Governments, Rights, and Responsibilities

Sustainability depends on effective governance—specifically, the willingness and ability of people to govern themselves—individually and collectively. We, humans, are multidimensional. We are material, social, and moral beings. We share an innate proclivity for survival, safety, and security with all other living things. The pursuit of individual self-interest is an inherent aspect of being human. Humans also share an innate need for relationships, companionship, and mutual affection, for reasons beyond safety, security, and reproduction. We are caring and sharing beings as well as selfish beings. We are also ethical or moral beings. We have an innate sense of what is right or wrong and good or bad.

Rohana Ulluwishewa, using well-documented research, makes the case that humans are “hard-wired” for altruism of selflessness rather than self-interest or selfishness. Although selflessness is inherent in all individuals, it is often overshadowed by psychological conditioning that emphasizes individual and collective safety and survival.[1] Ulluwishewa concludes that the root cause of poverty, inequity, unhappiness, and unsustainability is our spiritual underdevelopment, which is manifested as “self-centeredness, fear, and greed.” [2] Spiritual growth requires a process of freeing the mind from conditioning.

 In other words, the reason we live in a world dominated by self-interests rather than common interests—selfishness rather than selflessness—is a lack of spiritual development. As long as humanity remains spiritually underdeveloped, sustainability will depend on our willingness to make purposeful decisions that balance our conditioned selfishness with spiritual selflessness. People must make intentional decisions to share or not share with others and to give or take in their relationships with the other living and nonliving things of the Earth. 

We can make purposeful decisions for sustainability without being forced or coerced. We only need to be motivated, if not spiritually, then by conditioning. Robert Fulghum wrote a best-selling book, Everything I Needed to Know about Life I Learned in Kindergarten. Among these were: 1. Share everything, 2. Play fair, 3. Don't hit people, 4. Put things back where you found them, 5. Clean Up Your Own Mess, 6. Don't take things that aren't yours, and 7, Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. These lessons are attempts to instill in children a sense of caring and sharing. All types of “values education” are attempts to offset the lack of spiritual development in modern society with conditioning. If caring and sharing come naturally to us, spiritually, they require little if any conscious self-restraint. Regardless, if we don’t restrain our self-interest voluntarily, society and nature eventually will restrain it for us.

Governments

In kindergartens, the rules of behavior are enforced by the teacher. School is typically a child’s first encounter with governance beyond parents. Government may be defined as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society."[3] In kindergarten, the school governs by making rules, or at least approves rules, and the teacher enforces those rules. The teacher is the governor of kindergarten, and the school is the government. Those who have no desire to violate the rules are not restrained by the rules. Those who defy the rules suffer the consequences and hopefully learn to restrain themselves.

We commonly think of government as the systems of laws and regulations of cities, counties, states, or nations. Like rules in kindergarten, laws and regulations to enforce them define acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Federal, state, and local governments are simply impersonal means of performing the same basic functions as families and kindergartens. To the extent that these systems of laws and regulations conform to an individual’s value system, they will not represent restraints to that individual.

Governments only restrain those whose personal values conflict with society’s rules for acceptable behavior and who lack the willingness or ability to restrain themselves. They may feel that the government is infringing on their right to pursue their self-interests. But the rights of one person must both respect and be respected by the rights of others. The boundaries where one’s rights end and the other’s begin are defined by society through government. A significant number of individuals will disagree with those boundaries in any city, county, state, or nation. To them, the government is a stifling, repressive, oppressive, or evil force that must be resisted. 

In his inaugural address in 1981, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously said, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."[4] To Reagan, existing laws and regulations were repressing the rights of individuals and corporations to pursue their economic self-interests. During the Reagan administration, the Republican Party shifted from the fiscal conservatism of earlier administrations to focus on cutting taxes, deregulating the economy, cutting social programs, and increasing military spending, regardless of the budgetary consequences. To Reagan Republicans, the legitimate functions of government are limited to protecting private property rights and prioritizing national defense.

Twenty years earlier, I would have agreed with Reagan. By the time I received my undergraduate degree in 1961, I had been thoroughly indoctrinated in free-market economic theology. Free markets reward those who are willing to work hard and provide goods and services that best meet the needs of consumers. What’s good for consumers is good for society. Workers receive their just rewards as consumers. Government welfare programs unfairly reward those who are unwilling to work. Government regulations restrain those who are willing and able to work hard and contribute to the economy. The only economic responsibilities of the government are to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to work and to ensure that markets serve the interests of society as consumers. This is the theology of neoclassical economics I learned as an undergraduate.

I was a Goldwater Republican during the 1964 presidential campaign. “In my heart, I knew he was right”—to repeat his campaign slogan. I had grown up poor and had taken advantage of the opportunity to attend the University of Missouri so I could earn more money and become a more productive member of society. I worked in the university cafeterias. I started work at 5:00 a.m. and was in class, working, or studying until 11:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and worked six to eight hours a day on weekends. It wasn’t easy, but if I could do it, anyone else could do it—if they were willing to work hard enough. I didn’t agree with many of Goldwater’s social policies, but I agreed with his free-market philosophy of government.

I wasn’t and have never been a racist or bigot, but I didn’t understand that some are always far better prepared to take advantage of opportunities to work than others. Furthermore, many of those who are unprepared have never had an opportunity to become prepared. They can’t work hard or don’t work hard because they have never had an opportunity to learn to work hard.

For example, like perhaps most people in the U.S., I simply didn’t understand how the legacy of racism affects people’s opportunities to work or to find work that isn’t demeaning and degrading. Being born into a racial minority family is not the child’s fault, but it affects not only his or her employment opportunities but also the ability of people to take advantage of the limited opportunities available to them. I didn’t think about the fact that black students were not admitted to the University of Missouri until 1950. The University awarded its first athletic scholarship to a black athlete the year before I arrived on campus.

Also, I didn’t think about the fact that the “separate but equal” schools that black students had to depend on to prepare them for college were separate but not equal. My high school had not prepared me very well, but I at least had teachers who had attended white colleges and encouraged their students to learn and take advantage of the opportunities they were offered. Even if black teachers also encouraged their students, they simply did not have as many educational opportunities as white students. Black students were also more likely to grow up in families and neighborhoods that were skeptical of the possibility of ever escaping the legacy of slavery and oppressive poverty. The same was and remains true to varying degrees for other racial minorities, females, and homosexuals.

Perhaps more importantly, we are not all born with equal inherent capacities to work, learn, and contribute to the economy. Even if we all had an equal opportunity to be educated, socialized, and groomed for economic success, and if we all worked equally hard, smart, and long, some of us would succeed and some would not. Some would get rich, others would be poor, and most of us would fall somewhere in between. And those who end up poor, or even middle-class, would be treated and would feel like they were somehow inferior to those who prospered.   

By the time Reagan was elected president, I understood the “self-made man” is a myth created by those in positions of privilege, perhaps to feed their egos and rationalize their selfishness. If they admit they were born with an economic aptitude and couldn’t have succeeded without the help of others, they will feel guilty about their unwillingness to help others who are less fortunate than themselves. I supported Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential campaign because he was humble enough to realize that he was not a self-made man. He also understood that the government is responsible for ensuring that others are afforded the same opportunities that he and I had been given.

Throughout history, people have understood that even if the government is considered a necessary evil, it is nonetheless necessary. Thomas Paine was essentially a libertarian and certainly not a proponent of big government. However, he wrote in his 1776 essay, Common Sense, "Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices."[5] He concluded that government is "rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.” In other words, we benefit from our relationships with others, but there will always be some among us who proclaim their rights to self-determination but lack the moral virtue to respect the rights of others. Governments are made necessary by the lack of moral virtue, or, as Ulluwishewa suggests, a lack of spiritual development. 

Various forms of government have been tried throughout human history, including monarchy, autocracy, oligarchy, fascism, aristocracy, theocracy, and democracy. Monarchies are ruled by a king or queen, autocracies by an individual dictator, oligarchies by a small group of political powerbrokers, fascism by a ruling class and autocratic leader, aristocracies by a group of wealthy families, theocracies by a priest, cleric, or other religious leader, and democracies by the people. All these forms of government have been tried by one society or another at some point in time. Democracy, socialism, and communism have become the most prominent forms of government over the past century, with brief ventures by Germany and Italy into fascism. However, fascism seems to be on the rise in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world.

The word democracy is derived from Greek terms meaning “power of the common people.” So, democracies are structured to give the ultimate power of government to the people in general rather than any individual or specific group of people. Socialism, in its purest form, is also governed by the people.” The primary differences between democracy and socialism are economic rather than political, which in turn affect the functions of government.

In general, socialism is an economic and political system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned or regulated by society, acting through government, to reduce income inequality and increase social equity. In theory, communism differs from socialism in that communist governments control both production and consumption through central planning. Also, elections in communist nations are different from democratic elections because all candidates are members of the Communist Party.

Unlike socialism, democracy is not necessarily linked to any specific type of economy. Historically, most democracies have had capitalist economies, since both emphasize individual freedoms. However, there are inherent conflicts between democracy and capitalism. In the absence of effective governance, economic inequality leads to political inequality. Capitalism differs from socialism and communism in that the means of production are privately owned, and production is guided by competitive markets rather than central planning.

In the U.S., Republicans and Democrats alike use socialism and capitalism as if they were household words that everyone understands. The people who use them may know what they mean by socialism and capitalism, but it’s doubtful that most people understand what distinguishes socialism from capitalism. The recent rise of authoritarian or fascist governments around the world has only added to the confusion. Lacking generally accepted definitions, people tend to redefine democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, and fascism to suit their personal preferences or political purpose. However, honest confusion arises from the fact that nearly all economic systems in the world have some characteristics of capitalism, socialism, and even authoritarianism.

Virtually all economies that are called socialists allow some private ownership of property, typically including consumer goods, automobiles, houses, some farm equipment, and even land for small gardens. Unlike pure socialism, they also rely on markets to determine prices and provide economic incentives for some types of production, typically including the things produced on private property and a variety of consumer goods and services. Socialism that relies heavily on markets is sometimes called market socialism. When China formally amended its constitution in the 1990s, it made no apology for its reliance on markets. It adopted the "socialist market economy" as the country's economic system.

Virtually all capitalist economies rely on some public ownership of the means of production. Government ownership is typically not limited to public lands but also includes public roads, roads and bridges, government buildings, public schools, and public transportation systems. The main difference is that government resources are used to meet the needs of society in general, whereas private resources are used to meet the needs and wants of individuals within society. Production in the private sector is guided by economic value, while production of goods and services in the public sector is guided by social and ethical values as reflected in democratic governance.

Democratic and socialist governments may be dominated by authoritarian leaders and risk evolving into autocracies. The emergence of Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, and Mao in China are examples of autocracy evolving out of socialism. India, Turkey, and Hungary are contemporary examples of democracies with strong authoritarian rulers. Vladimir Putin of Russia and Donald Trump in the United States are the most consequential examples of autocratic or fascist rulers of proclaimed democracies with capitalist economies. All nations in the world today have mixed forms of governments and economies.

Capitalist countries that rely heavily on social programs are called social democracies or democratic socialists, depending on whether socialism or capitalism is dominant. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden lean toward democratic socialism. Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand also have many of the characteristics of social democracies. In the United States, socialist benefits include National Defense, Homeland Security, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps or SNAP benefits. Governance for sustainability must respect both the need for individual freedoms, as in democracy and capitalism, and the social equity and justice of socialism.   

Our so-called modern society is once again confirming that government is “rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.” Examples of dysfunctional governments are far easier to find, both historically and today, than are examples of effective governance. Regardless, sustainability ultimately depends on our willingness to not only strive to meet our own needs but to fulfill our social and ethical responsibilities to care for and care about others, including those of future generations. Government is the only means we have of meeting our collective or common responsibility to others of both present and future.

Most people in the U.S. seem to accept the viewpoint that the role of government is to serve the individual self-interests of the governed. There appears to be little support for government programs other than those promising to benefit them personally. They feel they have paid into programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and thus have a right to receive a return on their investment. National defense and law enforcement are seen as protecting their private property. They justify paying taxes for public education and interstate highways as a means of promoting employment and economic growth. The recent emphasis of government programs has been even more narrowly focused on promoting individual “economic” self-interests. There is little apparent appreciation of government as a means of working together for the common good in the pursuit of common interests. The common good reflects the value of relationships among individuals and their common commitment to a shared vision for the future. Communities or societies are more than a collection of individuals; they are inseparable wholes bound together by positive social and ethical relationships.

Rights

The dominant view of the U.S. government today is very different from the vision of government expressed in the founding documents of the U.S.—The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.  The founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The founders considered “life, liberty, and property,” instead of life, liberty, and happiness,” but ultimately concluded that property is but a means to happiness.

In democratic societies, the willingness and ability to make money is not a measure of the inherent worth of people. This distinguishes true democracies from economic meritocracies, where people are judged by their ability to accumulate wealth. People are economic beings, but also social and moral human beings. People contribute to the greater good of society and humanity in many ways. The founders declared as a self-evident truth that all are of equal inherent worth and have equal God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of their ability to contribute to the economy.

The Declaration of Independence continues: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

They declared that the basic purpose of a government is to secure the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The just power to govern is contingent on the consent of the people governed. As we see in the U.S. today, and was seen in the lead up to the Civil War, when the government loses the consent of the governed, the people, it loses its just power to govern and becomes vulnerable to chaos, tyranny, and collapse. The people in democracies have the right to replace any form of government that fails to respect these principles of governance with a government they deem most likely to secure their safety and happiness. The people of the U.S. also have a constitutional right to replace their democratic government with a government that serves the self-interest of those who have the power to dominate others. However, if they do so, they will have no means short of a military coup or revolution to restore their democracy.

Admittedly, the words of the founders in the Declaration of Independence did not reflect the dominant ethical values of those in the American Colonies at that time. Several of the nation’s founders were slave owners, women were not allowed to vote, and Native Americans were denied citizenship in their historic homeland. The Declaration of Independence was a vision of what the nation could and should become rather than what it was in 1776. Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution defined a consensus process for amending the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were prominent advocates of ongoing constitutional reform as public opinions and attitudes changed. Jefferson wrote, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind."

Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed the democratic vision of the founders when it was seriously threatened during the Civil War in his historic address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

In the early 21st century, the United States of America again is faced with the question of whether this nation, or any nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal—black, white, and brown, male and female, gay or straight—can continue to endure. As laws evolved to ensure the equal rights of all, those with previous positions of privilege, particularly males of European descent, have resisted changes in institutions that reflect progress of the human mind concerning the inclusiveness of unalienable rights. The Bill of Rights and other amendments to the U.S. Constitution focus on protecting the rights of “life and liberty” but fail to address the rights essential for the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps this is at least part of the reason for the deep cultural and political divides that threaten the future of American democracy. Deep sustainability is not only about surviving and being free but also about a life of purpose, flourishing, and happiness.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights goes beyond the political rights essential for life and liberty to address the rights essential for the pursuit of happiness—of sustainability as flourishing.[6] Article 23 of the Declaration states that “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration, ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his [sic] interests. Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.”

Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.”

Article 26: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups.”

Article 27: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.”

The United States participated in drafting the UN declaration and voted in favor of the non-binding resolution. The U.S. has resisted binding commitments to uphold certain provisions of the declaration, including rights related to “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”—particularly fear of economic insecurity. In 1984, 36 years after the UN Declaration, I had an opportunity to visit South Africa to be one of four speakers in a series of eight, day-long meetings with South African farmers. This was during the time of racial apartheid in South Africa.

The other two speakers were an agricultural consultant, the editor of a South African farm publication, and an enology professor from Stellenbosch University. My presentations were on strategies for managing risks in a free-market economy. As we traveled around the country over two weeks, we had a lot of time to discuss political and economic issues—including the inevitable end of apartheid. Due to the difference in time zones, I would often wake up in the middle of the night thinking of our discussions. During those wakeful hours, I began to sketch out what I later would call a “Bill of Rights for Sustainability” and included it in my book, Sustainable Capitalism.

The rights are expressed as political and economic rights. However, economic rights are the rights of people and nature to be protected from economic exploitation and extraction.

IN ORDER TO ENSURE A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY:

These basic human rights shall not be denied or restrained unless the exercise of these rights by one person denies or restrains the rights of another. Even in these cases, rights cannot be denied or restrained without due process of law, except in cases of self-defense of the rights of one person against an imminent, unlawful threat from another.

These rights are to be made available to all, to the extent that they are available to any within the society being governed. Current generations have a responsibility to ensure these rights for future generations, to the extent that they are available to current generations. These rights may not be bought, sold, or otherwise obtained or given away for any reason.

The Right to Life: Every human being has the basic right to live and to grow – physically, mentally, and spiritually.

• Political: Right to protect and defend one’s self against any threat to life, health, or physical restraint to their personal development

• Economic: Right to adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare, and other essentials for life and physical, mental, and spiritual development, including the right to a safe and healthful natural environment

The Right to Thought and Expression: Every human being has a basic right to think their own thoughts and to express those thoughts to others.

• Political:  Right to protect and defend one’s self against the immediate repression of thought and expression, including speech, writing, publishing, education, or other means of sharing information, including the right to practice the religion of one’s choice.

• Economic: Right to obtain accurate, unbiased information, to connect and commune with nature, and to be protected against attempts by others to manipulate or subversively influence one’s thoughts

The Right to Act: Every human being has a basic right to act individually.

• Political:  Right to protect and defend one’s self against any restraint of action or movement or invasion of the privacy of one’s person, thoughts, or actions

• Economic:  Right to pursue economic and aesthetic opportunities one’s choosing, including occupations and vocations, access to wild and scenic places, and to be protected against all oppressive, exploitative, or coercive economic actions of others

The Right to Relate: Every human has the basic right to form relationships with others.

• Political:  Right to communicate, meet, congregate, form civil unions, have or not have children, organize for social, religious, or political purposes, and to formulate and conduct the processes of self-government

• Economic:  Right of individuals to collaborate, organize, and pursue joint economic activities, but only to the extent that such organizations and associations clearly contribute to the social and ecological well-being of society, the absence of monopoly or market power being essential for economies to serve public as well as private interests

To reiterate, these basic human rights are contingent on the premise that the exercise of rights by one person shall not deny or restrain the exercise of rights by another.  The boundaries within which individuals may exercise their right are to be determined through the process of self-governance.

I believe much of the political dissension in the U.S. arises from differences in interpretations of equal rights and opportunities. Most people agree on the government’s responsibilities necessary to secure the rights to life and liberty. However, many disagree about when life begins, the conditions justifying self-defense, and the appropriate balance between individual liberty and social justice. They fail to appreciate that there can be liberty for all without justice for all, and that neither can exist without a consensus regarding where one’s rights end and the others begin.

Regarding the right to pursue happiness, those on the political right seem to reason much as I did in the 1960s. If there is a job available for everyone willing and able to work, and no one is denied an opportunity to work, then everyone has an equal opportunity to earn an income and become wealthy, and thus, an equal opportunity to pursue happiness. They fail to recognize, as I did in the 1960s, that people are fundamentally different in their abilities or capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities available to them.

Economist Amartya Sen was awarded a 1998 Nobel Prize for his work in welfare economics linking individual capabilities or capacities with individual freedoms. Sen referred to “poverty as capability deprivation.” His work documented that increasing individual capabilities increases the ability to earn income, and the ability to earn higher incomes increases opportunities to further expand capabilities and incomes.

Therefore, affording opportunities does not ensure access. Many people with inadequate incomes are incapable of accessing the opportunities available to them because they haven’t had an opportunity to get the necessary training or education. They may have a poor education because they were raised in a neighborhood with underfunded schools. The schools are underfunded because they are located in low-income neighborhoods where people have either been denied opportunities or have not been capable of taking advantage of the opportunities available to them.

Even if everyone is ensured an equal opportunity, the lack of capabilities to take advantage of opportunities creates a vicious cycle that continues until the government fulfills its responsibility of ensuring the equal rights of all to pursue happiness by ensuring that all have the capabilities to take advantage of equal opportunities. Equal capacities and opportunities are not ensured by training people for menial jobs or mind-numbing employment that further the interests of already wealthy individuals or corporations. Equal rights require that everyone has equal opportunity to fully develop their God-given potential, not only to be productive economically but to lead socially and spiritually rewarding lives—to pursue happiness.  

Many people in the U.S. seem to think that if the less fortunate have equal opportunities to succeed economically, then those who are currently employed or have good jobs will not be able to compete and will suffer economically. This seems to be a particular concern of current residents regarding immigrants. They see the economy as a “zero-sum” game; if one wins another must lose. 

Amartya Sen argues that a society in which everyone is well fed and housed, lives in a clean and healthful environment, receives adequate health care, is well educated, is assured of a good- paying job and a livable income in their old age, is not only a happier society, but also a more economically productive society.  He points out that “Real human 'freedoms' such as political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security”[7] not only increase the quality of life but also add to the productive capacity of economies.

Sen’s work echoes the words of George Washington more than 200 years earlier: “There is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.”[8] When everyone has not only the rights but the capabilities to participate fully in society, we will have the economic capacity to secure the blessings of liberty and justice not only for ourselves but for all posterity. 

Responsibility

Natural ecosystems function much like democracies. Nature is self-organizing and self-moderating. Different species contribute to the well-being of ecosystems as wholes by filling their ecological niches and performing their specific ecosystem functions. If any species attempts to expand beyond its niche or fails to fulfill its function, it encounters resistance from other species that either rely on it or occupy the niches it tries to occupy. If a species overcomes the resistance and gains a position of dominance within its ecosystem, nature provides a final check on its expansion. The dominant species eventually depletes its source of food or sustenance and starves or dies out due to diseases or conflicts arising from overcrowding. Nature limits the pursuit of individual and species self-interests within natural ecosystems. The members of natural ecosystems fulfill their social and ecological responsibilities within nature by their very nature.

In terms of systems thinking and complexity theory, resistance to excessive self-seeking behavior is referred to as negative feedback. Systems are characterized by structures, functions, roles, and relationships within the larger ecosystems of which they are part. Systems are defined by the boundaries through which they interact with other systems within ecosystems. The cells and organs of living organisms are systems that function within the boundaries of organisms, which are living systems. If a system fulfills its role and functions effectively within its niche, it receives positive feedback from other systems or components of its organism. It will be motivated to continue fulfilling its responsibility within the whole of which it is a part.

If a system fails to perform its functions or expands beyond its niche, it receives negative feedback from other systems within its ecosystem. The complexity of relationships within living systems moderates or limits the actions of component systems. If one component overcomes the negative feedback and gains a position of dominance, nature provides negative feedback. Unrestrained expansion leads to starvation, conflict, or disease.

Cancerous cells are systems that have devised means of overcoming the systemic limits to their growth. They continue to grow until they destroy the life of the host organisms they depend on for nourishment. Nature limits their growth. Much like a cancer, the human species has used its intellectual capacity to develop strategies and technologies to overcome nature’s resistance to our expansion beyond our ecological and functional niches. Since the dawn of industrialization, around 200 years ago, and perhaps since the beginning of agriculture, about 12 thousand years ago, humans have been ignoring nature’s negative feedback to their expansion.

Humans have been expanding into the ecological and functional niches of other species with little regard for the negative consequences. Species have modified their natural ecosystems, have become extinct, and other species have filled their ecological niches since the beginning of life on Earth. However, the rate of species extinction during the industrial era is comparable to the fifth great extinction, some 66 million years ago. The ecological, biospheric, and stratospheric degradation and destruction caused by industrial economic development far exceeds any change experienced since the fifth great extinction.  

Like other dominant species that find ways to overcome the negative feedback from other species in their ecosystems, humans have been polluting their environment with chemical and biological wastes and suffering from illnesses, diseases, and military conflicts caused by overcrowding and overconsumption. Unrestrained economic growth is depleting and degrading the natural resources upon which the future of humanity ultimately depends. Neither global population nor per capita use of economic resources can continue to expand indefinitely. Unrestrained growth is not sustainable. A major difference between humans and other dominant species is that humans occupy the entire global ecosystem. Humans may well make the Earth unlivable before nature limits their expansion. We have a responsibility to ourselves, humanity, and to the other living and non-living things on Earth to restrain our pursuit of self-interest and to work through government to promote the general welfare and pursue the common good.

The basic responsibilities of government are expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, which admittedly is selectively interpreted or often ignored:  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The U.S. Constitution replaced the original Article of Confederation—thus the reference to “a more perfect Union.” To “establish justice” means that governments must ensure that people are treated impartially and fairly, without bias or prejudice. Justice depends not only on laws but also on the enforcement of laws. Most laws in the U.S. are state laws and are enforced by the states. Nonetheless, the U.S. Constitution requires that state laws must be just and must be justly enforced. To “ensure domestic tranquility” means the federal government is responsible for resolving conflicts that may arise among the states. To “provide for the common defense” means the government is responsible for defending everyone in the nation from foreign aggression, regardless of whether they own property or contribute to the economy. 

To “promote the general welfare” means the government is responsible for encouraging, supporting, and carrying out its functions for the common good of society as a whole, rather than the direct benefit of individuals or special interest groups.[9] The government has a responsibility to ensure that the economy serves the common interests of society by creating conditions for commerce, trade, and industry to thrive and benefit the population at large, not just individual investors and businesses. This includes regulating interstate commerce and other economic activities as needed to ensure fairness and stability. The government also has the responsibility to undertake or support projects to facilitate transportation, communication, and commerce. Elected representatives are obligated to represent their constituents’ perspectives of how government should serve the common interests of society, not use government to represent the self-interests of their constituents. “Bringing government money back to home for constituents” is not a legitimate use of representative government.

Promoting the general welfare also means the government should act to protect the health and safety of its citizens, whether that means regulating practices that could harm the public or providing direct assistance in times of need.[10] The government is responsible for ensuring a clean, safe, and healthful living environment for everyone, regardless of where they work or live, or how much they contribute to the economy. Government is also responsible for the stewardship of niches within nature that have been set aside for public use and the “wild things” of the Earth.

Ecological economists contend that if we “get the prices right,” competitive markets will ensure a clean and healthful environment and the sustainable use of natural resources. Getting the prices right means assigning appropriate economic costs to environmental pollution and resource degradation, and then imposing those costs on those who pollute and extract. Among the most popular proposals are known as “polluter pay” and “cap and trade.” The government would tax polluters for their environmental damage or set caps or limits on total pollution and require corporations to compete for the legal right to pollute within those limits.

Ecological economists assume, that if polluters and extractors are forced to compensate society for their pollution and extraction, the economic costs imposed on polluters and extractors will limit their ecological degradation to “socially acceptable” levels. However, the economy discounts the future relative to the present. Thus, it would be profitable for polluters to continue paying the economic costs of greenhouse gas emissions until the atmosphere is polluted beyond the ecological limits for planetary livability.

Given the political power of corporate polluters, it is highly unlikely that pollution would be capped at sustainable levels for cap-and-trade schemes. Even if pollution were capped at ecologically sustainable levels, allowing markets to allocate the legal “right to pollute” would not be socially sustainable. Markets respond to money, not need, and the resources of nature would be used disproportionally to serve the preferences of the wealthy rather than meet the needs of the middle class and poor. Polluting industrial operations would be concentrated in poor neighborhoods, where people can’t afford to protect themselves, rather than equitably to minimize the negative impacts on the whole of society.

The only way for governments to adequately protect the environment and conserve natural resources is to set enforceable, quantifiable limits on pollution and extraction. The degradation of nature has social and ethical costs as well as economic costs. If nature belongs to anyone, it belongs to everyone, equally, and all have an equal right to realize the benefits of nature. Questions of whether and how nature should be used to meet human needs and wants are ethical questions that must be answered by societal consensus rather than markets or majority votes. Simply paying the economic costs of pollution and extraction does not pay the social or ethical costs imposed on society and nature. Limiting pollution and extraction to sustainable levels avoids imposing the economic, social, and ethical on society. The only way to prevent unsustainable ecological degradation is for people to work together through their governments to prohibit it.

Governments also have the responsibility of helping people do things collectively that they can’t do individually. For example, the cost of constructing a two-lane highway is about $2 to $3 million in rural areas and $3 to $5 million in urban areas—an average of around $3 million.[11] If individuals set aside $10,000 per year for 30 years, they would have $300,000. This would be enough to build one-tenth of a mile of road, which would be of little value to anyone. However, if people in a village of 10,000 people agreed to pay taxes of $300 per year to pay for roads (rather than $10,000), together they could build a new mile of road every year. They could build or replace 30 miles of road over 30 years (rather than 1/10 of a mile). These roads, when connected with roads built by people in other towns, could let people go anywhere they want to go. This is just one example of many things that people working together through government can do that they cannot do individually.

The final named government responsibility, “to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity,” means that the government is responsible for ensuring the basic freedoms of the governed, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly, which are spelled out in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. These freedoms are to be secured not only for those of current generations but also for those of future generations. Thus, the government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that future generations have an opportunity to live in a resourceful and healthful environment and a civil and just society. The U.S. government also has a constitutional responsibility to sustain a free, democratic society, not only for the benefit of present generations but also for generations of the future.

The responsibilities of the U.S. government, as spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution, begin with establishing justice and end with securing liberty—to ourselves and to our posterity. Some may see these as conflicting responsibilities. They may feel that justice for all restricts the liberty of some, and liberty for all restricts justice for some. However, securing liberty for all includes ensuring that no one is unjustly deprived of their liberty. And securing justice for all includes ensuring that everyone has an equal right to liberty. Thus, there can be no justice for all without liberty for all, and there can be no liberty for all without justice for all.[12] The challenge of government is to define compatible legal boundaries or limits of political liberty and justice, because one cannot be secured without also securing the other.

Political liberty in the United States has been generally interpreted as being free from restrictions or restraints imposed by the government, as expressed in the Bill of Rights. However, individuals may also be deprived of liberty by any unwarranted infringements on their way of life, behavior, or political views—regardless of the source of deprivation. Political liberty in democracies depends on government protection of the unalienable rights of all to participate fully in society, including in the processes of governance.

Justice is generally interpreted politically as “equal protection under the law,” This means the government must not discriminate in protecting “life, liberty, and property,” as reaffirmed and clarified in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In a classic book, Political Justice, drafted shortly after the U.S. Constitution, political philosopher William Godwin defined justice as the “impartial treatment of every man in matters that relate to his happiness, which is measured solely by a consideration of the properties of the receiver, and the capacity of him that bestows.”[13] Political justice requires not only equal protection of rights to “life, liberty, and property” but also “impartial treatment in matters that relate to happiness.” The "pursuit of happiness" was not simply a casual addition to the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.

This broader interpretation of justice is essential to the effective functioning of government. Whenever people are denied justice, including the essentials of life and the basic requisites for human happiness, they do not have the liberty or freedom to participate fully in society. Those denied justice cannot participate in governance in ways that are essential to secure the blessings of liberty for all. Without justice, there can be no liberty, and without liberty, there can be no justice.

Some advocates of sustainability argue that we must create a new system of government that prioritizes nature and society over the economy and replace capitalism with an economic system that ensures equality and justice for all, including those of future generations. I have argued, including in my book Sustainable Capitalism, that the basic system of government reflected in the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution was intended to guide the new nation toward an equitable and just sustainable society within which a market economy would be required to serve the self-interest by means that also serve the common good of society. Thus, an equitable and just democratic society, by its very nature, would give nature and society priority over its economy.  

These basic tenets and responsibilities of government are not unique to those in the founding documents of the United States. Kate Rayworth’s Doughnut Economy is a model appropriate for all mixed market/planned economies in general and probably comes closest to deep sustainability among popular economic models, as mentioned in Chapter 4. The Doughnut Economic model uses planetary boundaries defined by the United Nations as the outside ring of the doughnut, within which sustainable societies and economies must function.[14] The inside ring, or the hole of the doughnut, defines the minimum levels of human economic and social needs that must be met by sustainable societies and economies. The area between the inner and outer rings defines “the safe and just space for humanity”—the space for sustainable living.

As suggested above, capitalist economies have built-in positive feedback rather than the negative feedback needed to restrain or prevent unsustainable economic growth. If capitalism existed within a living organism, it would be called a cancer. Those who have more capital to invest can afford the greater risks of larger investments with higher potential payoffs. The ability to absorb the periodic losses associated with higher payoff investments results in the continued concentration of wealth among the already wealthy. The concentration of wealth leads to more and larger investments, more aggregate economic growth, and more concentration of wealth in a continuous positive feedback loop. Capitalism acknowledges no natural limits to growth.

The economy provides no negative feedback to keep differences in income and wealth between the rich and the middle class and poor from increasing to levels that are socially and ethically unsustainable. Thus, governments must accept the responsibility of limiting and redistributing income and wealth that arise from positive feedback loops rather than positive contributions to the economic well-being of society.  Progressive income taxes, wealth taxes, and estate taxes are measures that have been used historically to offset the “wealth begets wealth” feedback loop in capitalist economies. 

Nature provides no negative economic feedback until the environment is sufficiently polluted and resources sufficiently depleted to diminish productivity. Since economies place a premium on the present relative to the future, the negative economic feedback from nature will be too little and too late to avoid an ecological and social collapse—next time, the collapse of global societies and the global ecosystem.

Maximizing profits and growth within legally enforceable constraints is the basic nature of businesses in economies dominated by publicly traded corporations, as is evident in today’s industrial economies. As the economy expands outward and inward, toward the limits of nature and society, the incremental or marginal increases in economic benefits decline. This is the law of diminishing returns, which applies to all types of productivity, as addressed in Chapter 6.  The incremental profits, or marginal economic returns, would not likely become negative until after the ecological and social limits have been breached—permanently degrading the natural environment and depriving people of their basic human rights.

Thus, governments must limit economic extraction and exploitation to sustainable levels, regardless of the consequences for economic growth. The UN planetary boundaries established by global governments would allow the global economy to continue expanding until it reaches maximum levels of ecological degradation. Enforcement of international human rights declarations would allow the global economy to continue expanding until it reaches the minimum levels of societal equity and justice. These levels of maximum ecological degradation and minimum social justice must be reached well before the Earth’s carrying capacity and civility limits of global society are breached.

As global economies expand, beyond some level of expansion, the incremental damage to nature and society will increase at an increasing rate of degradation. This results from the law of diminishing returns, which results in increasing marginal costs. The degradation of nature and society results in increasing ecological and social “costs. And the incremental degradation and non-economic cost increases will occur at an increasing rate as the economy continues to expand. Thus, the optimum balance between the economy, society, and nature is somewhere well within the absolute limits of nature and society. It is the responsibility of governments to set limits beyond which economies are not allowed to expand.

The conventional worldview is that there are no limits to economic growth. Given time, a growing economy will eventually provide adequate incentives for a limitless human imagination and creativity to develop new mechanical, chemical, biological, and informational technologies that will continue to expand the ecological and social limits within which the economy can function sustainably. The conventional worldview is that the only limits to economic growth are imagination and creativity, which will expand the current intellectual limits of humans through the use of new artificial intelligence technologies.

The worldview of shallow sustainability accepts the existence of ecological and social limits to economic growth but seems ambivalent about whether the government can or should place legal limits on economic growth or provide economic incentives for voluntary restraints. Whenever conflicts arise, economic growth takes priority over imposing government regulations that protect society or nature from economic exploitation among those with a shallow worldview of sustainability. Sustainability initiatives, limits, and government regulations are subjected to economic cost-benefit analyses and are developed in collaboration with private sector lobbyists.  Unwitting political coalitions of those with conventional and shallow worldviews leave governments essentially powerless to protect society or nature from the ravages of unsustainable economic growth. 

Deep sustainability requires that individual societies and communities accept the responsibility for achieving and maintaining a balance of ecological, social, and economic development that meets their specific economic, social, and ecological needs and preferences. The worldview of deep sustainability recognizes that governments cannot fulfill their responsibilities to sustain humanity or nature without the consent of the governed, allowing governments to restrain economic growth well within the absolute limits of society and nature. This optimum balance of economy, society, and nature must be set well within “the safe and just space” for current generations to ensure equal or better opportunities for future generations.

Sustainability ultimately depends on our capacity to care and our willingness to share with those of both current and future generations. As long as humanity remains spiritually underdeveloped, sustainability will depend on our willingness to work together, through governments, to establish legally enforceable rights and responsibilities that balance our learned selfishness with our spiritual selflessness.

Endnotes

[1] Thennakoon, Rohana Ulluwishewa, Indujeeva K. Peiris, U.H.Kaushalya, 2025.  Beyond External Interventions: The Role of Spirituality in Reducing Poverty and Inequality for Sustainable Development.

OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development.

[2] Rohana Ulluwishewa, 2015, Spirituality Demystified, Sairon Books, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

[3] Wikipedia contributors, "Government," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government&oldid=1198201669 (accessed January 29, 2024).

[4] Ronald Reagan Quotes:  https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/quotes/government-is-not-the-solution-to-our-problem

[5] Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776, “Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution,” Bill of Rights Institute, Arlington, VA.  https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/common-sense

[6] A Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The United Nations, Peace, dignity, and equality
on a healthy planet, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

[7] Terjesen, Siri. (2004). Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27466009_Amartya_Sen's_Development_as_Freedom

[8] George Washington to Congress, April 30, 1789, First Inaugural Address, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw2.025/?sp=28&st=text

[9] Aaron Dimmock and Dana Born. Oct 2023. A More Perfect Union: Meaning in the Preamble of the United States Constitution. Journal of Character & Leadership Development. DOI: 10.58315/jcld.v10.285 https://jcldusafa.org/index.php/jcld/article/view/285/39

[10] Aaron Dimmock and Dana Born. Oct 2023. A More Perfect Union: Meaning in the Preamble of the United States Constitution. Journal of Character & Leadership Development. DOI: 10.58315/jcld.v10.285 https://jcldusafa.org/index.php/jcld/article/view/285/39

[11] Frank Elswick, January 5, 2016, How Much Does It Cost to Build a Mile of Road? Midwest,

   https://blog.midwestind.com/cost-of-building-road/#:~:text

[12] John Ikerd, Liberty and Justice for All. Personal website. https://www.johnikerd.com/the-american-covenant/liberty-and-justice-for-all

[13] William Godwin, Political Justice, Anarchy Archives, Online Research Center for the History and Theory of Anarchism, http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/Godwin/Pj2/Pj2_2.Html.

[14] Wikipedia contributors, "Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doughnut_Economics:_Seven_Ways_to_Think_Like_a_21st-Century_Economist&oldid=1150672010.