"Synergies across environmental and social issues are limited . . ."
"Are limited" is in the agressively passive tense. The studied inattention
to WHAT limits those synergies is the keynote of 'sustainable development'.
The 570,000 hits that Esty mentions have by now grown to 753,000 on Google.
Just 79 of those hits remain when combined with the term Grundrisse,
one-tenth of one percent. This is like conducting a discussion of physics
without mentioning motion.
"Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce
labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as
sole measure and source of wealth." (p. 706, Grundrisse)
It is this archaic, superfluous and increasingly pernicious system of
*valuation* that poses a contradiction between "environmental and social
issues".
"On the one side, then, it calls to life all the powers of science and of
nature, as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make
the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed
on it. On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod
for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the
limits required to maintain the already created value as value."
Rather than the vague "are limited", the passage above specifies that
capital's desire and need to "use labour time as the measuring rod" poses
the limit.
If the above quote seems to abstractly philosophical and antiquated, have a
look at Anders Hayden's _Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet_, which also
addresses the synergies without flinching. Gene Coyle wrote a review of
Anders' book, which was published in the Monthly Labor Review. Gene's review
comes out on top (out of 34 hits) in a Google search on "sustainable
development" and "sharing the work, sparing the planet." Here it is again:
http://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/01/bookrevs.htm
>Work-time reduction
>
>Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet. By Anders Hayden. New York, St.
Martin's Press, 2000, 234 pp. $65, cloth; $22.50, paper.
>
>Canadian author Anders Hayden adds a powerful new dimension to the array of
arguments for reducing hours of work. Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet
stands out for that reason from the recent stream of books advocating
cutting the hours of work. Hayden shares the concerns of many writers—job
creation, improved quality of life for the employed, balancing work and
family, and equity between North and South—but adds a compelling
environmental basis for cutting working time. It is among the very best
books on the subject of working time.
>
>Many recent books have offered work-time reduction as a single solution for
multiple problems. Unemployment, declining quality of life, and stress on
the family and individuals have each been the focus of books advocating
cutting hours of work. Hayden's is a more encompassing vision, taking in all
these issues and more, and his voice adds a rich new dimension to the symphony.
>
>The book focuses on the role of reducing time in achieving ecologically
sustainable development, addressing at the same time equity between the
North and the South. Hayden demonstrates a wide-ranging command of the
multiple issues that reduction of working time can address, and adds a
mastery of the literature.
>
>Hayden begins by recalling that since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, people have had two motives for a reduction in working time,
getting more hours away from work, and creating more jobs through a better
distribution of the available work. These remain every bit as pertinent, he
says, but this focus is on the ecological gains to be achieved by work-time
reduction.
>
>The stress that consumption in the North puts on the earth's ecology is the
main concern of the book, and Hayden develops a powerful thesis to address
it. Acknowledging a rift in the environmental community about how to deal
with ecological problems, Hayden draws a distinction between two
camps—"sufficiency" and "efficiency." The latter group, he argues, believes
that environmental impacts can be reduced by better use of inputs, so that
material sacrifice is unnecessary, and unlimited economic growth is
possible. In contrast, the "sufficiency" camp of the green movement, to
which Hayden clearly belongs, believes that reducing inputs per unit of
goods and services, while good in itself, must ultimately fail to save the
earth. He asserts that "although the ecological crisis does clearly call for
a more efficient use of non-human nature, this response has serious
limitations. Growth in GNP without input growth is little more than a
theoretical possibility at present, and in any case zero input growth is not
enough. Significant reductions in input in the North are necessary." The
author argues that achieving that end can come through reductions in working
time.
>
>Make no mistake, this book is about work-time reduction, though sparing the
earth is a main goal. The headings of the remaining chapters make the book's
scope clear: "Working Less, Consuming Less, and Living More"; "Work-time
Reduction and an Expansionary Vision"; "Why It's So Hard to Work Less";
"Work-time Policy and Practice, North and South"; "Europe's New Movement for
Work-time Reduction"; and "With or without Loss of Pay? With or without
Revolution?"
>
>It is outside the scope of the book to provide a history of the struggle
for the shorter work day—for that, in the United States, see Roediger and
Foner's Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (pp.
44–49.) But Hayden does trace some important voices who have spoken out for
work-time reduction over the past two centuries. This enriches his argument
and provides a brief background for the reader new to the issue of work-time
reduction.
>
>For readers more conversant with the issue, the long chapter on steps taken
by European countries for reducing hours of work will be very useful, as it
goes into great detail on what is happening now outside the United States.
France, where a series of laws over the past 10 years have made real changes
in work time, gets 11 pages of reporting. Germany, where changes have come
more through collective bargaining, also gets full coverage, as do the
Netherlands, Denmark, and other European countries.
>
>In short, Sharing the Work is engaging reading for both specialists and
neophytes. And as concern with global warming takes its place on the
international agenda, Hayden's book provides an input to the discussion from
a different perspective than the usual tax and carbon-trading schemes being
put forward. Not that Hayden ignores environmental taxes as an alternative
to his preferred solution, for he covers those as well. The final chapter,
"With or without Loss of Pay? With or without the Revolution" is a very
thoughtful analysis of the conflicts between labor and capital, and offers
ways to reduce those conflicts while still achieving the reduction in
working hours that Hayden advocates.
>
>This is a very rich book, the product of a writer steeped in the literature
and the political debates about work-time reduction, a writer who treats
generously those with whom he disagrees by carefully and fairly making their
arguments before offering his own. The book has extensive notes and a
useful, though not exhaustive, bibliography.
>
>
>
> —Eugene Coyle Eco-Economics
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213
