It is commonly
believed that the ecocentric root of modern environmentalism
is 'nourished by the philosophies of the romantic
transcendentalists of mid-nineteenth- century America'. These
advocated a democracy among God's creatures, such that nature was
respected for its own sake, above and beyond its usefulness or
relationship to man. Therefore man had a moral obligation towards
nature not simply for the pleasure of man, but as a biotic
right'.
However, while man
might not be necessary to nature, the ecocyntric says that nature
is necessary for man. Natural architecture has a grandeur
which both humbles and ennobles man and stimulates him to emulate
it. Wild nature ... is an integral companion to man'
necessary for his emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing in
the face of pressures from sophisticated and artificial urban
living. While there is not necessarily any biological or economic
justification in the bioethical value system ecocentrism is wide
enough to embrace also the views of those who argue for nature on
more pragmatic and rational grounds.
This argument, from
an essentially scientific ecosystems perspective, puts man
within nature, as part of natural ecosystems. Consequently,
anything which man does affects the rest of the global system and
"^reverberates through it - eventually back on to him. So, for his
own sake, he should not plunder, exploit and destroy natural
ecosystems - because in so doing he is destroying the biological
foundation of his own life. Man is seen as subject to biological
laws just as much as is the rest of nature, and so he must
contribute to the stability and mutual harmony of the ecosystems of
which he is a part. The biological law of carrying capacity has
already been mentioned in this respect, but other 'laws' governing
population size and dynamics, or laws of thermodynamics or laws
governing systems behaviour (e.g. diversity equals stability) are
held to apply also to social and economic man. Indeed, the whole
paraphernalia of systems terminology is applied by the ecological
school - sometimes to extremes which are faintly
ludicrous.
If we see the
goal of our system as that of capital formation through the
pursuit of profits, then it is usually 'economic' to replace labour
with machinery in doing work. But if the goal of our system is to
produce happy and fulfilled people, then it makes economic
sense to support an organisation of work which creates jobs but
does not necessarily maximise profits. Schumacher was much
concerned with work, and the need for it to be fulfilling and
creative. To improve the quality of work as part of an
improved quality of life he proposed to reject the notion that
'high' (i.e. sophisticated and capital-intensive) technology is of
merit for its own sake. He sought to encourage the development of
simple machines which could be accessible to - and owned by - the
majority of people, and which could be mixed in with manual labour
to derive a partially-mechanised production process that would
generate work. Thus the division-of-labour/production-line
philosophy of classical economics would be deliberately destroyed.
Schumacher's ideas have been put extensively into practice in the
Third World as well as in Europe, and he elaborated upon them in
Good Work (1980), published after his death.
Limits,
self-reliance, self-sufficiency, small-scale production, low-impact
technology, recycling, zero population and economic growth -these
are all key words in the standard ecocentric vocabulary, which is
liberally sprinkled through the three landmark publications
described above. The Blueprint and Small is Beautiful
are undoubtedly 'ecocentric' in outlook, though Limits has
technocentric as well as ecocentric characteristics.
In discussing the
ideological cross-currents of environmentalism, 'conservative
ecocentrist' is distingished from 'liberal
ecocentrist'. The former embraces the morality of limits and
of lifeboat ethics, and the adherents of ecocentrist ideology
belong to the no- growth school and to the ecological planners
and amenity protectionists. The latter are classed as a
'radical ecological activists' - i.e. an 'environmental educator'
or citizen, who generally 'seeks fundamental changes in the values,
attitudes and behaviour of individuals and social institutions
through example and enlightenment, not by revolution or chaos'. The
reveal themselves, to be politically more to the right than the
former.
