Critique of the Concept of Sustainable Development

The concept of “ Sustainable Development ” raises several critiques at different levels.

Critique regarding consequences

John Baden reckons that the notion of sustainable development is dangerous because the consequences are proceedings with unknown effects or potentially dangerous. He writes: "In economy like in ecology, the interdependence rules applies. Isolated actions are impossible. A policy which is not enough carefully thought will carry along various perverse and adverse effects for the ecology as much as for the economy. Many suggestions to save our environment and to promote a model of 'sustainable development' risk indeed leading to reverse effects." Moreover, he evokes the bounds of the public action which are underlined by the public choice theory: quest by the politics of their own interests, lobby pressure, partial disclosure etc. He develops his critic by notifying the vagueness of the expression, which can hide anything : It is a gateway to interventionist proceedings which can be again the principle of freedom and without a proved efficacy. Against this notion, he is a proponent of the private property to impel the producers and the consumers to save the natural resources. According to Baden, “the improvement of environment quality depends on the market economy and the existence of legitimate and protected property rights.” They enable the effective practice of his personal responsibility and the development of mechanisms to protect the environment. The State can in this context “create conditions who encourage the people to save the environment.”


Critique regarding vagueness of the term

The term of “sustainable development” is criticized because of its vagueness. For example, Jean-Marc Jancovici or the philosopher Luc Ferry express this view. The latter writes about sustainaible development: "I know that this term is obligatory, but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that it says nothing." Luc Ferry adds that the term is trivial by a proof by contradiction: "who would like to be a proponent of an “untenable development! Of course no one! The term is more charming than meaningful. Everything must be done so that it does not turn into a Russian-type administrative planning with ill effects."


Critique regarding the basis

Sylvie Brunel, French geographer and specialist of the Third World, develops in A qui profite le développement durable (who take advantage of the sustainable development) (2008) a critic of the basis of the sustainable development, with its binary vision of the world, can be compared to the Christian vision of Good and Evil, a idealized nature where the human being is an animal like the others or even an alien. The nature – as Rousseau thought – is better than the human being. It is a parasite, harmful for the nature. But the human is the one who protects the biodiversity, where normally only the strong survive.

Moreover, she thinks that the ideas of sustainable development can hide a will of protectionism from the developed country to impede the development of the other countries. For Sylvie Brunel, the sustainable development serves as a pretext for the protectionism and “I have the feeling about sustainable development that it is perfectly helping out the capitalism”.


Critique regarding "de-growth"

The proponents of the de-growth reckons that the term of sustainable development is an oxymoron. According to them, on a planet where 20% of the population consumes 80% of the natural resources, a sustainable development cannot be possible for this 20% : “According to the origin of the concept of sustainable development , a development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, the right term for the developed countries should be a sustainable de-growth”

 

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