Politics for sustainability

Margaret Blunden

pp. 7-13

in: Frank A. Stowell, Ray Ison, Rosalind Armson, Jacky Holloway, Sue Jackson (eds), Systems for sustainability, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

Securing a sustainable future for human societies requires a radical rethink of the nature of political activity. The dominant concept of politics is as problem-solving, an idea derived from a misapplication of the methods of technology, with its undiluted concentration on the immediate desires of the present. This way of thinking has played a major part in creating the distinctive characteristics of the developed world, whose future sustainability, like that of the rest of the planet, is now in doubt.