Redclift, Michael. 1993. "Sustainable Development: Needs, Values, Rights." Environmental Values 2 (1993): 3-20.

Thesis:

Sustainable development represents a juxtaposition of the Western modernist view of sustainable "progress," finding its legitimacy in science, and the postmodernist imperative of cultural diversity. It is this contradiction and ambiguity which lends sustainability its appeal to a broad range of perspectives.

Summary:

Redclift traces the Western epistemological roots of sustainability, development, and their connection in the sustainable development paradigm, as the notion of ecological limits came into the public discourse. In this link, "development is read as synonymous with progress, and made more palatable because it is linked with 'natural' limits, expressed in the concept of sustainability" (p. 7).

Sustainable development has selected an ecological concept (i.e. scientific) as both a model and a point of legitimation. That is, "science" and the "natural world" are seen as "outside of the confines of human experience" and are thus "objective" points of reference. Sustainable development is about seeking agreement, in the belief that with improvements in science we can manage the contradictions of development better. In this conceptualization, sustainable development is a renewal of modernism based upon Western Scientific models.

Sustainable development, although a product of Modernism, also answers the problems of Modernism. "It invokes the concept of 'need' in the context of 'development', to meet problems of resource allocation in time and space" (p.8). However, the notion of meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs (Brundtland Commission), becomes unclear in the post-modernist critique where "how needs are defined ...depends on who is doing the defining" (p.8). The Brundtland definition "carries the clear implication that 'needs' can be divorced from the development process itself," and that the process does not create the discourse of need in a culturally bound way (ibid).

Redclift's more critical view of sustainability regards "science as part of the problem, as well as the solution" (p.18). He argues that economic growth is not inevitable, nor is it sustainable, in that it fuels the discourse of "need" to increase dependence on our shrinking hydrocarbon societal base. In addition, market economics has perpetuated unsustainable and inequitable development in North and South relations. Environmental economics has extended Neoclassical economics to include the calculation in monetary terms of environmental impacts. However, the model itself continues to have these problems (pp.14-16):

1. Monetary values reflect only exchange values, not use values. That is, they reflect price, not value. Environmental economic calculations fail to consider how real people in the real world use and value the environment.

2. The model fails to recognize the cultural context of its own paradigm. "Nature" is a reflection of our system of values and our commitments to a particular social order. Calculating environmental costs and the "price" of nature is culturally bound, and not necessarily applicable in non-Western contexts.

3. The model is based upon a Western view of human nature and social relations. In the Western view, human interactions are seen as utility-seeking. Thus, the economic models of maximizing utility may not apply in other contexts. The model does not acknowledge that human behavior and definition is culturally grounded.

Thus, ecological sustainability will include social sustainability in its valuing of other cultural contexts. On the other hand, Redclift asserts, we must go beyond the assertion that the problems are socially constructed, and face the reality that there are real, external limits to growth. He advocates finding a "third view" in which we assume responsibility for the impacts of our actions, acknowledge the relativism of our values and policy instruments, and "explore our need to change our underlying social commitments" (p. 19).

Keywords: Development, environment, modernism, needs, post-modernism, sustainability, values