ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES: SUFFICIENT OR MORE

Is there a workable alternative to economic growth and technological growth that benefits the West most and leads to ecological disaster? In the past there was, yes, but past is past. In the present, alternatives are hard to imagine, or it would have to be that humanity slows down the pace within the given ideology of economic and technological growth.

To give an example of real or perceived alternatives and the conflicts involved a century ago ~ it was in the period of 1900-1910 that agronomist Alexander Chayanov, supported by a large number of other agronomists, extensively showed how peasants stopped working in a certain year when they had reached a certain subsistence level. Not only did they live in villages that had a lot of equality, ‘mirs’ in Russian, and would not break away from such a tradition, they just felt no urgent need to work any harder or longer when a certain subsistence level was realized. It was the society of ‘the sufficient.’

Politician Wladimir Lenin, on the other hand, said that more and more Russian peasants went on improving their situation, certainly now that markets provided them with more opportunities. Such ambitious peasants were called 'kulaks'.

Lenin and his followers were convinced that the kulak motivation of ‘more’ would be a disaster for the Russian countryside. He may have been right or wrong, but he translated his ideas into action. He grew impatient and started his violent revolution against kulaks and extending markets in 1917 and founded the USSR. In Lenin’s words it was a revolution against capitalism or, in present-day terms, against economic growth and technological growth. Well, we know the final result of the Soviet experiment.

The original alternative of capitalism and Soviet communism was the peasant society of ‘the sufficient.’ It had been workable for a long time. Actually, it seems than between the years 0 AD and 1800 AD hardly any economic growth took place. But after that, economic growth and technological growth took off and, so far, mostly to the benefit of the West.

Traditional Russian village