In recent decades, the development project has given way to what Phillip McMichael terms the globalization project. While this transformation has brought with it notable shift s in the structure of the world’s political economy, the globalization project exists in fundamental continuity with its forerunner. 34 Both can be understood as forms of neocolonialism that perpetuate disparities in wealth and power between the Global North and South. Th is is evidenced by the continued growth in the global disparity of wealth over the last half of the twentieth century. 35
Nonetheless, an important expansion of terms has taken place in the shift from developmentalism to globalization. Today, the ecological crisis has emerged as a “sign of the times” that is as equally pressing as that of material poverty. Moreover, as I noted earlier, these two signs must be understood as interrelated—one cannot separate the cry of the Earth from the cry of the poor. In practical terms, this means that the validity of the globalization project is now predicated upon its ability to respond eff ectively to the realities of both the ecological crisis and the crisis of material poverty.
Remarkably, the legitimacy of the globalization project is now tied to two concepts that parallel the legitimizing terms of the development project. Whereas the architects of the development project relied on “development” and “modernization”
in arguing that it was capable of responding to “the cry of the poor,” the architects of the globalization project now employ the concepts of “sustainable development” and
“ecological modernization” in seeking to maintain the project’s legitimacy. It is here, then, that questions paralleling those of early liberationists can be raised. One obvious question is this: within the globalization project, does the discourse of sustainable development function analogously to the single language of Babel?
Sustainable development: Ambiguity or obfuscation?
Th e concept of “sustainable development” became popularized by the United Nations’
report, Our Common Future . 36 Also known as the “Brundtland Report” (in reference
34 On this point, see Gilbert Rist , Th e History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith
( New York : Zed , 2011 ).
35 Citing UN data, Leslie Sklair notes that global economic disparity has increased from 35 to 1 to 72 to
1 in the last half of the twentieth century. Leslie Sklair , Globalization: Capitalism and Its Alternatives ( New York : Oxford University , 2002 ), 48 .
36 Gro Harlem Brundtland (ed.), Our Common Future: Th e World Commission on Environment and
Development . Online : http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf (accessed September 27, 2016 ).
to its primary author Gro Brundtland), the document examines the possible confl icts between policies aimed at ensuring economic development and those intended to sustain the health of the biosphere. Notably, the report affi rms that, in working to counter the crises of underdevelopment and ecological degradation, “painful choices have to be made.” 37 In acknowledging this, the Brundtland Report calls for a turn toward “sustainable development,” which it defi nes as a form of development meeting
“the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” 38
Th e description of “sustainable development” in the Brundtland Report is intentionally ambiguous. As Herman Daly writes, the meaning is left “suffi ciently vague to allow for a broad consensus.” 39 While this may have been a politically astute move, the underdetermined meaning of the concept leaves it particularly vulnerable to manipulation. Th is is precisely David Harvey’s concern when he notes that the language of sustainable development “can rather too easily be corrupted into yet another discursive representation of dominant forms of economic power. It can be appropriated by multinational corporations to legitimize a global grab to manage all of the world’s resources.” 40
In sharing Harvey’s concern, Gilbert Rist comments on the vagueness of the concept of sustainable development in the Brundtland Report. Rist fi nds that the concept can be validly interpreted in two contradictory manners. On the one hand, sustainable development can be understood as defi ning “a production level that can be borne by the ecosystem, and can therefore be kept up over the long term; reproduction capacity determines production volume, and ‘sustainability’ means that the process can be maintained only under certain externally given conditions.” 41 On the other hand, the term can refer simply to sustained economic growth. 42 For his part, Rist believes that it is the latter defi nition that actually captures the functional meaning of sustainable development within the global system. He writes, “Even if the bait is alluring, there should be no illusion about what is going on. Th e thing that is meant to be sustained really is ‘development’, not the tolerance capacity of the ecosystem or of human societies.” 43
Sustainable development and hegemonic power
Obviously, an in-depth study of the issues surrounding Rist’s position is beyond the scope of my argument here. Nonetheless, it is possible to point to a number of corresponding fi ndings that help to corroborate his claim. Here, I begin by considering the ongoing relationship between the World Bank and the discourse of sustainable development.
38 Ibid., 3.27.
39 Herman Daly , Beyond Growth: Th e Economics of Sustainable Development ( Boston : Beacon , 1996 ), 2 .
40 David Harvey , “ What’s Green and Makes the Environment Go Round? ” in Th e Cultures of
Globalization , (eds.) Frederic Jameson and Masao Miyoshi ( Durham, NC : Duke University Press , 1998 ), 343 .
41 Rist, History of Development , 192.
42 Ibid., 193.
43 Ibid., 194. Left unstated in Rist’s assertion is the fact that this sustained growth continues to be
asymmetric in nature.
37 Ibid., 3.30.
Liberation Th eology and the Language of Sustainable Development 127
In his study of the World Bank, Michael Goldman observes that in recent decades, the Bank has become the world’s leading producer of environmental knowledge. Th us, the Bank plays a pivotal role in shaping contemporary understandings of the relationship between human economies and the environment. It is of great importance, then, that Goldman fi nds that the Bank champions a specifi c view regarding this relationship.
One of the Bank’s environmental unit economists aptly describes this view in an interview with Goldman, stating, “When authors of WDR ’92 [the highly infl uential 1992 World Development Report that featured the environment] were draft ing the report, they called me asking for examples of ‘win-win’ strategies in my work. What could I say? None exists in that pure form; there are tradeoff s, not ‘win-wins.’ But they want to see a world of win-wins, based on articles of faith, not fact.” 44
Th e concept of “win-win strategies” is signifi cant. It suggests that economic growth is, in fact, positively correlated to reducing negative environmental impacts. While there are instances in which this is the case, even these instances, as the economist interviewed by Goldman makes plain, involve trade-off s. More problematically, however, is the manner in which a “win-win ideology” seems to have eclipsed the Brundtland report’s acknowledgment that sustainable development would require
“painful choices.” Instead of painful choices, the Bank champions a concept of sustainable development that suppresses the reality of trade-off s and instead presents economic growth as a universal (and, hence, unifying) good. 45 Indeed, Goldman’s study reveals a number of mechanisms built into the Bank’s structure that help to ensure the Bank’s employees conform to its ideology. Th us, Goldman concludes, the Bank’s production of environmental knowledge “is less a process of discovery, creativity, and refutation than one of manufacturing consent .” 46
An experience that Herman Daly recounts from his time working in the Environmental Department of the World Bank serves to illustrate Goldman’s fi ndings.
In his book Beyond Growth , Daly recounts a series of exchanges he had with peers while working on an important publication for the World Bank entitled Development and the Environment . As Daly writes: “An early draft contained a diagram entitled ‘Th e Relationship Between the Economy and the Environment.’ It consisted of a square labeled ‘economy,’ with an arrow coming in labeled ‘inputs’ and an arrow going out labeled ‘outputs’—nothing more.” 47 Daly took issue with the diagram, arguing that it failed to properly capture the relationship between the economy and the environment.
Instead, Daly suggested that a box should be drawn around the existing diagram and that this box should then be labeled “environment.” Daly wanted to emphasize that
“the economy is a subsystem of the environment and depends upon the environment both as a source of raw material inputs and as a ‘sink’ for waste outputs.” 48
44 Michael Goldman , Imperial Nature: Th e World Bank and the Struggle for Justice in the Age of
Globalization ( New Haven : Yale University , 2005 ), 128 .
45 Goldman’s study goes on to analyze the ways in which various institutional mechanisms and
pressures within the Bank function to produce a single voice with regard to sustainable development discourse. See Goldman, Imperial Nature , 100–80.
46 Ibid.,148–9.
47 Daly, Beyond Growth , 6.
48 Ibid.
According to Daly, the next draft did include the box around the initial diagram;
however, the box was unlabeled. Daly again protested, arguing that by not labeling the box “environment,” the box appeared to be simply ornamental and failed to accurately convey the relationship between the economy and the environment. “Th e next draft ,”
Daly writes, “omitted the diagram altogether.” 49
As Daly’s narrative makes clear, within the discursive space of the Bank, the prospect of painful choices is quite literally subject to erasure. Instead, the Bank presents a view of sustainable development that aligns with the aphorism “a rising tide lift s all boats.” 50 In this view, it is not only the poor who are elevated to higher levels of fl ourishing through continued economic growth but the ecological health of the planet as well.
Th us, in championing a win-win ideology, the World Bank impels the global system forward with what Pope Francis rightly describes as a “cheerful recklessness.” 51
Perhaps even more problematic than the manner in which the Bank controls the language of sustainable development within its own institution is the way that this infl uence extends beyond its walls. According to Goldman, “Besides being the world’s main producer of concepts, data, analytic frameworks, and policies on the environment, the World Bank has also become the world’s most powerful environmentalist, teaming up with prominent NGOs, scientifi c institutions, borrowing states, and Northern aid agencies.” 52 Th ese alliances, in which the Bank always occupies the position of power, dampen the possibility of external critique or alternative visions. Goldman argues, “Th e Bank’s form of environmental knowledge production has rapidly become hegemonic, disarming and absorbing many of its critics, expanding its terrain of infl uence, and eff ectively enlarging the scope and power of its neoliberal agenda.” 53 On Goldman’s account, then, it appears that the hegemonic moment has arrived; the dominant bloc controls the discourse of sustainability to such a degree that what qualifi es as sustainable development goes unquestioned.
Th is does not suggest, Goldman writes, “that the world is run by the World Bank president, but rather that the global political economy has at its core a set of elite power networks in whose reproduction the World Bank is deeply embedded.” 54 Th e Bank is but one node (albeit an important node) within a broader web of power that shapes the discourse of sustainable development in the contemporary world. It is helpful, therefore, to tie Goldman’s investigation of the Bank within a conceptual framework of this global network.
Since the Bank pushes the concept that affl uence through development is good for the environment, it’s not possible to make a peep about how this might not be true. A few of us tried to get that point across in World Development Report, 1992 but they would not allow it—not even a couple of pages. We even tried to publish a ‘minority opinion’ as a separate document, with two Nobel prize winners as main contributors, but the Bank’s censors in External Aff airs wouldn’t accept it. Th e Bank is a tough place to discuss diff erent ideas.
See Goldman, Imperial Nature , 143.
Liberation Th eology and the Language of Sustainable Development 129
In his analysis of the global system, Leslie Sklair fi nds that the structures and dynamics of the system are ordered by what he terms the transnational capitalist class (TCC)—a class comprised of globalizing corporate elites, elected offi cials, and bureaucrats. 55 According to Sklair, the TCC has transformed the concept of sustainable development into “a major industry” while simultaneously distancing this concept from discussions of the common good. 56 In so doing, the TCC successfully muted environmental movements that called into question the growth imperative of the global economy. Concepts of sustainability that recognized limits to growth gave way to theories that aligned sustainable development with hyper-industrialization. 57 Th us, Sklair fi nds that by the 1990s, a form of “‘sustainable’ global consumerist capitalism”
came to dominate the discourse. 58 Its ethos is captured well by an environmental executive of Loblaw, Canada’s largest food distributor, who proclaims, “If we made a lot of money destroying this planet, we sure can make money cleaning it up.” 59 Th us, the TCC has constructed a conception of sustainable development, wholly in line with the “win-win ideology” that Goldman fi nds at the heart of the World Bank’s faith. Th e degree to which the discourse of sustainable development has been coopted by the TCC leaves Sklair suspicious that the “poacher” has become the “gamekeeper.” 60