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Sustainable Development and Economic Growth by Wilfred BeckermanBook reviewThe "sustainable development" movement has
fostered such an expansion of bureaucratic activity that it now threatens
liberty worldwide. Adherents to the doctrine - which seeks to impose laws and
restrictions to reduce economic growth to some unspecified
"sustainable" level - employ pseudo-scientific claims and
green-marketing hype to mask their hostility toward freedom and private-property
rights, explains Oxford University economist Wilfred Beckerman in his new book,
A POVERTY OF REASON. "Support for sustainable development," Beckerman
writes, "is based on a confusion about its ethical implications and on a
flagrant disregard of the relevant factual evidence." The sustainable-development movement claims that mankind
will soon exhaust all of the Earth's natural resources and thus bring economic
growth to a halt -- a claim Beckerman shows is false both on theoretical and
empirical grounds. "The true prospects for economic growth over the course
of this century are that future generations will be much richer than people
alive today," according to Beckerman. The movement also claims to represent the moral high ground
because it places more emphasis on intergenerational equity than do conventional
economic principles. However, after Beckerman's analysis it becomes clear that
the campaign for sustainable development has no moral ground to stand on. "The greatest contribution that we can make to the
welfare of future generations," Beckerman argues, "is to bequeath a
free and democratic society. And the best means of bequeathing such a society to
future generations is to improve respect for human rights and democratic values
today. "Because these rights are currently violated in most
countries of the world, bequeathing a more decent and just society to future
generations in no way conflicts with the interests of people alive today. There
is no conflict between generations, therefore, with respect to the most
important contribution that can be made to human welfare, and hence no trade-off
is necessary between the interests of the present generation and the interests
of future generations." In short, Beckerman shows that the campaign for
sustainable-development policies suffers from a poverty of reason. To order A POVERTY OF REASON: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth, by Wilfred Beckerman, click here |
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