What if modern society put a priority on the material security of its citizens and the ecological integrity of its resource base? What if it took ecological constraint as a given, not a hindrance but a source of long-term economic security? How would it organize itself, structure its industry, shape its consumption?
Across time and across cultures, people actually have adapted to ecological constraint. They have changed behavior; they have built institutions. And they have developed norms and principles for their time. Today's environmental challenges -- at once global, technological, and commercial -- require new behaviors, new institutions, and new principles.
In this highly original work, Thomas Princen builds one such principle: sufficiency. Sufficiency is not about denial, not about sacrifice or doing without. Rather, when resource depletion and overconsumption are real, sufficiency is about doing well. It is about good work and good governance; it is about goods that are good only to a point.
With examples ranging from timbering and fishing to automobility and meat production, Princen shows that sufficiency is perfectly sensible and yet absolutely contrary to modern society's dominant principle, efficiency. He argues that seeking enough when more is possible is both intuitive and rational -- personally, organizationally and ecologically rational. And under global ecological constraint, it is ethical. Over the long term, an economy -- indeed a society -- cannot operate as if there's never enough and never too much.
Thomas Princen is Associate Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. He is lead editor of Confronting Consumption (MIT Press, 2002), winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout award for best work in international environmental politics, 2003.
Thomas Princen is Associate Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. He is lead editor of Confronting Consumption (MIT Press, 2002), winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout award for best work in international environmental politics, 2003.
This book is a significant contribution to the field of global environmental studies. Many books and articles in environmental studies mention sufficiency, but none develop the concept in a systematic way. The book will remain the core text that critiques the principle of efficiency and advocates the principle of sufficiency for years to come. - Peter Dauvergne, Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Politics, University of British Columbia"