Dilworth, Craig. 1994. "Two Perspectives on Sustainable Development." Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 15(6): 441-467.

Thesis:

The author defines and evaluates two competing sustainable development worldviews: the economic and the ecological perspectives. The author argues that the two perspectives are mutually incoherent, hindering cross-communication. In the end, Dilworth argues that the economic perspective on sustainable development is internally inconsistent, and should be abandoned for the ecological view, holding that "development might consist in the very approaching of sustainability" (p.464).

Summary:

The author defines and evaluates two competing perspectives on sustainable development: the economic and the ecological. The economic perspective is that which grows out of the Brundtland Report, and supports economic growth as the means to overcoming the world's environmental problems and combatting world poverty (p.442). The ecological view on sustainable development holds that we should reach sustainability through "...a transition from economic growth based on depletion of resources towards a new progress based on environmental management" (quoting Jansson, 1988, p. 443). The ecological approach emphasizes humans as part of an ecological system.

Dilworth proposes that perhaps these divergent views are not topic-specific, focused only on economics or the environment, but are "expressions of alternative ways of viewing reality as a whole, that is,...they constitute alternative worldviews" (p.444) He adopts a perspectivist conception based on a gestalt model to evaluate this possibility.

Dilworth concludes that the two perspectives each have as their intended domain of activity the world of human activity in general. Although they share a common domain, the two perspectives are fundamentally independent of eachother, that is, they cannot be applied to the same domain simultaneously. This means that persons would find great difficulty seeing the world from the alternative perspective for the first time, and that they are talking at cross purposes, perhaps using the same words, but attributing different meanings to them. However, Dilworth argues that since the dominant social paradigm in the West is economic, it is easier for those of the ecological view to shift perspectives than it is for those of the economic view to see things in the ecological view. (pp.446-450)

The perspectives at hand have different core concepts, out of which emanate values and ways of interpreting human activity. Thus, where the core of the economic perspective focuses on individuals (human beings) and how they might mutually benefit through the voluntary exchange of property, that of the ecological perspective focuses on the whole of the biosphere and how its well-being -- including that of humans -- might be maintained (p.452).

These holistic (ecological) and atomistic (economic) orientations to the world are perspectively incompatible. They result in two differing recommendations for sustainable development: advocating increased production (and hence, consumption) on the one hand, and decreasing consumption on the other. Dilworth is careful to point out that while the two perspectives are perspectively incompatible, persons from each view may recommend the same actions for development, but attach differing meaning to them. (pp.450-55).

Dilworth then explores (1) the empirical categories of each perspective -- those terms with which each makes contact with the empirical reality, and (2) their relative operations -- the operations involved in the actual application of the perspective to that empirical reality. He concludes that it is difficult to access the relative success of the two perspectives in this regard because they are aiming for different things. (pp. 455-56).

Finally, Dilworth assesses the relative acceptability of each perspective. In this case, the root question is, "which of the economic and ecological perspectives, assuming alternately that each of them has obtained a widespread following, is the more likely to lead to the global attaining of sustainable development?" (p.456). Dilworth argues that we can determine the "internal coherence of a perspective" based upon its simplicity (ibid.). Quoting Ropke (1992), Dilworth contends that the notion of "sustainable development, if development is to be understood as unqualified economic growth, is actually a contradiction in terms" (Dilworth, p.458):

[T]hat people will be willing to devote more resources to environmental ends when their incomes grow does not necessarily counterbalance the fact that they will be consuming and polluting more when they become richer. Similarly the development of cleaner technologies as a part of the growth process, resulting in less pollution and less use of resources per unit of production, does not guarantee that the effects of growth will be sufficiently counteracted. (Ropke, 1992)

Drawing upon Wilkinson's (1973) theory on the ability of societies to limit their own size, he argues that when technological innovation is needed to satisfy the needs of a growing population, the subsequent increased economic activity actually creates "need", resulting in a vicious circle. Thus, we are in a state where "economic growth is made possible only by further technological advance which in turn further degrades the environment while promoting the size of the population" (p.461). At this point in time, technological innovation must lead to less energy use, not more, and human societies must reduce their own numbers (p.461), requiring a new paradigm -- ecologically sustainable development, where sustainability is a goal in itself.

Keywords: ecological sustainable development, economic sustainable development, worldviews