|
| |
 |
Problems on the Road to Sustainable Development:
Globalisation and The Tragedy of the Commons
Globalisation means - at least until now - in essence, a tendency towards the expansion of capitalism and free trade worldwide. The world economy has left the borders of national states and political regulatory power far behind it. As a result, a fundamental imbalance in the relationship between political and economic space has been created. Politics is lagging behind commerce...
(... more information on this subject can be within the framework of
Globalisation as a topic in its own right).
|
Environmental Protection as a Locational Risk
What does this mean on the road towards sustainable development? If an ever-increasing number of states and regions trust in the market as a (the most important) control instrument, the threat grows that, in the competition for locations, environmental protection will become a locational problem, since the corresponding charges make production more expensive. A region or a country with a high standard of environmental protection will then be avoided by investors. It follows from this that the market alone is not in the position to introduce a turnaround towards sustainabily; in fact environmental protection remains in a fundamental relationship of tension to the free market economy.
[Adam Smith, 1723-1790] |
Deficits of the "invisible hand"
In the 18th Century Adam Smith formulated the basic concept of the free market economy and, as a result, formed the discipline of the national economy. His central work "An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776) forms a central point of reference in the debate until today. Besides other interesting thoughts, he formulates the hypothesis of the "invisible hand" in his book.
The person follows his individual aims as a maximiser of utility and is led "by an invisible hand" in order to further a purpose which he had in no way intended to fulfil." This purpose is social well-being. That means, that the egoistic pursuit of profit of every participant in the market leads to an increase in the prosperity of everyone on the whole. This is the (legitimating) basic concept of the free market economy until today.
Unfortunately this "invisible hand" is not omnipotent, which the extensive discussion around the problem of the failure of the market shows. Thus the "invisible hand" - which the question in relation here concerns - does not cater for a sustainable economy. A classical form of argumentation exists here as well, The Tragedy of the Commons. |
The Tragedy of the Commons
"The collective utilization of free goods such as pasture and woodland guaranteed a secure existence for the peasant population of Europe as a complement to their own farming, but only so long as these free goods were not overused, e.g. by overgrazing, and so finally offering no basis for existence for anyone. The theoretical argument, explicitly directed against the acceptance that the 'invisible hand' forms the best regulatory instrument for the use of free goods, goes as follows:
The reason for the overgrazing of common land lies in the fact that each shepherd attempts to continually increase the size of his herd, in order to increase his income. However he does this beyond the point at which overgrazing sets in, since the yield from the extra cow benefits him. However the yield-reducing consequences of overgrazing is distributed across all shepherds.
He behaves completely rationally at first, since his own increase in income is merely reduced by a fraction of the collective reduction in income. As a consequence of this logic, he will continually attempt to increase the size of his herd by adding an extra cow. However, since all shepherds act in the same way, the tragedy ultimately consists of the sum of the rational of behaviour of the individual resulting in the ruin of all. The invisible hand, in this case, leads to the 'poverty of the nations' not to prosperity of all as Adam Smith prophesized."
[Source: Ulrich Menzel, Die postwestfälische Konstellation, das Elend der Nationen und das Kreuz von Globalisierung und Fragmentierung (The Post-Westphalian Constellation, the Poverty of the Nations and the Hinge between Globalisation and Fragmentation); in: (Ed.), "Vom Ewigen Frieden und vom Wohlstand der Nationen" (Of Perpetual Peace and Prosperity of the Nations), Frankfurt/Main 2000, p. 170]
Fencing in Common Land as a Solution?
This classical form of argumentation can be easily transferred to "overused" free goods like air and water without any further thought, however the solution chosen in those days cannot. The common land was fenced in and each shepherd received an fenced in section of the formerly unowned land. Now that he had to carry the responsibility for the consequences of overgrazing completely for himself, it lay in his own interests to make sure that the pasture was used sustainably in relation to the size of the herd.
It goes without saying that it is impossible to fence in endangered free goods today such as the atmosphere of the earth. Additional problems are caused by the fact that global free goods are often concerned. In order to bypass global problems, solutions at global level are required. As mentioned at the beginning, politics hinge on the globalisation process. Politics is usually carried out at national state level.
"What is required is the provision of international public goods, i.e. world money, global legal security, worldwide regulation of the financial markets, a world social order, an order of world migration, an order of world communication, a world environment order etc. This cannot be brought into balance with the fundamental principles of the Westphalian state system, which is based singly on territorial enclavement, on the assertion of authority, and on the principle of non-involvment in internal matters.
The heart of the problem lies in the disintegration of the levels. The markets, the media, the advertising, the environment problem, even social space has become globalised, whereas the state capacity for regulation...has accomplished this process little or not at all."
[Source: Ulrich Menzel, Die postwestfälische Konstellation, das Elend der Nationen und das Kreuz von Globalisierung und Fragmentierung (The Post-Westphalian Constellation, the Poverty of the Nations and the Hinge between Globalisation and Fragmentation); in: (Ed.), "Vom Ewigen Frieden und vom Wohlstand der Nationen" (Of Perpetual Peace and Prosperity of the Nations), Frankfurt/Main 2000, p. 172]
[Author: Ragnar Müller]
[Top of Page]
|
