joke?) that in the twentieth century the global industrial economy has created the means both of its own destruction and of its transformation. It remains to be seen whether there will be anyone left to laugh.
The next four theoretical sections of this paper use a biological metaphor (the differences between an ecosystem and an organism) and systems principles (information flows, control variables, and sub-system boundaries) to clarify the conflicts between economic and environmental needs. I am building upon ideas which come generally from the work of systems theorists and cyberneticians, from Ross Ashby and Gregory Bateson to the present, who have developed a meta-language which is not caught in the historical details and traditions of particular cultures.[13]
Finally, the main futures-oriented section suggests ways in which the new information and communications technologies could be used to facilitate social and economic structures (new or existing) which avoid or at least reduce these conflicts.
Many people throughout the world now have electronic links to each other through the Internet. The time when access to the Internet becomes as common as access to a telephone is only a few years away in the more affluent parts of the world. Elsewhere, access is growing as rapidly but from a much lower level.[14]
Thus, at the millennium, people have opportunities to coordinate their behaviour in new groupings and new ways. Through the Internet there has already been an explosion of new communities of interest of many sorts. For people interested in sustainability, this provides the possibility of implementing many ideas that would be just wishful thinking without such connections, ideas like supporting renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and community structures. There is an opportunity now for the development of sustainable economic activity that was not there as recently as a few years ago.
"Let me start from the natural ecosystems around man. An English wood, a tropical forest, or a tropical desert is a community of creatures. ... those creatures and plants live together in a combination of competition and mutual dependency and it is the combination that is the important thing to consider."
Gregory Bateson[15]
The differences between an ecosystem and an organism are a metaphor to guide a discussion of sustainable economic activity. The essential idea is that because of the increasing impact of human activities on the Earth, humanity needs to consciously strive to function in a way which is analogous to a nervous system for the Earth as a whole, in the process turning it from an ecosystem to something more like an organism[16].
The first major difference between an ecosystem and an organism is in the stability of the whole. An organism has a wholeness described by its genetic material that is common to all its cells. It has evolved so that all its parts collaborate to regenerate continuously, providing its cells and tissues with whatever they need. There is no similar wholeness for an ecosystem, with the result that its form and structure are much more variable than are those of an organism.
What stability of form and structure there is for an ecosystem is due to a balance of negative feedback processes that conserve form, and positive feedback processes which are expansive and potentially disruptive.[17]
Our industrial culture has reached a scale where its impact on the natural world is large enough to disrupt significantly the natural regulating feedback processes. What is worse, human agriculture and living areas are closely adapted to current climate patterns and land/sea boundaries and cannot easily adapt to major changes.
With current human population levels, and their projected near doubling before they stabilise, this impact is likely to increase unless there is some drastic change of course.[18] The change of course that would make the necessary difference would be for humanity explicitly to take on a role analogous to that of the nervous system of a whole-Earth-as-organism.[19]
The analogue of the wholeness represented by the genetic material of an organism is humanity's sense of identification with the whole Earth. That has been growing for the past few decades since we have been able to see the Earth from space and since our awareness of environmental disruption and climate change has grown. Another dimension is a growing sense of identification with humanity as a whole. This has been a side-effect of instantaneous global news media, and mass travel and migration on an unprecedented scale, leading to the current multi-cultural nature of most nations.
A second major difference between an ecosystem and an organism follows from the first, and is the relationship between its parts, or sub-systems. In both there is both competition and collaboration or symbiosis, but in an organism the competition between the parts is greatly reduced, and the symbiosis greatly enhanced. From the perspective of a part, the support of the whole removes the desirability of maximum growth, to be replaced by the desirability of sufficient growth. Below, I will develop the analogy, looking at possible sustainable economic behaviour with reduced competition and greater collaboration between organisations within stable niches.
In an organism with a nervous system, the nervous system helps to maintain the wholeness in various ways.
If an organism with a nervous system is looked at as a control system, its control variables are the state of the organism and the key indicators.
To summarise, three key systems issues - control variables, sub-system boundaries and information flows - emerge directly from the metaphor.
Only after the Last Tree has been cut down,
Only after the Last River has been poisoned,
Only after the Last Fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that Money Cannot be Eaten.
Cree Indian prophesy
In our modern economic ecosystem, production and services are now predominantly under the control of large organisations which compete with each other for survival. These organisationsí priorities must be their own survival, which means financial survival, whether the source of the finance is sales, donations, grants or tax revenues.
The wants and needs of the recipients of the goods or services are significant only to the extent that they coincide with the organisations' need to survive. The needs of the producer rather than the needs of the receiver are the dominant economic control variables. The health of the environment, too, gets a much lower priority than the survival needs of organisations.
This is particularly clear in the statements of politicians and economic commentators. No one ever says we must increase production because the public is in desperate need of genetically modified foods, digital TVs, the next generation of computer or another theme park (much less cleaning up the environment!). It is always the need for jobs that justifies the need for economic growth. (For example, the Japanese government is distributing vouchers to encourage people to consume[20].) We are encouraged by advertising to want more for the sake of production.
This domination by the needs of the producers was not always the case in human exchange, and is not inevitable. In the earliest human societies, we can assume that what economic behaviour there was consisted largely of cooperation in hunting and gathering, food sharing within families and between friends, and cooperation in creating tools and shelter. Thus the driving force for all production was what the receivers wanted and needed. Effects on the local environment would have been immediately evident, and corrective action incorporated within the culture. (For example, in cultures that practice slash and burn agriculture there is generally a long time lapse before return to allow the forests to regenerate.)
Cora A. DuBois, writing about the Tolowa-Tututni says "in the economic life of these tribes... their monies served as a medium of exchange primarily in the realm of prestige economy rather than subsistence economy... food was shared by the provident with the improvident within the village group."[21]
Money in the form of coins was said by Herodotus to have been first used in the 8th century BC by the Lydians: "they were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, and the first who sold goods by retail.[22] As exchange based on trust relationships diminished, money became more necessary, and more widely used. My favourite quip on the subject is that "money is institutionalised mistrust".[23]
Far-flung trade brought with it some of the early problems of globalisation. In the 16th century, "discovery and conquest set in motion a vast flow of precious metal from America to Europe, and the result was a huge rise in prices -- an inflation occasioned by an increase in the supply of the hardest of hard money."[24] Far distant events began to influence the daily lives of people. Economic control was less tightly determined by what people wanted, and began to be influenced by large-scale systemic effects.
The relatively close coupling between producer and consumer in the early marketplace is also long gone. According to 1995 statistics, in the globalised economy only 2 or 3 percent of money flows are to do with trade or investment. The rest are speculative.[25] This is not just a matter of wealthy individuals aiming for speculative profit. Mostly it is large organisations trying to protect payments and receipts between their branches or to protect their contracted obligations up and down the supply chain from currency and commodity price fluctuations.
Since the demise of the gold standard, flows of money have been relatively isolated from physical constraints. Thus feedback effects within the speculative community largely determine the stability of the global monetary system. Successful traders must anticipate what other traders will do. The existence of a rumour, not its validity, is what stimulates activity.[26] This creates a strong positive feedback effect, amplifying the effects of small changes. A system full of autonomous positive feedback effects is a recipe for chaotic behaviour. It is no wonder that the predictions of economic forecasters are so often wrong, and that governmental monetary policy often does not have its intended effect.
The result is that financial survival for an organisation is often a matter of luck rather than good practice. Local conditions can be massively affected by financial changes elsewhere in the world.
In an economy where real transactions are just "the frosting on the speculative cake"[27] it is not surprising that the health of the environment, much less the economic well-being of the poorer parts of the human population, gets low priority.
In our modern globalised economy, financial flows are simply the wrong control variables. Overall indicators such as financial growth rates are not relevant to the stability and health of the environment, or even to the well-being of much of humanity.[28] This is the principle obstacle to sustainability and the source of most conflicts between what is desirable on economic and environmental grounds.
So, what can we conclude are the desirable control variables for sustainable economic activity? In the 'nervous system of an organism' metaphor the control variables are the ongoing needs of the parts and the state of the overall indicators of well-being. In terms of the 'ongoing needs of the parts' the analogy would be that economic activity should be directly determined by the wants and needs of the population locally, rather than mediated through the needs of producing organisations. The overall indicators of well-being would range from scientific studies of the state of the Earth's climate to local perceptions of soil or air quality, biodiversity, or the beauty of the local landscape.
A best match economy: I use the term a 'best match' economy to mean that the control variables, the driving force for production, are a best match to the wants and needs of the population with what is available. Moreover, those wants, needs and availability are informed by consideration of the health of the environment.
Later sections examine two ways in which ICTs can help move towards a 'best match' economy:
In our economic ecosystem the first two sets of sub-system boundary issues to consider are:
In an economy that is dominated by exchange through money, the personal relationship between giver and receiver, and the trust and support that goes with it, are marginalised. "...the shift away from self-reliance has led to the dismantling of the social ties and values that unite communities, or even whole cultures. The market values of competitiveness and individualism have replaced the community values of solidarity and cooperation."[29]
As discussed in the previous section, the control variables are the needs of the producer, not a 'best match' criterion. The result is that the desires of those people who have money are manipulated so that they will want more, while those people without money are ignored.
The resulting social fragmentation leaves significant numbers of people outside of or at the edges of the economic system. Their sense of exclusion encourages crime, vandalism, social and emotional problems, drug taking and general poor health. All of these add to the costs of keeping society functioning.
Transactions can become highly contentious and a source of conflict with people feeling exploited over the wages they are being paid or the prices they are being offered. The results of this are major overheads to transactions of various forms, in wage bargaining, strikes and other disruptions. Much productive effort is absorbed by the financial system itself: handling cash and credit, banks, insurance companies, financial security systems.
The boundaries between competing organisations lead to much duplication of effort in research and development. Significant innovations are kept in commercial confidence, and protected by patents and lawsuits so that best practice cannot be shared by all. To increase or maintain market shares, goods may be shipped around the world to compete with near-identical goods produced locally. Organisations devote significant proportions of their productive effort to competition that might otherwise be devoted to the satisfying the needs of their clients.
The result of all these effects is an enormous inefficiency. The efforts required for transaction costs, to resolve conflicts, in duplicated efforts, in producing things other than what are wanted, in the cost of crime and ill health, all add up to a gross productive effort far in excess of what would suffice to provide comfortable lives to the population. The converse of this is that in a sustainable economy organised so that producers and consumers were all pulling in the same direction, peoples' wants and needs could be satisfied with much lower levels of production. And of course much lower levels of production would mean much lower environmental impact.
A third, looser set of system boundaries of relevance is that around trading communities. In ecosystem terms, it is analogous to the food web. Organisations up and down the supply chain are necessary to each otherís survival. In isolated or relatively closed trading communities it is clear that there is a mutual dependence among all.
One means of bounding a trading community is through a shared currency or exchange mechanism. This may be a conventional currency, an international common currency like the Euro, a local currency such as LETS, Time Dollars or WIR[30] [31]. It may be the circulation of necklaces and armbands in the Kula ring of the Trobriand Islanders as described by Malinowski[32] [33] or simply the informal exchange in a suburban baby sitting circle. For the purposes of this paper, the key difference between these forms of trading community is in the nature of the relationship, and in particular in the degree of trust.
Our use of conventional currencies for transactions is at roughly the mid-point of a spectrum of modes of exchange. Sahlins discusses this spectrum of reciprocities in some depth[34], looking across a range of cultures.
At one end of the spectrum there is 'generalised exchange' which includes gift-giving, mutual aid within a family or between friends, and working voluntarily for a common purpose. This characterises a relationship in which all parties give and receive, but with no attempt to seek an exact balance either for a single transaction or overall.
Generalised exchange presumes an ongoing relationship based on trust so that people can expect some return for what they give. Harriss says, "...if these social relationships generate some degree of trust, then transaction costs can be lowered, so making for greater efficiency in the use of resources."[35] Generalised exchange has lowest overheads, as there is the least need to keep records of what is given and received, and least conflict over the fairness of a given transaction.
In the middle is balanced exchange, either as direct barter or using some token or exchange medium such as money for all transactions. There is no assumption of an ongoing give and take relationship so that balance is sought for each transaction. Balanced exchange has higher transaction costs, because of the need to create and handle the exchange medium, the need for savings, loans, insurance, etc. and because of the various conflicts across system boundaries described above.
The other extreme is negative reciprocity, where there is no agreement on the giving and receiving, such as cheating or stealing. Clearly the relationship is one of opposition, not support.
Conventional economic transactions can vary widely along the reciprocity spectrum. In a small shop with regular customers, the relationship may move towards the generalised end. As people know and trust each other, casual credit may be allowed. On the other hand, firms which use high- pressure marketing and cold calling may have a relationship with their customers more like that of predator and prey.
Transactions in local currency schemes tend to be at the more generalised end of the spectrum. Credit is automatically available to people who would have difficulty obtaining it through conventional financial institutions. There are usually no interest charges, and no legal sanctions for default. Thus balance is approximate and pressure to maintain it is social rather than legal. The schemes tend to be small, so people generally know each other somewhat. There are reports of reverse bargaining, where customers offer more of the local currency than they are asked to pay. This shows a concern for the otherís welfare, rather than an attempt to get the best deal.
Local currencies are generally much less formal than conventional currencies. The forms of exchange they facilitate can be extended to no currency at all, if there is sufficient trust within the group. Certain offerings can be free, or given to a community account. This would be fully generalised exchange.
Harriss talks about the development of trust in cooperative organisations based upon "shared knowledge and expectations", and that "discussion of problems led to a reframing of them, as the understandings of all those concerned underwent change."[36]
Exchange at the generalised end of the spectrum is the key to getting out of the competitive trap in which producers cannot take measures to reduce their environmental impact unless their competitors do so also.
So what can we conclude about the desirable sub-system boundaries for sustainable economic activity? From the perspective of the 'nervous system of an organism' metaphor, we are looking for:
The later section on ICT-based tools considers ways of furthering these goals. This will include means of easily setting up groups with a cooperative economic function based on local currencies or fully generalised exchange, and ways of furthering trust through discussion, shared experience and tools for building consensus.
Consumers therefore unwittingly endorsed the destruction of tropical rainforests and the ozone layer through their purchase of hardwoods, hamburgers and aerosols; connived in the blinding of young women in Mexican semiconductor factories through their purchase of personal computers; and otherwise were party to a host of other exploitations of people and planet through being unaware of the wider implications of their consumption.
Paul Ekins[37]
In a perfect market, "The assumptions of perfect competition... [include] ...perfect knowledge, we assume that everyone knows what is happening in every part of the market in which he is interested."[38]
Unfortunately, the 'perfect information' which economic theory requires for a free market to be optimum is not at all in the interests of producer organisations trying to protect their market share from competitors. Commercial information is usually carefully protected. This produces a tremendous duplication of effort in research and development. Competing producers are often not able to build upon the best ideas and practices in their field, and may even take legal action to stop competitors using their ideas.
Real costs: For consumers, perfect information would include what we might call 'real cost', rather than financial cost in some currency. I am using the term 'real cost' here somewhat like the economists sense of 'shadow cost', which generalises the idea of cost to include broader objectives than money. The 'real cost' of something is a description of the full implications of creating it, having it and disposing of it. It is used somewhat like the results of a life-cycle analysis or social audit. How much labour is required and under what labour conditions? How much energy and what materials are required to produce and transport it? What are the implications of disposing of it? Are there any other environmental effects associated with it? What are the social implications of its existence?
Information flows from producer to consumer are largely through advertising, but the purpose of advertising is to influence actively what people want, not to present information about real costs. As the recipient is outside the producers' system boundary, it is sufficient that they buy the product, not that their needs are most accurately met.
Information about 'real costs' is deeply hidden within financial cost. What are the labour conditions under which those fashionable trainers are made? What are the effects of that far-away factory on its local environment?
In the other direction, the primary flow of information from consumer to producer is through a crude buy/don't buy signal, which does not convey detailed information about how satisfied they are or what they might really prefer. For larger producers/providers this is supplemented somewhat by marketing information. Marketing at the more reputable end of the market is concerned with building an ongoing relationship and with a best match to consumer desires, and much marketing is aimed at extracting the relevant information.
From the perspective of the 'nervous system of an organism' metaphor we want:
Without good information about the environmental impact of their actions how can people and organisations be expected to behave in ways which further sustainability? The next section describes ways in which this information is now and could increasingly be provided through the use of ICTs.
There is nothing more urgently needed than the invention of a new political economy which, while recognizing the obsolescence of ëworkí as presently conceived and organised, provides material abundance for all, and yet balances the needs of present generations with those of future generations.
Jim Dator[39]
We are now in a position to consider the ways in which the new information and communication technologies might be used to move towards the principles set out in the previous sections.
1 The number of people with access to the Internet is growing due to a positive feedback process. As more people are connected, it becomes a more attractive medium to others. Growing numbers of browsers on the World Wide Web attract more information providers. Growing numbers of users of email and discussions attract more people because there are more people for them to be in touch with. Thus, quite independently of any considerations of sustainability, a decentralised communication and information system is developing which could and is being used to further sustainability issues.
As people form more links across cultures and national boundaries, a sense of people as part of humanity as a whole, and as citizens of the planet rather than of a particular culture or nation, becomes more natural. This is a step towards the sense of global identity which is a key part of the ìnervous system of the Earthî metaphor.
2 The Internet is well established as a place in which new virtual communities are formed. Many of these have a mutual support function, especially in the areas of health and disease. Just about every exotic disease or medical condition has its information sites on the Web with discussion groups to support sufferers and their families. Groups form around almost any conceivable interest which people may have: hobbies, support for a particular athletic team, serious scientific and technical issues. There has been also been a strong on-line community network movement (associated with geographical communities) since long before the Web was established.[40] Although these have not generally had an economic function, they have a strong ethos of mutual support and of inclusion of the disadvantaged.
This provides a welcome counterbalance to the prevailing economic ethos in which competition has been raised to a moral imperative. It is also one of the major ways in which the Internet is fostering a sense of global and community identity (as above).
3 Organisations such as the Association for Progressive Communications have been providing global on-line discussion forums for environmental groups since long before the World Wide Web existed. Now every major (and many minor) environmental group has an elaborate Web site providing information to their supporters and the general public. A search on the Web for any environmental issue will provide much information.
A lot of work has been done on indicators of welfare that are much broader than GNP or other financial indicators.[41] [42] [43] All of this provides a very strong beginning to the provision of information about global indicators of health and global-scale discussions about how to maintain it. These are a start to the control variables guiding a global nervous system-like functionality.
4 The early Internet culture of decentralised control, self-regulation and open information remains the dominant ethos. Although this ethos is under attack by some groups who fear the use of the Internet for pornography and subversion, it also has great support from people who fear that regulation would stifle trade. Although this ethos might be subverted by the growing commercialisation of the Web, equally, that commercialisation might be transformed by it. This ethos offers models and starting points that could be built upon to provide new structures for sustainable economic activity. The distributed control and self-regulation on the Internet are much more like the structure of a nervous system than are the hierarchical control structures which characterise most commercial and governmental organisations.
5 There are many sites for distribution of free software. Some of it is 'shareware', which means that users are invited to send a small payment to the authors if they like it and use it regularly. This is a modest move towards generalised exchange, and puts control firmly in the hands of the users. The better software quickly gets known and is popular due to its quality.
6 Truly free software, for which no payment is asked, and especially 'open source' software is even more relevant than shareware as a model of the power of open information and collaborative production. Much free software is distributed together with its 'source code' (i.e. the original programmerís work which is then 'compiled' to form the program which is distributed). That means that anyone who wishes to do so can improve the software, correct bugs, and find out any clever tricks used within it. A large community of programmers does so, motivated not by financial gain, but by the challenge of creating better software and the prestige given to those known to do so well. Improved versions are checked and posted on popular distribution sites, where all users can collect them. The result is that the best replaces the second best very rapidly throughout the user community.
This is a prime example of the synergy of sharing information. In contrast, in the competitive world of commercial software, good ideas are treated as commodities and guarded jealously, often with lawsuits. The result is often that the mediocre predominates and drives out the better.
A powerful example of this that has been in the news recently is the Linux operating system, which has been cited as a serious challenge to Microsoft. Linux is an open source version of the Unix operating system that is suitable for running on small machines. The kernel of Linux was originally developed by a Swedish post-graduate student named Linus Torvald, and has since been highly refined by thousands of programmers throughout the world, working collaboratively through the Internet. Linux is much more robust and stable than Microsoft's operating systems. It has many more programmers working on its development. When any bugs are found in it, they are likely to be corrected within hours, rather than months, as is the norm with commercial software.
Microsoft has cited Linux in its anti-trust case as an example of software that could seriously compete with its Windows operating systems[44].. Although Linux is not currently suitable for use by the general public, that may change quite soon as an easy-to-use interface is nearing completion. Linux will then really be in a position to challenge Microsoft.[45]
This would be a very high-profile example of a move away from competition as the principle ethos of our economic system and towards synergy, as in an organism.
So current developments on the Internet offer promising starts to sustainability and a communication system that is pre-adapted to such an economy. However, there is no reason to believe that developments on the Internet will automatically or inevitably lead towards sustainability. Rather, it provides the beginnings of an infrastructure that could be used by people who are committed to it.
For people wishing to make use of the Internet for sustainability now, the obvious starting point is a Web site. A basic Web site is principally a one-way medium, useful for presenting information, but not sufficient for supporting 'best match' economic activity and collaborative, niche-based economic units. For these, additional tools are needed. I suggest the following as a good basic set:
I have a research project in the early stages of development to create an integrated set of these tools as the basis of a 'Community Learning Network'. It aims to promote community-based economic and educational activity.[46]
1 Discussion forums have been around for many years in various forms: based around mailing lists, Internet Newsgroups, and commercial software. Those most often used on the Web generally have limited facilities and a simple structure. They may be open to anyone who wants to participate, or restricted to a specific group. More sophisticated systems are beginning to become available, supporting sub-groups with local administration, different permissions and message types.
2 Polls occasionally appear on the Web, but are not generally available as they require programming to set up. They would be most useful if they could be set up by anyone in a defined group, as easily as creating a new e-mail message. They would then have a variety of uses as simple ways of determining where a group agrees and disagrees. People could change their votes, so that when associated with discussions, they would reflect shifting tides of opinion.
Figure 1 - Example of a simple yes/no poll.
3 Dynamic bulletin boards are somewhere in-between a Web site and a discussion system. They would allow easy creation of notices by the individual concerned, with minimal design effort needed. Notices on them are one-offs, rather than part of a thread of ongoing discussion, but might have a discussion attached to them. They would function somewhat like the classified ads in local papers, but with more immediacy and direct control. They could be key tools for a 'best match' economy, when used to present people's wants and offers. In Figure 2, the first example shows an instance of mini-job creation, with payment in a local currency. The second example includes an embedded poll (the customer rating) to facilitate a 'best match' economy by providing public information on the performance of providers of goods and services.
Figure 2 - Examples of possible uses of dynamic bulletin boards
4 Tools for community exchange are meant to enable people and organisations to reduce their dependence on conventional money. They would allow any group to create a set of accounts for exchanges between its members. The exchanges could be mediated by conventional currency, by a local currency (perhaps specific to that group), or by no currency (simply a list of what was given and received with no attempt to quantify values) to facilitate generalised exchange.
Even without the formation of new community economic units, the provision of suitable information flows could provide a bias towards a 'best match' economy. In a sense, this is marketing in reverse. Consumers would coordinate their desires and views and present them to producers.
1 The most obvious starting point would be to provide information on real costs of goods and services to the general public in a systematic and easily accessible form. Large numbers of people could collaborate on an informal and distributed basis, as is done with open source software. National or regional environmental groups could review widely available products. People in local groups could take these reviews and pin-point the availability of the best and worst products in local shops.
This would enhance the efforts of such books as The Green Consumers Guide[47] and similar magazines, which are worthy but have a very limited impact. It would make such information much more useful and accessible, as it would be applied locally and change as local shops changed their offerings. This would be equivalent to a local, environmentally-oriented version of consumer magazines such as Which? (UK) and Consumer Reports (USA).
2 To provide producers with the information about i) what people want and need and ii) how satisfied they are with what they receive, a combination of discussion forums and polling systems could be used. Systematic polling could be used to provide statistical information.
Forums could give consumers the opportunity to discuss particular issues and problems they have found with specific products, services or organisations, both among themselves and with agents of producing organisations.
These, too, are most appropriately organised on both local and larger scales, with the larger scale polls aggregating the local polls. In a sense, this is providing producers with information that they normally gather through marketing exercises. However, here the control and the initiative are in the hands of consumers and consumer groups. Thus this is a move towards reducing the producer/consumer boundary.
While the information flows described above are at a small scale, their principal effect will be on the consumers who have access to them, as a modest influence on their choice of purchase. If they become significant in scale and gain public respect, their influence will increase.
1 Public knowledge of how well producers are taking into consideration what people want will encourage them to take notice and change their practices to suit.
2 Significant gaps between what is produced and what is desired will create commercial opportunities for new and existing providers who can close those gaps.
Thus the existence of public, consumer-oriented information flows could influence production in the direction of providing 'best match' economic activity. Furthermore, they could be used to create markets for environmentally-oriented products. The polling tools could be used to determine the demand for renewable energy, low-impact products and fair-traded products, to support existing organisations working in these areas. As Ekins says, "If progressive consumerism continues to intensify, the extent to which it could transform business practice is hard to overestimate."[48]
The development of the information flows described above could create significant movements towards sustainability, especially if they begin to shift the balance of economic control. However, the most profound effects of ICTs are likely to come through the formation of new economic units, with sub-system boundaries that re-unite provider and receiver. These offer the prospect of growing collaborative, niche-based economic activity within the interstices of the present competitive market economy.
The essential point is the possibility of forming groupings in which people are seen as mutually supportive rather than in competition, although perhaps in some quite limited domain. The need here is to re-establish a sense of community as the basic social context for people, and especially, for children as they grow up.
Such groupings can take various forms, and those with the most potential for success may not yet have been thought of.
1 Virtual communities of interest Examples of these have been discussed above. They include health support networks, collaborative projects such as the free software movement, etc. New environmentally-oriented groups focussed on their local communities would be especially needed. The use of improved tools for discussion and polling could enhance their effectiveness.
2 Virtual communities associated with some commercial provider Hagel and Armstrong, using the terminology of the present market economy, discuss this at length[49]. They describe a new form of relationship between provider and receiver, based on information flows through Web sites and on-line discussions. Receivers are strongly motivated to continue patronising the provider because their needs become known, understood and satisfied by that provider. With another provider, there would be a learning curve before a similar relationship was established.
This is a step towards a cooperative, niche-based rather than a competitive economy. Providers and receivers become linked symbiotically. Providers find that they have a stable clientele that will not easily move to a competitor. Thus freed from the fear of competition, neighbouring providers of the same goods or services, each with their own stable clientele, are then able to collaborate. They can share best practice and help each other handle peak loads or difficulties. This can then develop into a symbiosis between providers. Each benefits from the support of similar providers, so that the temptation to poach customers from them would risk the loss of that support. And especially, the need to compete on price with other providers with weaker environmental concerns diminishes.
3 Local community support networks These are the most ambitious, and seem to me to be potentially the most significant of the possibilities. They would build upon the many existing on-line community networks and community information networks (which generally do not focus on economic exchange) and make use of all the tools described above (discussion forums, polling systems, dynamic bulletin boards, community exchanges).[50]
Although on-line tools would support these groupings, they would not be virtual networks. The people would meet and interact in person. They would need access to a computer through a friend or in some public place, but would not need to own one. The function of the on-line tools would be to facilitate and organise such personal interactions. They would enable a group of like-minded people distributed throughout a geographical community to find and support one another.
The advantages of putting a local exchange system on-line are that it permits immediacy and dynamic change (e.g. "I need a lift to Felpersham this afternoon. Can anyone help?" "Does anyone want the spare courgettes from my garden?" "Can someone with a van help me collect my new wardrobe tomorrow?") and also that it allows people to find connections with others that they would not easily find in any other way. And especially, it opens the possibility of self-organised cooperatives of various sorts.
Members of an on-line community with such groupings would have access to the services of these and other cooperatives, as well as whatever individual offerings members provided. They might pay for them in their national currency, in a local currency specific to the community, or some might be freely offered. This would reduce their need for conventional currency.
One of the major limitations of many present-day local currencies is that people have difficulty finding services to offer, and thus are not willing to make much use of what others are offering. The advantage of a local on-line cooperative for a local currency scheme is that it opens many opportunities to offer service by signing up for shifts to drive, garden, etc.
In effect, a community with an exchange system like this creates a large number of short part-time jobs which people can take on when they feel the need. These may provide them with some (conventional) money or local currency. It is a radical alternative to the conventional strategy of seeking full-time employment.
The on-line tools provide a simple way to bring in information flows to steer the relationship to a 'best match' basis. Consumer ratings and comments could be provided directly within on-line 'cheques', and linked to wider polls and discussions.
Figure 3 An on-line transaction slip using both national and local currencies, and incorporating a customer rating to provide feedback.
The combination of these local community support networks and other virtual communities could provide the beginnings of an economy based upon collaborative groupings, rather than individualistic competition. With sub-system boundaries that enable providers and receivers to feel supportive of each other and consider each other's needs, with information flows to steer transactions towards a best match of those needs and towards considering real costs, they could provide the beginnings of a sustainable economy.
In such groupings, a sense of identity and purpose as part of a community would reduce the alienation that leads to much crime and social disorder. They could provide an atmosphere in which community service rather than personal consumption was the prevailing value system. They would be growing points for the expanded sense of sustainability, based upon physical, social and spiritual considerations described by Boyle, et. al. in the introduction to this issue.
This paper has taken a broad look at human economic systems past and present in the light of systems principles to formulate a basis for a sustainable economy.
It has outlined a series of possibilities that extend current developments on the Internet:
These possibilities can begin to grow on the initiative of small groups of people, initially separate, but increasingly coordinated, much as happens with cooperative software development on the Internet. They do not need to wait for the support of governments, the election of green parties to power, a change of consciousness of large segments of the population, or major changes in the views of large commercial organisations (although any or all of these would help).
If successful on a small scale, these initiatives would have a modest but useful effect on the people involved in them. If they provide successful models of an economic system based around supportive human relationships and concerns for the environment, they will attract more people.
It is not clear how far this could go. Is it conceivable that they could ultimately connect all or most of the world's population, through multiple, overlapping groups? This would be a change from a global economy which is like an unstable ecosystem under threat, to one with the more coherent structure of an organism of global scale. With feedback mechanisms to promote overall stability, it would create a growing sense of identity for humanity as the nervous system of the living Earth.
[1] J. Robertson, The Sane Alternative, Robertson, 1978.
[2] H. E. Daly, J. B. Cobb
Jr., For the Common Good,
Redirecting the
Economy toward Community, the
Environment, and
a Sustainable Future, Green Print,
London, 1990.
[3] E. von Weizsacker, A.
Lovins, L.H. Lovins, Factor Four,
Doubling Wealth,
Halving Resource Use, Earthscan,
London, 1997.
[4] A. Dobson, Green Political
Thought, Unwin Hyman,
London, 1990.
[5] T. Fotopoulos, "The Economic
Foundations of an Ecological
Society", Society
and Nature, vol 1. no. 3, 1992. pp. 1-41.
[6] M. E. Clark, "Rethinking
Ecological and Economic Education:
A Gestalt Shift"
in Costanza, R. (ed.) Ecological Economics:
The science and
management of sustainability, Columbia
University Press,
New York, 1991.
[7] P. Ekins & M. Max-Neef,
eds, Real-life economics:
Understanding wealth
creation, Routledge, 1992.
[8] for example, D. Pearce,
"The practical implications of sustainable
development", in
P. Ekins & M. Max-Neef, op. cit., pp. 403-411.
[9] T. Jackson and M. Jacobs, "Carbon
taxes and the assumptions
of environmental economics",
in T. Barker (ed.), Green Futures
for Economics, Cambridge
Econometrics, Cambridge, 1991,p. 62.
[10] G.Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, 1998.
[11] R. Douthwaite, The Growth Illusion, Green Books, 1992.
[12] R.Douthwaite, Short Circuit,
Strengthening local economies
for security
in an unstable world, Green Books, 1996, p. 48-9.
[13] This refers to the work of such
people as Ross Ashby,
Norbert Weiner,
Benjamin Whorf, Gregory Bateson,
Humberto
Maturana, Francisco Varela, Fritjof Capra,
William Powers,
and many others, whose ideas have
formed
my thinking even if they are not referenced explicitly.
[14] see for example, the surveys
of Internet use from the NUA
Internet
Surveys, at http://www.nua.ie/surveys.
[15] G. Bateson, "Conscious purpose
versus nature",
in Steps
to an ecology of mind, Chandler,
1972, p. 430.
[16] This metaphor is not meant to
propose a Stalinist or
centrally-planned
approach to sustainability. Such an
interpretation
would completely misunderstand the
nature of
a nervous system, which is a feedback system.
A nervous system
is as much controlled by its body as the
body is controlled
by it. There is no seat of control in a
nervous system:
control is distributed throughout it. Similar
arguments are in
K. Kelley, Out of Control, Addison Wesley,
1994.
[17] It is these self-regulating
feedback processes that James
Lovelock
and other proponents of the Gaia Hypothesis
point to
for the Earth as a whole, rather than any distinctly
organism-like
properties.
[18] See for example the paper by Peter Harper in this issue.
[19] The basic idea of humanity as the
nervous system of the
Earth comes
from Peter Russell, as in his Awakening Earth,
Penguin,
1991 (and earlier editions).
[20] J. Watts, "Even free money
fails to tempt Japan's shoppers",
The Guardian,
1 Feb. 1999, p.13.
[21] Cora A. DuBois, "The wealth
concept as an integrative factor
in Tolowa-Tututni
culture", in R.H.Lowie (ed.), Essays in
Anthropology
(Berkley, 1936), pp. 50-51.
[22] Herodotus, The Persian Wars,
Book 1, Clio, 93,
translated
by George Rawlinson, Modern Library,
New York,
1942, p. 53
[23] private remark by Professor
Michael Hussey,
The Open
University.
[24] J.K. Galbraith, Money,
whence it came, where it went,
Andre Deutsch,
1975, p. 20.
[25] B. Lietaer, "Beyond greed
and scarcity", on-line interview at
http://www.resilientcommunities.org/Articles/Currencies.htm
[26] This has been modelled by T. Lux
and M. Marchesi,
"Scaling
and criticality in a stochastic multi-agent model
of a financial
market", Nature, vol. 397, Feb. 1999,
pp. 498-500.
They divide traders into 'fundamentalists'
and 'noise
traders' and say "Theoretical analysis shows
that a critical
value for the number of noise traders exists
where the
system loses its stability."
[27] Hazel Henderson, found in
B.Lietaer,
"Beyond greed
and scarcity", op. cit.
[28] R. Douthwaite, The Growth
Illusion, Green Books,
1992.
[29] T. Fotopoulos, op. cit., p.8.
[30] R. Douthwaite, Short Circuit, op. cit. chapter 3.
[31] A. Fricker, "Economies of
Abundance", Futures, 31,
1999, pp.
271-280.
[32] B. Malinowski, Argonauts
of the Western Pacific,
Dutton, 1961
(orig. published 1922).
[33] B. Malinowski, "Kula: the
circulating exchange of
valuables
in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea",
Man,
July, 1920.
[34] M. Sahlins, "On the Sociology
of Primitive Exchange",
in Stone
Age Economics, Tavistock, 1972.
[35] J. Harriss, "Working together:
the principles and practice
of co-operation
and partnership", in D. Robinson, T. Hewitt
and J. Harriss
(eds), Managing Development: Understanding
Inter-organisational
Relationships, London,
Sage Publications,1999.
[36] ibid.
[37] P. Ekins, "Towards a progressive
market",
in P. Ekins
& M. Max-Neef, 1992, op. cit.,
p. 323-324.
[38] H. Speight, Economics,
The Science of Prices and Incomes,
Methuen,
London, 1968, P.106.
[39] J.Dator, "Trajectories, Return
to long waves", Futures, 31 (1999),
p. 370.
[40] see "The Community Network
Movement"
at http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/cnm.htm
and "Welcome to
UK Communities
Online @ Communities Online Forum" at
http://www.communities.org.uk/,
for example.
[41] as for example, the 'index
of sustainable economic development,
which is
Appendix 1 in Daly and Cobb, op. cit.
[42] W. Nordhaus and J. Tobin,
"Is growth obsolete?" in M. Moss (ed)
The measurement
of Economic and Social Performance,
National
Bureau of Economic Research, New York.
[43] or the Calvert-Henderson Quality-of-Life
indicator as in
H. Henderson,
"Viewing ëthe new economy from diverse
forecasting
perspectives", Futures, vol. 30, no. 4, May 1998,
p.274.
[44] D. Hafke "David challenges
Goliath in OS field",Computer
Reseller
News, 7 Dec. 1998.
[45] C. Mann,"Programs to the people",
Technology Review,
Jan/Feb.
1999.
[46] see "Community Learning Networks:
Using ICTs to support
communities
and their educational needs" at
http://sustainability.open.ac.uk/gary/cln/. [nolonger
active!]
[47] J. Elkington and J. Hales,
The Green Consumers Guide,
Gollancz,
1988.
[48] P. Ekins, "Towards a progressive
market", in P. Ekins &
M. Max-Neef,
1992, op. cit., p. 325.
[49] J. Hagel, A. Armstrong,
Net Gain: Expanding Markets
Through Virtual
Communities, Harvard Business School
Press,
1997.
[50] See "community learning networks" op. cit. [nolonger active!]