Envisioning a sustainable world is not easy. What is a sustainable world that you would like to live in, that would satisfy your deepest dreams and longings?
The purpose here is to use __System Dynamics Methodology__ (stock and flow language) to describe a sustainable world in order to improve our understanding and gain insight into the dynamics of a way to implement changes in global systems of government, economics and ecology.
Key Concepts
Population, resources and pollution are the primary accumulations we are focusing on in order to understand growth. Growth in population requires a surplus of resources. As an increasing number of people demand a higher standard of living, this also requires growth in the use of resources.
As land, water and fossil fuels are consumed or removed from the commons, there is less available for others. As pollution is added to the land, water and atmosphere, the remaining common resources are not good enough for future generations to use.
The __Lockean Proviso__ supports the privatization of the commons and must remain true for the continued justification of private property rights by individuals and corporations. The __Lockean Proviso__ was devised as the criterion to determine what makes property acquisition just. When the __Lockean Proviso__ is not true then private property acquisition is unjust to others.
Problem Statement
The __Lockean Proviso__ is true when there is enough left in common for others and the quality is good enough so that others are not deprived of the use of the common resource. An unsustainable world is when the quality of the commons is depleted so that others are deprived of resources.
Criticism of Sustainable Development
Criticism of United Nations actions to encourage sustainable development reveal a traditional approach. Conservatives and Republican politicians claim the UN has a plan to stealthily impose world-wide centralized control over people, attacking private property and energy usage. Also, claiming the UN Agenda 21 (1) is “...a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control.” (2)
In a review of Systems of Survival, Peter J. Boettke (3) refers to words by Ludwig von Mises countering an argument put forth by Otto Bauer: "....rationalizing production is impossible. Without private ownership, economic planners will not be able to rationally calculate the best use of scarce capital resources." Again, referring to Mises: "...we have at our disposal only two ways to acquire resources—we can either voluntarily trade or we forcefully take."
Guardian versus Commercial Systems
There are two ways to make a living in the 21st Century. You either work for a Guardian or a Commercial organization. Lawyers are the only profession that can have their work involved in both systems. (4)
Government protects commerce, provides stability, administers justice, and enforces uniform standards. Commerce provides the economic engine and the ethical framework for trade, technological advance, and individual rights that combine to make governments worth living under. Yet these two ethical systems are mutually exclusive and cannot be rashly integrated without the risk of ethical confusion caused by a conflict of interest.
Without a proper Guardian infrastructure the Commercial system could be threatened. The laws enforced by the Guardian system to manage property rights benefit the Commercial system. But the Guardian also knows natural resources are fundamental wealth and supports the idea that fair distribution is social justice. There's ample room for improvement if Guardians lay down the policies, are serious about enforcing them, and keep their own hands off ways and means of complying. (5)
The systems of interest are the two human systems (Guardian and Commercial) and their duties and obligations towards a Sustainable World and the Common Good, and the required positive contribution of their activities to this goal (as part of a renewed Social Contract). (6) A Sustainable World will only function within the symbiotic relationship of the Guardian and Commercial systems.
Goal
In a Sustainable World, is our goal to decrease poverty? This graph (__http://tinyurl.com/73jtkft__) from the World Bank shows that extreme poverty has been decreasing over time since 1980. Over that same time period, except for Sub-Saharan Africa AIDs epidemic, life expectancy has continued to increase. So, a Sustainable World would not have as a goal to decrease poverty.
In a Sustainable World is our goal to increase profits and accumulate wealth? That is the goal of the Commercial system. However a Sustainable World would have a balancing feedback loop that allowed the Commercial system to function as intended and have the Lockean Proviso true.
The goal of a Sustainable World is not centralized control, global political control or social engineering. However, a Sustainable World does have consequences for private property and energy usage because depletion of resources and pollution of the commons can not continue indefinitely at current levels and have the Lockean Proviso remain true. For example, when the privatization of fossil fuels pollutes the land, water and atmosphere so that others are deprived of their use of those resources then the Lockean Proviso is not true and the use of fossil fuels is unjust.
Therefore, the goal of a Sustainable World is for the Lockean Proviso to always remain true in the symbiotic relationship between the Guardian and Commercial systems.
Reference Behavior Pattern
In System Dynamics, a Reference Behavior Pattern (RBP) is the observed or anticipated behavior of the real system. The RBP uses a qualitative diagram of the system consequences so that when a computer model graphs results from a simulation, the results can be compared to the RBP for validation and verification. Also, the RBP are the consequences of the system defined by the goal and so the RBP must be aligned with the goal of the system.
The RBP of a Sustainable World would show decreasing depletion of resources from the Commons and decreasing pollution of the Commons.
Boundaries
The whole earth is inside the boundaries of the Sustainable World including all the land, water and air. However, our system model is going to focus on the interaction between human organizations and the Commons. First, the system model will be a general description to start with a model that works. Then over time, the model will become more detailed, more focused and specific.
Outside the boundaries of the overall system are illegal acts, corruption, dictatorships, socialism, communism and other forms of Guardian ethical systems that do not follow the separation defined by the ethical precepts listed by Jacobs in the book "Systems of Survival".
Inside the boundaries members follow the law, rules and regulations. Inside the boundaries members change, update, revise and create new laws, rules and regulations. Inside the boundaries individuals follow the ethical precepts of the organizations where they are members. Some individuals are members of both a Commercial organization and a Guardian organization. For example, lawyers cross back and forth between the two systems in their jobs. An individual might work for a private company or have their own business, and they are a member of a non-profit organization that sets standards for their type of business that all members are required to follow.
Diagram
At the highest level a diagram of the Sustainable World includes three systems: Guardian, Commercial and Commons. First the Guardian and Commercial systems are linked in a symbiotic relationship as described earlier. Second, the Commercial system is linked to the Commons to privatize resources from the Commons and the Guardian system is linked to the Commons to protect resources by removing them from those available to be privatized. For now, these are just lines connecting bubbles. In a computer model the stocks, flows and parameters will be separated out and linked together.
Waste from the Commercial system is returned to the Commons. The Guardian system uses laws, rules and regulations to control the privatization of resources from the Commons and the flow of wastes to the Commons. Regulation of the resources and waste flows are marked with a red “R” in the diagram below.
This diagram represents accumulations and flows in an unclear way like a causal loop diagram. The diagram is aligned with the goal of the Sustainable World by having the Guardian system regulate the flows to and from the Commons so that the Lockean Proviso is true. However there are several problems. First, wastes that go back to the Commons must keep the Commons good enough for others to use. Second, the diagram does not show the recycling flows of privatized resources and wastes within the Commercial system. Third, this is too high a level of diagram to convert into a computer model.
Here is a model of resources flowing between the Commons, private property and protected property.
Bibliography
Building a System Dynamics Model Part 1: Conceptualization Retrieved August 23, 2018 https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-988-system-dynamics-self-study-fall-1998-spring-1999/readings/building.pdf
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter V, paragraph 27.
Jacobs, Jane. Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. New York: Random House, 1992.
Sustainable World Model
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