Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In the longer term, stabilising population size will reduce the pressure to
create the new jobs required each year to absorb new entrants into the labour
market. Of course, the principal characteristic of a post-economic growth
society is that people no longer feel the compulsion to consume as much and,
as a result, most will need to devote less time to paid employment. In other
words, while a lower growth rate would reduce the demand for labour, falling
interest in consumption would mean less labour supplied to the market. This
provides the right environment for policies aimed at redistributing work from
those who have too much to those who have too little.
Such policies are already being introduced in some countries. In 1998 the
French government legislated for a 35-hour week to apply from the begin-
ning of 2000, with no loss of pay and with penalties for employers who fail to
comply. Significant numbers of citizens of rich countries have already
decided to accept lower levels of material consumption by downshifting (see
Hamilton & Mail 2003; Hamilton 2003; Schor 1998), and many more would
like to make such a change if the conditions were more conducive (such as
labour market policies that encourage leave purchasing and job sharing).
Moreover, the level of employment depends heavily on the choices that are
made about the mix of capital, resources and labour used in production
processes. In a post-growth society where sustainability is taken seriously, a
suite of policies, including ecological tax reform, would encourage substitu-
tion of labour for natural resource use and, less so, capital.
3 Without the preoccupation with making money the incentives that motivate
humans to achieve will evaporate
There is little evidence to sustain this conclusion, and it is more plausible to
believe that humans are predisposed to engage in purposeful activity. After
all, one of the most corrosive effects of unemployment is the lethargy it gen-
erates in some people, and one of the keys to 'successful ageing' is to remain
active. Nor should we fall for the hoary argument that capitalism is the inev-
itable expression of the selfishness and greed of 'human nature'. Selfishness
and greed are socially conditioned (and, as it happens, make their bearers
miserable). The apologists of market capitalism, including conventional
economists, have simply annexed 'human nature' for their own purposes.
But even Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher and economist to whom the
neoliberals improperly trace their belief that the systematic pursuit of self-
interest is the best way to advance society's interest, had a more subtle and
complete understanding of human motivation.
