The time is ripe for a return to the sanity of a slower, steady-state economy that celebrates ‘human beings’ rather than ‘human doings’, says Satish Kumar, editor of UK-based Resurgence Magazine and founder of Schumaker College.
On a recent visit to Australia, he noted a change in awareness from his visit a decade ago. Rather than a total fixation on short-term economic growth, he was heartened to find that people are more cognizant of the urgency of climate change and of the failure of the West’s social, political and economic systems to deal with conflict, poverty and resource depletion.
”People are ready for some more deep and profound transformation. This is a very encouraging and hopeful sign. Some pessimists say we are at the point of no return, but I say it’s a return to a more sustainable, more joyful, a more elegantly simple lifestyle.”
So long as we avoid disempowering attitudes of doom and gloom, this awakening could lead to a new world order that makes the economy subservient to ecology, and no longer the other way around. How we are to realize this, he suggests, is by creating a culture of non-violence toward the earth and toward one’s fellow citizens, starting with oneself. Using the Sanskrit terms yagnya, tapas and dana, which he loosely translates as soil, soul and society, Kumar describes his unifying trinity for the ‘Age of Ecology’ as an ethical template that we can apply to every aspect of our life, society and culture.
”Our prime responsibility is to love and replenish the earth, and to recognize our dependency on the earth. Wasting earth and the earth’s resources are a sin against nature.
We not only need not to dominate nature, we need to relate to nature, and we need to replenish nature.”
The Market Won’t Fix the Earth
Environmentalism driven by fear – of the potential ravages of global warming or the end of affluence when oil runs out – will fall short because it still treats the earth as a commodity to serve humanity and to be conserved only for that purpose. Likewise, environmentalism that is solely market-driven is also contrived. We should be wary, Kumar warns, of being ‘green-washed’ into believing that technological fixes alone can save the planet. Referring to the nascent carbon economy, he says there is a risk that business and political leaders are seeing climate change as an opportunity to profit from ‘scarcity.’
But the crisis is more than an economic or environmental challenge: it is a moral and spiritual imperative – we should not just want to save the earth but to serve the earth. As in any healthy relationship, love has to be the driver. This observation takes Kumar to the second aspect of his trinity, Soul. “The moment you feel love, you nourish the soul. Would should cultivate soul as we do the soil.”
Dedicate more time to spiritual and creative pursuits, he says, and to convivial social times in local communities. For after giving back to the earth and to oneself, comes giving back to society.
“We need to take care of each other. Our society is not in good health.” On the one hand, half the planet is malnourished, while wealthy nations are sick from ‘economic obesity.’
The antidote is to reduce our living standards as measured by the narrow yardstick of economic prosperity and move toward the Gross National Happiness model pioneered by the Himalayan state of Bhutan. In the business sphere, this equates to the concept of the ‘quadruple bottom line’ that accounts for the financial, environmental, social and spiritual outcomes a company delivers – to all its stakeholders, not just shareholders.
